Diego Maradona

[iniestaGOAT]

Messi in some of his best matches played at a higher technical level (United CL finals, RM CL Semis, Bayern CL semis), but this man's charisma, ingenuity, force of will, and footballing genius is something truly else.

Drug cheat which contributes towards his charisma and other things

[L3v1s]

Imagine we had him for this World Cup

[Horatio]

Was shitting on Scaloni when still alive. Who knows, maybe still even in death.

[FinBarcelonafan]

Was shitting on Scaloni when still alive. Who knows, maybe still even in death.

Maradona? He said a lot of stupid things. Great footballer but wouldn't care what he said.

[Messigician]

Scaloni was part of Sampaoli's disaster team tbf

[JamDav1982]

If ever there was a World Cup with bad decisions going in favour of a team it was 1986 and Argentina.

Go watch the games and see how many decisions Argentina got.. could barely touch Maradona without it being a foul.. this idea he had to come through vs players crunching in trying to break his legs every 5 mins is all part of the myth.

Probably the greatest individual WC of all time but the officials were 'helping' them big time also.

[JohnN]

Shoutout for Maradona helping to elevate this 2022 WC win to unrepeatable status.

[Horatio]

Scaloni was part of Sampaoli's disaster team tbf

Maradona was part of the team that drugged a Brazilian player to win tbf.

[Messigician]

If ever there was a World Cup with bad decisions going in favour of a team it was 1986 and Argentina.

Go watch the games and see how many decisions Argentina got.. could barely touch Maradona without it being a foul.. this idea he had to come through vs players crunching in trying to break his legs every 5 mins is all part of the myth.

Probably the greatest individual WC of all time but the officials were 'helping' them big time also.

2002

[Windhook]

The linesman who didn't saw the Hand of God goal was a Bulgarian. I'm so proud of this fact.

[L3v1s]

True... He did say a lot of crap, but he was known to be unreliable when it came to opinions as you were never sure if he was sober or not Pele also had polarizing opinions, lately it seemed like he prefered Cristiano over Messi. Very possible there was some jealousy in the discussion. At a time you had the feeling that Maradona also didn't like Messi. But if I think about it now, I'm sure he would've been happy for Messi, I mean we saw how much of a supporter he was in 2018. Maybe I have this feeling also because of passing but idk.

[Windhook]

There's definitely jealousy. Pele and Maradona changed opinions dozens of time on those subject. Even among themselves. Maradona idolized Pele and Pele supported the young Maradona. Then all of sudden Pele backstabbed Diego during the prime mid 80's period. Back and forth for 30 years. I have no idea at what state of relationship with Pele Maradona left this world.

Hristo Stoichkov attended, took part in Maradona's testimonial game at La Bombonera in 2001. In 2003 Maradona declined to attend Hristo's testimonial at Camp Nou. Then in 2016 Stoichkov organized his 50 years jubilee attended by many great veterans. Diego Maradona promised Hristo to be there in Sofia, big hype for Bulgarians to see the legend, I was there at the stadium, too. For some reason Maradona decided to fly to Dubai for charity instead. You can imagine Stoichkov beeing furious after the game. "I've deleted Diego's number from my phone" famously he said. And this until his passing away. Stoichkov says he's forgiven Maradona for the disrespect, but that was the typical unstable personality of Diego.

I think Cruyff was the most balanced in his comments out of all. He kept on Messi being one of his kind. Also this article that echoes strongly now.

[L3v1s]

Guess it wasn't too nice from him.. But he didn't really care about his actions and repercussions for much of his life time. I can totally see why many would not fancy him, but in the end we saw that everyone, even his old foes paid their respects. He was probably cool with Pele towards the end, even though some might say that this picture was taken just for acts.

[Windhook]

Yeah, for me it felt more like an act. With ailing Pele, you wouldn't expect Maradona to kick him down the stairs

[JamDav1982]

Said it a few times.

One of my mates used to play 5 a sides with him in Dubai and said he was clean off the head and all he talked about was beating England and shagging.

Did get him to sign an Argentina 10 top and I am sure he has Messi signature on same one.

That would be worth even more now.