Messi x Maradona: Messi's Inhumane Pressure and Maradona's Untouchable Legacy

Mulan

As Messi nears the end of his legacy with a World Cup, a question opened about whether he is actually better or at least as good as Maradona. Now, comparing on the basis of performance when they're three decades apart is impossible because:

  • There's a difference in football itself between the two periods in terms of style, tactics, political climate, technology, and many other things. It's impossible because we can barely contextualize Messi's situation, let alone Maradona's

  • Maradona's time has very little data output as only his World Cup matches are available. Many people cite his time at Napoli and many worldwide claims to have seen it live, which is a lie because during Maradona's time at Napoli, games weren't even broadcasted outside the country and I doubt even 10% of the people with those claims actually went back and watched the replays.

The point of this series isn't to reach a conclusion about who's better but rather to contextualize what is possible to contextualize.

Messi and the Inhumane Pressure

Messi has spent 90% of his career under pressure, generally worldwide, but specifically in Argentina. The type of pressure Messi was under for most of his career is just inhumane. Whether Pele, Maradona himself, Ronaldo, Cristiano, Neymar, or any other player, no player has lived his life while being demanded to win the World Cup.

Many players had hoped for them to win the World Cup but didn't despite having teams that could get the World Cup, namely Neymar. Neymar is the closest thing Brazil currently close to the legendary statue of Ronaldo and Pele, Brazil was the team everyone was expecting to win the World Cup the most, this is according to all betting sites and apps.

Yet, when Brazil fails to perform, and when Neymar himself fails to perform, no one creates a big fuss about it. Not only that, according to Brazilian journalist Juca Kfouri, Neymar has friends around him that he kept from childhood and spends money on them, all refer to themselves as "El Toiss", which means the strong. Those friends take it upon themselves to insult and demean anyone who talks about Neymar negatively, for example, what they did to Brazil's most famous commentator, Galvão Bueno when he expressed his dislike of Neymar spending 15 minutes on the floor during the 2014 World Cup.

When Cristiano Ronaldo's recent performance with Portugal and in general was criticised by Portuguese journalists, his own sister called the Portuguese people "sick, petty, soulless, stupid, ungrateful, and forever ungrateful". This came during a time when benching Cristiano meant to disrespect, the player was insisting his still in top form, yet criticism warranted such a reply.

These are the direct responses of people surrounding these top players, the closest to be demanded to win the World Cup like Messi. Years of complimenting these players aren't enough for these people. The reason this is important to mention is that Messi didn't have much defence while still being under pressure is a hundred times worse since he was 23 because he was always put in comparison with Maradona, which leads me to my next point.

Maradona's Untouchable Legacy

Maradona could not only insult Messi in the media over and over, saying that he's "not a leader" and "it's useless trying to make a leader out of a man who goes to the toilet 20 times before a game", and could not only insult Scaloni and say that the only World Cup he could reach is the "motorcycle World Cup", but Maradona, because he is treated as a God, which is a fact because Maradona has a church named after him with its Christmas being his birthday date, he could say all of that without a single response from anyone.

You can't compare the level of holiness Maradona has in Argentina to anything happening with any other player before, and there won't be like it after. By the way, Maradona was under the influence of drugs while saying what he said about Scaloni. Still, Scaloni, the man who was insulted by Maradona less than a year ago in public, said that Maradona "will be looking down on us". I leave it to you to describe that situation.

Maradona couldn't only insult and humiliate Scaloni, Messi, or any player, but could also insult the Argentinian national team itself with pure audacity, and still, no one would open their mouth. That's the origin story of the pressure Messi has been living under. A pressure that's made worse by Argentina's disastrous run in the 2010 World Cup thanks to Maradona's dumb tactics, I am not even sure what Maradona did as a coach in Argentina even qualifies to be called tactics, but more on that in a later post.

In Conclusion

Messi wasn't compared to a human growing up. Imagine doing something good but people only compare you to Mother Teresa or Jesus. There just isn't you could do to even look decent in the process. Maradona is the only player who people love claiming that he won the World Cup single-handedly despite how illogical that is, he could say stupid things and insult everyone yet no one would bat an eye or even react.

Messi had people burning his shirt, calling him a coward, and a mercenary and even many said they wished him dead. On the other hand, we had a man who has always done wrong and treated him like he could do no wrong.



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2 comments
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You are completely right! These two men can not be compared to each other. I think the should be worshiped on their own without any comparison :)

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Messi had people burning his shirt, calling him a coward, and a mercenary and even many said they wished him dead. On the other hand, we had a man who has always done wrong and treated him like he could do no wrong.

And today some Ronaldo fanbase will come outside and say Messi is the most protected player by the media, when I hear that statement my body boils with anger, they were quick to forget his own countrymen wished him bad and laid abuse on his name.

You gave a beautiful take on Messi and Maradona, for me I never found Maradona that interesting but oh well we move.

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