A few thoughts I've had on Diego Maradona based on my own memories, and having now watched the excellent Asif Kapadia documentary [and then i'll move on to a more general consideration of the idea of "The Greatest Footballer"].
1. Most of us didn't watch Maradona play many games. Just the World Cups. European football was not shown much in the UK back then, and he'd left Napoli by the time Channel 4 was showing Serie A. Grandstand would show some occasional clips of his brilliance in Napoli, I recall. As with so many considerations of sporting greatness, a lot of it's extrapolation.
2. He really truly was a dominant cultural icon for us kids in the late 80s. We'd all pretend to be Maradona, some different aspect of him. The aspect I chose, bizarrely, briefly, was play-acting. In playground football I'd fall as if shot and role round as if seriously hurt. It made people laugh a little. Then once, shamefully, I did it in an actual PE practice match, and carried it through as if I was seriously injured and the teacher said I should go to the sick bay (though I think he knew I was faking). Thanks, Diego.
3. People have focused a bit this week on British sourness to Maradona being purely because of the hand of god goal, and I don't think that's wholly it. I think in 1990, many folk were ready to embrace and love Maradona's brilliance. But that Argentina 1990 team were the nastiest, most awful team to ever make a World Cup Final. 5 goals in 7 games, 3 sendings-off, would be way more in modern football. They were the dark side of Maradona's personality. Yes, it is a testament to his greatness that he dragged them to the final, but there was little to love and admire that time.
4. Nevertheless, his goal in 1994 vs Greece was so momentarily exciting, and his drug ban truly gutting. Of course he was doping, and I, like many others, wish he hadn't been caught that time. Having said that, I remember a documentary talking about his preparation for that tournament saying his main training was running at 16 kph for an hour on a treadmill every day, which struck me as so gloriously sensible and prosaic. Of course, that wasn't the whole story.
5. What I think, looking back at that 1986 game, is that England had Waddle and Barnes on the bench. Barnes, of course, almost came on and thrillingly redeemed the game for England, but, looking back, it seems a crying shame that England, mundane England, could have fielded a team containing Hoddle, Waddle, Barnes, Beardsley, all just a notch below Maradona in natural beauty and brilliance, and instead filled the team with Stevens, Steven, Hodge, Fenwick, Reid ... I mean, horses for courses, and I'm sure it made sense at the time - that same team had just beaten Poland and Paraguay 3-0 after all, but still ...
6. His stint as Argentina manager, culminating in the 2010 World Cup, is seen as an ignominious failure, whereas it should be seen as glorious failure. They won 4 games in a row in fantastic style, looked really together as a team, then faced a superb Germany team in the quarter-finals. Germany scored early, then Argentina battered them in search of an equaliser for an hour, missing numerous chances. Then Germany scored again, and yes, they fell apart, but being 2-0 down with 20 minutes to go in a world cup quarter-final when your whole philosophy has been attack-attack, seems a perfectly acceptable time to fall apart.
So, saying all that, I'd been thinking of the idea of "The Greatest Football Player Ever" for a while, since Maradona's 60th birthday when there was a bit of chat about it.
It's basically impossible to be conclusive about it. Impossible. I've also been making a list of "The Greatest Players in the Champions League" which is much easier to assess with the benefit of memory and statistics. I'll get to posting that in time.
If you're talking about "The Best Footballer Ever" you have to compare across so many different eras, different competitions, different positions, and there is no one, really, who perfectly ticks every box.
Who are the usual candidates? Pele, Maradona, Messi, Ronaldo, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Zidane, Brazilian Ronaldo, the hipster tips Di Stefano and Puskas. In Britain there's a romantic notion that George Best belong up there, but you can't really make a case for that based on achievement. Charlton and Moore are in the next echelon down, along with the likes of Laudrup, Gullit, Matthaus, Xavi, Maldini.
There are different cases for each of them - most modern football fans feel an urge to say it's Messi, but it remains an unfortunate truth that he's neither won the World Cup nor the Copa America. Whereas Ronaldo did win the Euros ... but he hardly played in the final, so is that really better than Messi's almost taking an average Argentina to triumph in 2014, but for some poor finishing by Higuain.
Pele - people don't know what to make of all his goals for Santos. With Santos he won the Copa Libertadores twice - is that worth two Champions Leagues? And Pele, oddly, fails an eye-test to modern observers. We're told that the 1970 final is the greatest player in the greatest team in the greatest match, and then we watch it, and that's one of the few games of his we watch all the way through, and can't quite believe how sluggish it all is, how error-strewn, particularly Pele himself, who looks deeply ordinary most of the game, just happens to pull out a great goal and a great assist. Was he like that every game, we wonder? Must have been a pain to play with ....
So people do often settle on Maradona, because we remember 1986 and 1990, and we know Napoli had never been close to Serie A before he arrived. Yet, still, it's not that long at the top, there are no European Cups/Champions Leagues (just one UEFA), there was a lot of ugliness with the beauty.
I honestly think the case for Brazilian Ronaldo is almost as strong. His World Cup story is just as engrossing and triumphant, he also suffered through his own fault and external factors in club football. He also was simply, in his prime, on a different level to everyone else. The difference is, I guess, Brazil 2002 really was a very good team, though not everyone said so at the time (not that Argentina 1986 weren't a good team. The extent to which he did it "alone" is overplayed).
There's Zidane, and - you could say - his 70s equivalent, Cruyff, who reinvented football, apparently. Cruyff, I was surprised to see, only played 48 international matches, and didn't play in the 1978 World Cup. There's an interesting piece to be written about team's thriving in the absence of their hero and talisman - Holland in 78, Denmark without Michael Laudrup in 92, Man Utd post-Cantona, Ireland post O'Driscoll etc.
But, look, here's the thing. The good people at 4-4-2, who know 1000s times more about football than bullshitters like me, made a very good list of the 50 Greatest Players ever
https://www.fourfourtwo.com/gallery/50-greatest-footballers-all-time
and it's really interesting and educational, shows some proper knowledge of the global and historical context of football, and yet, even so, once you get to the Top 20, it's nearly all post-War (Giuseppe Meazza being the only pre-War player) and it's nearly all attackers - just Maldini at 20, Baresi and Beckenbauer being defenders in the Top 20.
You begin to get an idea of why this is so impossible. When I make my lists, I try to make clear what I mean, provide my criteria and context, so at least that aspect of it makes sense, and someone reading can see that I've at least I've followed my own logic.
But, when you talk about the Greatest Footballer? What do you use? Number of goals? Number of assists? Number of World Cups? Number of League Titles? Number of European Titles? Other Titles? Ballons D'or and Teams of the Year? Impact on game as a whole? Ability to carry a team single-handedly? Ability to bring out the best in team-mates? Transcending era? Longevity? Aura? Sheer brilliance? Box office? Best tackler? Best holding player? Most saves? Most flexible?
There is no single satisfactory answer. Everyone is in a different set of categories from each other. No one has the complete package, not quite. People would love Messi to win a World Cup and then maybe the argument would be over.
There are defenders who don't make that 4-4-2 Top 20 who maybe should - it is understandable that it is easier to see the attackers as the best, and to measure them as the best, I often do that myself, but it is not how winning football matches actually works. So ... Cafu with 3 consecutive world cup finals, a Serie A with Roma, 2 Copa Libertadores, a Champions League, surely the best right-back there's ever been, Lilian Thuram and Marcel Desailly, Lucio, went to the Champions League final with Leverkusen, won it with unfancied Inter, heart of that Brazil team who only conceded 2 goals in winning the 2002 World Cup. Surely Maldini should be higher than e.g. Platini, Zico and Van Basten? Surely that's too much attacker bias when you look at how much each stood out from others in their position and the sum of their achievements.
And after all that, who has the most complete palmarès? The actual answer's a bit of a shock.
Who's won, and been fundamental to, 3 major international tournaments, 4 Champions Leagues, been in the Team of the Year more times in their position than anyone else, broken records for scoring, switched seamlessly between positions, put in man of the match performances in finals ... shit, it's everyone's least favourite footballer, Sergio Ramos, the man for whom the phrase "maybe John Terry wasn't that bad" was invented.
I'm only half-joking. No one wants Sergio Ramos to be the Greatest Footballer that Ever Lived, he only deserves to be the Greatest Shithouser that Ever Lived, but, there's a case, a strong case.
So, when there's a case for that being the outcome ... I guess we should leave the argument alone.
