Diego Armando Maradona is without a doubt Argentines greatest ever footballer and one of the greatest to play the game. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo might have achieved everything in football. Winning six and five Balon d’Or respectively. Kings of Champions League and club football but some records of Diego Maradona distinguish him from other stars.
Diego Maradona served us with a more enthralling cocktail of skill and records that others failed and will not be able to reproduce.
Former Argentine head coach Cesar Luis Menotti – El Flaco called Maradona into the senior national team when he was just 16. The Golden Boy netted his first goal for the national team in a friendly against Hungary in 1981. El Flaco denied him the opportunity to play in the 1978 World Cup at home soil because he was too young but he was called for the 1979 FIFA World Youth Championship where he won the Golden Ball. He scored his first competitive national team goal against Scotland in a 3-1 victory.
Diego Maradona became a household name after the 1986 world cup when he had moved from Barcelona to Napoli. The 25-year-old had 5 fives from the tournament. He scored a hat trick against South Korea in the opening game. His left strike denied Italy the victory in the next match where the two shared the spoils. After beating Bulgaria and Uruguay, the next big game was England. Yes, the Hand of God. After the difficulty of easing pass England, Diego went ahead to score the winning against West Germany in the Final.
After winning the Argentine 1982 title with Boca Juniors, top European clubs chased for his signature but Barcelona succeeded amongst the many. A record fee of £3m was paid but after two seasons of injuries, illness and controversy, Barcelona parted company with him and he moved to Italy. Napoli paid £5million for Maradona, but it was just a peanut. One local paper in Naples wrote that despite the lack of a “mayor, houses, schools, buses, employment and sanitation, none of this matters because we have Maradona”.
Maradona joined Napoli when they had not won the league title before. He helped Napoli to become league title winners and finished as the club’s top scorer and player of the year. Naples celebrated the victory with a week-long carnival. In 1990, Napoli won their second title with Diego Maradona.
Maradona, though, played long before sports science was a thing, his incredible records remain one of the best.