The reason Messi and CR7 are so far ahead of everyone else now is because its a poor era for football. There aren’t really many great players now, no great strikers, no great defenders, loads of nothing midfielders.
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None of them had proper tactics mate, it’s from their own mouths. Jackie Charlton was the only one there with a system
Argumento Advocato Diablo contra Diego
Diego couldn’t do it on a cold March night in Manchester in 1984 when Bryan Robson et. al destroyed him and Barcelona
Diego couldn’t hack it in La Liga and was considered a failure at Barcelona
Diego never did it in the European Cup - two early round exits were the best he could muster - this was in an era where Steaua Bucharest, Porto, PSV and Red Star Belgrade were winning the competition
Diego’s full European competition record is as follows:
Barcelona:
1982/83: Cup Winners Cup Quarter-Final exit
1983/84: Cup Winners Cup Quarter-Final exit
Napoli:
1984/85: Napoli not in Europe
1985/86: Failed to qualify for Europe
1986/87: UEFA Cup 1st round exit
1987/88: European Cup 1st round exit
1988/89: Won UEFA Cup
1989/90: UEFA Cup 3rd round exit
1990/91: European Cup 2nd round exit
Napoli failed to qualify for Europe for 91/92 after a disastrous 90/91 season
Diego played at a time when the pace of the game was much slower, and the quality of defending was much poorer, therefore there was much more space available to him on the pitch
Diego ran amok in 1986 against Peter Reid, Terry Butcher, Terry Fenwick, a Belgium which was making up the numbers and was out of its depth, and a clapped out, creaking West Germany team
Contrary to popular belief Serie A was dogshit in 1986/87 - the Juventus team of Platini was finished, the AC Milan team of Gullit and van Basten was not yet around, the other teams weren’t very good
Napoli only won Serie A in 1990 because AC Milan got sidetracked by their exploits in Europe, while Napoli had been thrashed by the might of Werder Bremen 8-3 on aggregate in an early round of the UEFA Cup
Diego was poor enough in the 1990 World Cup and Argentina only got to the final through ridiculous luck
Diego was pretty much finished as a real force by '91
Odd, the Spanish league is the best in the world over the last decade
I believe the phrase used was that they were the only teams with any tactics
People say this in every era. Imagine a top goalkeeper in this day and age getting beaten to a punch by a 5’5" attacking midfielder. His second goal is obviously magic but the defending in general is hilarious, lads letting him go by them like they’re not too bothered and specifically an English player has an easy opportunity to pull him back just before he enters the box and he lets him go. It would never happen now, a lad would take the yellow and be delighted with himself
That goalkeeper was English. English keepers are laughed at all over Europe. Jordan Pickford is the £40m England no 1 FFS.
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Why wasn’t everyone scoring goals like Maradona so?
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The hipsters are attacking Maradona now, I didn’t see it coming
Because they weren’t good enough. He was obviously the best of his era
The same lads struggle to put one leg in front of the other I’d say
I was way too young to see him. Just watching videos of his best goals, etc. it’s clearly not as good a standard as now
You can address me directly if you want mate. I didn’t play much soccer but I played hurling to a fairly decent standard, so I can at least put one leg in front of the other, not that it’s in any way relevant
You saying Matt Connor can’t analyse Gaelic football?
This is the tackle that meant Maradona had to play with injections for the remainder of his career
This was ok at the time
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None of the defending you have shown was an embarrassing as VVD last night
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No but you’re trying to it seems