Maradona – The Greatest

Born on October 30, 1960 in the poor slums of Villa Fiorito in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Diego grew up with soccer. In the halftime of the Argentinos Juniors matches, a young boy from the youth team entertained the audience playing and juggling with the ball.

He is the only player in football history who set world-record contract fees twice. The first, when he was transferred to Barcelona for a then world record £5m and the second, when he was transferred to Napoli for another record fee £6.9m. Over the course of his professional club career Maradona played for Argentinos Juniors, Boca Juniors, Barcelona,Napoli, Sevilla and Newell’s Old Boys.

In his international career, playing for Argentina, he earned 91 caps and scored 34 goals. He played in four FIFA World Cup tournaments, including the 1986 tournament, where he captained Argentina and led them to their victory over West Germany in the final, winning the Golden Ball award as the tournament’s best player. In that same tournament’s quarterfinal round, he scored both goals in a 2–1 victory over England that entered football history, though for two different reasons. The first goal was via an unpenalized handball known as the “Hand of God”, while the second goal followed a 60 m (66 yd) dribble through six Englandp layers, voted “The Goal of the Century”.

Maradona had a compact physique and could withstand physical pressure well. His strong legs and low center of gravity gave him an advantage in short sprints. His physical strengths were illustrated by his two goals against Belgium in the 1986 World Cup. Maradona was a strategist and a team player, as well as highly technical with the ball. He could manage himself effectively in limited spaces, and would attract defenders only to quickly dash out of the melee (as in the second 1986 goal against England), or give an assist to a free teammate. Being short, but strong, he could hold the ball long enough with a defender on his back to wait for a teammate making a run or to find a gap for a quick shot.

One of Maradona’s trademark moves was dribbling full-speed on the right wing, and on reaching the opponent’s goal line, delivering accurate passes to his teammates. Another trademark was the Rabona, a reverse-cross pass shot behind the leg that holds all the weight. This manoeuvre led to several assists, such as the powerful cross for Ramón Díaz’s header in the 1980 friendly against Switzerland. He was also a dangerous free kick taker.

A genius on the pitch he was no stranger to controversy be it on it or off it. Many people, football critics, former and current players consider Maradona the greatest football player of all time. He won FIFA Player of the Century award which was to be decided by votes on their official website, their official magazine and a grand jury. Maradona won the Internet based poll by wide margins, garnering 53.6% of the votes against 18.53% for Pelé.

In spite of this, and shortly before the ceremony, FIFA unexpectedly decided to add a second award and appointed a “Football Family” committee composed of football journalists that also gave to Pelé the title of best player of the century to make it a draw. Many suspected that Pelé was rewarded for his constant support of FIFA, in contrast to Maradona’s frequent criticism this prompted Maradona to say “The people voted for me. Now they want me to share the prize with Pele. I’m not going to share the prize with anybody.”

Love him or hate him its hard to argue the fact that Diego Armando Maradona is one of if not the greatest player ever to have played the game.

Leave a Reply