The greatest footballers to date.

[Drico]

Messi, comfortably so

Maradona the only other player with similar talent level but his career doesn’t come close to Messis in terms of consistency and neither a World Cup or a title at Napoli is a sufficient counter to that fact.

A different era with different laws of the game. I'm confident Messi's career would have been as short as any of the stars of the 1980s if he too had to face the tackle from behind as standard. And while Messi was definitely more consistent than Maradona, he hasn't actually reached the peak Diego did in 1986. Nor taken a relative minnow to a title in the way he took Napoli to two and a UEFA Cup when that competition really mattered. I love Messi, but different players, different eras. Both wonderful.

 

[longers]

A different era with different laws of the game. I'm confident Messi's career would have been as short as any of the stars of the 1980s if he too had to face the tackle from behind as standard. And while Messi was definitely more consistent than Maradona, he hasn't actually reached the peak Diego did in 1986. Nor taken a relative minnow to a title in the way he took Napoli to two and a UEFA Cup when that competition really mattered. I love Messi, but different players, different eras. Both wonderful.

I understand different eras and all that but I just can't agree Maradona's peak was higher. His 86 season he scored 17 goals in 41 for Napoli. Messi's peak season he scored 73 in 60. Even accounting for the different eras that is a huge difference. Maradona literally just has 6 games at the world cup in his favour and that's about it. Messi's entire career has been one big peak.



That said C Ronaldo has similarish numbers but i wouldn't put him ahead of Maradona in terms of natural talent although his career is obviously superior.

 

[Drico]

I understand different eras and all that but i just cant agree Maradona's peak was higher. His 86 season he scored 17 goals in 41 for Napoli. Messi's peak season he scored 73 in 60. Even accounting for the different eras that is a huge difference. Maradona literally just has 6 games at the world cup in his favour and that's about it. Messi's entire career has been one big peak.

Nope, you are comparing apples and oranges. The laws of the game - offside, backpass, tackle from behind - meant that the climate in Serie A in the mid 1980s was such that goals were at an absolute premium. It was the best league in the world but absolutely dominated by defenders. You simply cannot compare on "statistics". And if you do, Messi definitely wins. I saw them both - regularly. Sky Channel - the European precursor to Murdoch's empire - showed weekly Serie A highlights in 86/87. Maradona was on most weeks. Messi was far more consistent over a much longer period of time - no doubt at all about that, but that was partly for the reasons I gave earlier. But Diego in Mexico and those seasons in Italy against far more defensively-oriented teams in a brutal physical environment was, in my view, playing at the highest level I have ever seen a player play at.

That doesn't mean he was "better" than Messi. But I would argue he was "greater" because he touched levels for a short period of time that, in my view, nobody else did.

 

[Papa Shango]

Sammer
Scirea
Gentile
Passarella
Koeman (as much as I hate him, a brilliant footballer)
Schnellinger
Tresor
Lahm
Zanetti
Cafu
Krol
Breitner
Desailly
Costacurta
Nesta
Hibbert

Defenders are people too!

 

[Papa Shango]

I understand different eras and all that but I just can't agree Maradona's peak was higher. His 86 season he scored 17 goals in 41 for Napoli. Messi's peak season he scored 73 in 60. Even accounting for the different eras that is a huge difference. Maradona literally just has 6 games at the world cup in his favour and that's about it. Messi's entire career has been one big peak.

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That said C Ronaldo has similarish numbers but i wouldn't put him ahead of Maradona in terms of natural talent although his career is obviously superior.

Maradona was not just about goals (not saying Messi is either). Serie A was a notoriously hard league to score in back then too. He was kicked out of the 82 World Cup (and 94 but for different reasons...)

 

[evilwebby]

I agree with Drico.

IMO comparing Maradona to Messi, Diego stands at the summit.

His sheer dynamism and influence on a game was just unparalleled.


Of course, football standards advance all the time in terms of fitness and overall technical ability, so Messi is probably "better" in an absolute sense, but Maradona was superhuman - he literally won not just games, but trophies and entire campaigns almost singlehandedly. Nobody else improved any team he was a part of as much as Diego.