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Diego Armando Maradona. The greatest player of my lifetime by a very wide margin. It would be wrong to have him share a post with lesser players, he deserves his own collection of clips. So:
This is what is called a proper range of passing:
Dribbling, attracting some of the most ferociously brutal tackling I've ever seen, making opponents fall over, flip-flops, drag-backs, multiple stepovers:
Deliberately injured (and out for months) by Athletic Bilbao's Goikoetxea during his time at Barcelona, Maradona returned to Bilbao with a score to settle. So he decided to start a fight:
He didn't warm up like anybody else, either:
"Hero", the Official FIFA film of the 1986 World Cup understandably concentrates on Maradona. The entire thing is on Youtube in 10 minute chunks and its all worth a watch, especially part seven, featuring France vs Brazil, Platini vs Zico etc. But this part is Argentina vs England. The greatest goal ever. Michael Caine, synthesiser music. Ace.
Labels: football
posted by David N at 2:09 am
3 Comments:
Those chipped passes were the most amazing. Stunning. Watched all of these. I think English people tend to understate how good he was because of that goal and the rivalry and the war and all that. Outstanding.
If you like football and you're in this country you watch Match of the Day and read 4-4-2. You might play pro-evo and dream of doing some of the stuff in these videos.
If you really like football you might try to do it on pro-evo but unfortunately it won't work. The system simply won't allow for the physics of such things. In real life, no-one comes close to replicating or imitating the things in these videos. How could they?
People are hailed as genius's for merely attempting 10% of the things here and failing. To simply do them over and over again is nothing short of an awesome, and unbelievable display. This was a career, if a player did one of these passes once in their career they are their clubs hero for life.
Amazing. We are not worthy.
Its funny. He was the first truly great player I was really aware of, as a little kid, in 1981 or 82. I saw an American TV show and they had a piece about "the greatest player in the world" with a build-up before the big reveal of who it was. I was expecting Maradona, even though at that stage I don't think I'd ever even seen him play. But they went for Pele. I'd never heard of Pele, he had retired before I knew what football was, and I felt outraged.
So for me, Maradona is so far and above all other players its ridiculous to compare anybody to him. There have been many great players since - Zidane, Ronaldo, Romario, Baggio, Messi, Ronaldinho etc - but none of them are remotely close to him. Not remotely.
I watched that Argentina - England game live in 1986. I was 11, supporting Argentina - not out of any emnity for England, I quite liked the England team, it was full of the players I knew - because I loved Maradona so much. When he scored the second goal it was an absolutely thrilling moment, even for a little kid, because you knew it was an amazing thing you had seen. Sometimes football makes you feel lucky to have witnessed it, even on tv. Steve Hodge apparently hung around Maradona for the last 10 minutes of the game so he could get his shirt when it ended. Even the players must have known how special it was. It just made me love him more. When he went to Napoli they were the first foreign club I felt any kinship for, whose results I checked. I think the weird obsession I've got with Argentinian football obviously comes from that early love of Maradona. He was like a gateway drug. Its akin to your first love - you'll never idolise any player as much as your first idol. And I never have. After all, who can compare to Maradona?
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