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Diego Maradona has died

theguardian.com

301–310 of 338 posts

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#301
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ummm... not really. Pelé has some insane stats. Games played, goals scored, trophies won, including 3(!) World Cups. Almost nobody puts Pelé lower than 3. And Cruyff had a huge influence but he's usually top 10 or so.

Some would argue pele only played in south america, it's still hard to skip the three world cups though. But it seems football is getting more difficult and more mechanic over time, that is why I consider messi as a glitch

yes, well you cannot compare players from different times. In his time Pele was the best player in the World. In 1958, he was 17 and was the first black player in the Brazilian national team. There was some heat because of that. He went there and destroyed the prejudice and the adversaries. In the 1970, he wasn't playing anymore, but he did a comeback, getting in shape and winning the World Cup in Mexico with an outstanding performance. Was Maradona the best of his time? I don't agree. He was the best in his prime time, but it was no longer than 4-6 years. In the 80s, 90s we had definitely other players which were as good as him or better (depending on the time period): Socrates, Zico, Lothar Matthaus, Michel Platini, Hugo Sanchez,Ruud Gullit, its a long list. In the 90s even longer.

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#302
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the importance of this goal was that Maradona dribbled pas almost the whole England team single highhandedly and humiliated them, restoring the pride of a nation (Argentina) who lost a war (Falklands War) before this to England.

Argentina did not loose the war, that's what Brits don't understand, a facist dictator lost the war. You see, in 1982 my family and the entire country was at war with an Argentinean dictator, when suddenly Margaret Tatcher, an unpopular Prime Minister at that time, saw the opportunity and instead of de-escalating the tension between UK and the dictator, she decided to go to war with him. What the media didn't tell th…

> The fact that Maradona scored an "illegal" goal against the Brits was seen as a revenge for loosing a war that no one wanted to fight, except for Tatcher.

I'm pretty sure Leopoldo Galtieri wanted the war more than Thatcher did; he started it, after all.

Also, negotiating with dictators doesn't always end well. Look at what happened in 1939.

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#303
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the importance of this goal was that Maradona dribbled pas almost the whole England team single highhandedly and humiliated them, restoring the pride of a nation (Argentina) who lost a war (Falklands War) before this to England.

Argentina did not loose the war, that's what Brits don't understand, a facist dictator lost the war. You see, in 1982 my family and the entire country was at war with an Argentinean dictator, when suddenly Margaret Tatcher, an unpopular Prime Minister at that time, saw the opportunity and instead of de-escalating the tension between UK and the dictator, she decided to go to war with him. What the media didn't tell th…

Maradona scored against England, not Britain. In athletics the UK competes as one nation: GB. In football the four UK nations compete separately; England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland. IIRC this is FIFA recognition of the British origins of the beautiful game.

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#304
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the importance of this goal was that Maradona dribbled pas almost the whole England team single highhandedly and humiliated them, restoring the pride of a nation (Argentina) who lost a war (Falklands War) before this to England.

Argentina did not loose the war, that's what Brits don't understand, a facist dictator lost the war. You see, in 1982 my family and the entire country was at war with an Argentinean dictator, when suddenly Margaret Tatcher, an unpopular Prime Minister at that time, saw the opportunity and instead of de-escalating the tension between UK and the dictator, she decided to go to war with him. What the media didn't tell th…

It was a bit late to de-escalate after the islands had been invaded. Do you really think Galtieri would have gone for any kind of political settlement that would have seen troops withdrawn or islands returned? The whole thing was his Hail Mary exercise to stay in power. I seem to recall US SoS Haig tried pretty hard to fix things.

The big mistakes by the Brits were made beforehand by not taking seriously the noises being made by the junta, when there might have been a chance to contain things.

It’s very sad that what was once a strong relationship between the two nations went downhill with Peron and since then the islands / evil Brits theme gets rolled out to distract from internal issues.

The Argentine people have certainly suffered appallingly under dictators and poor leadership.

And yes, without the sentiment that followed winning back the islands Thatcher and her then future would probably have played out very differently, but don’t doubt that there was very strong support in the UK at large for the recovery of the islands.

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Consensus top 3 is Maradona, with usually Messi and the third more controversial usually goes to one of the Ronaldos or Cruyff.

Pele won 3 world cups. He won 2 world titles with Santos. Santos used to travel around the world like the globetrotters because of him. He scored more than 1000 goals.

But Pele played at a time where football was not as polished as today. That also includes Maradona. Messi, Ronaldo are much much better football players than them both. But of course with the strong competition today it is a lot harder to accomplish what Pele and Maradona did.

Football is a team game, and that is a lot more true today than three, four decades ago.

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#306
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lionel Messi, same goal, 2004 (or thereabouts) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAehMNYw0ig

> same goal Scoring against Getafe is not comparable to scoring against England in a world cup, specially when it is Argentina against England (in a game England invented) only a few years against the Falklands war. It's a great goal by Messi, but Maradona's goal has a place in history books.

> Falklands war.

It seems the intersection of football and politics makes for outstanding games. Cometh the hour, cometh the man

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched this game live in 1986... the atmosphere that day, in that heat and altitude they had to play in, even on the little 14" TV we had in our house was palpable. There was something about the quality of the colors, the weather, the camera work, even to this day you can distinguish the video from the '86 World Cup at a glance of just a couple of seconds. It still brings back such amazing memories from my childho…

The heat? I live in Mexico City, it's basically never hot here. That game was on June 22, and according to WolframAlpha that day had a high of 15C. I don't know if that data is accurate, but I can tell you a high of 15C in June is plausible. Even if Wolfram's data is sketchy, I'd bet the high temperature on that day was somewhere between 15C and 25C.

You also have to consider humidity, a down pour the night before can create a closeness that can feel hot to people not used to it.

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#308
post #218
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"General knowledge" only extended to sports figures in the general area you were from, anyway. I wouldn't have known about some Argentine in any event.

Not even Perón or Carlos Gardel? Wow.

> Perón

Of course I know Perón. He was a murderous dictator.

Re: Diego Maradona has died

#310

I'll represent the other, unpopular side: the man did as much if not more damage than all the glory he had. As a footballer his career was finished pretty much 30 years ago. He left the '94 World Cup testing positive for drugs in what was a national embarrassment. His career as a manager was a disaster that existed purely off his prior fame. It's an embarrassment that we are unable to move on past things that happene…

I don't agree with you. I recommend you watch Maradona documentary by Kapadia to better understand his career.

What's your point? The documentary doesn't really touch on basically any of the points that this comment refers to as it ends around 1990. I liked the documentary though, because I was also born in the 90s so I mostly saw the ugly part of Diego.
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