So I was back in my collegetown on a shuttle from my airport. Next to me was an older guy who i learned was an engineer from argentina. Naturally the conversation turned to football, Maradona, and Messi. He did say Maradona was the best player he's seen but he thinks Messi could end up as good. When I brought up Maradona carrying a much weaker team to the wc though, he told me that was a total myth. He said that while many players were unknown outside argentina that team was very good individually and a far better unit than today's. Many of those players played on teams which won the copa libertadores, and beat the famous 80s juve and liverpool teams in international competitions.Otoh he said the current team is a mishmash of individuals and messi does very well given the circumstances. That got me wondering, does Maradona get more credit than he deserves for singlehandedly winning the wc? Was he the team's savior just the best player on a great team who had a good tournament?

How do you compare or rate footballers in 80s to a modern one?. Him being surrounded with great players could be true, but then again football was different back then.

gnrfan wrote:So I was back in my collegetown on a shuttle from my airport. Next to me was an older guy who i learned was an engineer from argentina. Naturally the conversation turned to football, Maradona, and Messi. He did say Maradona was the best player he's seen but he thinks Messi could end up as good. When I brought up Maradona carrying a much weaker team to the wc though, he told me that was a total myth. He said that while many players were unknown outside argentina that team was very good individually and a far better unit than today's. Many of those players played on teams which won the copa libertadores, and beat the famous 80s juve and liverpool teams in international competitions.Otoh he said the current team is a mishmash of individuals and messi does very well given the circumstances. That got me wondering, does Maradona get more credit than he deserves for singlehandedly winning the wc? Was he the team's savior just the best player on a great team who had a good tournament?

Well, he did "single-handedly" win the World Cup! You can't deny that!

i said it before that engineer