Diego Armando Maradona 1960 - 2020

We got good mileage out of the "different class" line in national school.

Iscreamkone wrote: »

Hoddle was blatantly fouled in the build up to The Goal of The Century.
VAR would have disallowed both of Diego's goals.
A few English players could've got red cards too for fouls/assaults on Diego.
The game has changed enormously since the 1980s.

I was watching the football over the weekend and was thinking how meh it all was in comparison to himself.
Very little beating a man. No beating two men.
Where is the trickery, sorcery even. It's all very bland and robotic by comparison... and yes, I am getting old.

The second goal was fine. The ref saw the tackle on Hoddle and said "Play on" as he had lost possession anyway. If he had not seen it then yeah possibly with VAR. Nowadays refs are too quick to blow up. Not fair to judge a game from 34 years ago by today's norms.

We can all go back over history and say VAR would have been disallowed x, y and z goal. Plenty of them. Starting with England's third goal in 1966 final that did not cross the line.

Snickers Man wrote: »

Pierre Littbarski was on that team too. I know his name is Polish/French but it sounds great!

And in a desperate attempt to bring this back to something approaching the original topic, has there ever been a better name for a footballer than Diego Maradona's compatriot and team mate (?) Gabriel Batistuta?

I doubt it!

greenspurs wrote: »

.

I wonder would it have been different for Diego if Napoli had sold him after the Uefa cup final, when he wanted to leave ?

Probably. Well no, absolutely it would have been different. By 91- Italy and Maradona were well sick of each other. Selling him after Italia 90 would have made sense but being the awkward fecker he was he probably would have dug the heels in to spite the Italians.

After Italia 90, the authorities zeroed in on him and him tests were no longer protected. A mutual feeling of disdain had taken over.

I am old enough to have followed football in 89-91 and read all the usual magazines (yes there was no internet or 24 hour coverage) at the time. Maradona was portrayed as just a ball ache who just attracted drama every week. There was injuries, not turning up to training, travelling late to away games, I can recall something about him turning up late to a European Cup game in Russia and a whole "will he won't he make" drama, not match fit etc etc. Napoli got knocked out early enough and that pissed people off.

Bottom line it was just drama after drama every week. Of course, in those days you didn't hear from the players so you only really got one side of the story. In fact, I cannot recall any positive article about him at the time. I still have all my World Soccer magazines from 1990 and I am sure Maradona contributed to much of the drama himself. It was constant negative coverage- was that intentional from the Italians? Believe or not Maradona was still playing most weeks and scoring.


Not like today where we have Messi and Ronaldo who are model professionals. Maradona was the only show in town in terms of superstardom status. Back then players had nothing like the protection they have now.

As John Aldridge remarked, back in the 80s a professional footballer lived in a semidetached and drove a Ford and was quite conceivably your neighbour on the same street and drank down at the local boozer. Double edged sword- players were more accessible but at the same time the likes of Maradona were just hounded.

Mr. CooL ICE wrote: »

Maradona was alright, but he was no Georgi Kinkladze

Pfft. He was not even the best player to come out of Georgia

Names ?

really.


Back on topic.

His goalscoring record was excellent.

1976–1981 Argentinos Juniors166(116)
1981–1982 Boca Juniors 40 (28)
1982–1984 Barcelona 36 (22)
1984–1991 Napoli 188 (81)
1992–1993 Sevilla 26 (5)
1993–1994 Newell's Old Boys5 (0)
1995–1997 Boca Juniors 30 (7)
Total 491 259

greenspurs wrote: »

Names ?

really.


Back on topic.

Maybe worthy of a separate thread of their own?