For me, Messi is the greatest. His greatness has ballooned and developed against a backdrop of a sky high mural, occupying the full height of culture and history, depicting Diego Maradona. So to have enjoyed Messi for so long, I’ve had to squint on the foreground to keep the looming Diego out of focus.
That is the measure of Maradona, he’s the player that footballs dog eared fans use as the milestone. They don’t care so much about Messi and his achievements because look what Diego did.
He hopped and dodged with the ball in tow, skipping repeatedly through midfield no man’s lands with tackles scattered like landmines, a frog jumping through the roving blades of a combine harvester like it was a skip rope.
He did it when there was no support structure around mercurial talents, like scaffolding around a statue only for it to be revealed when the final form is ready.
No, from day one Maradona was like a fillet of meat floating through water with every hungry scavenger coming up and nibbling at will.
And he still did it, he still produced magic.