April 19 – Messi Vs Maradona
HOW many emerging Argentine footballers have had to cope with being labeled ‘the next Maradona’? Too many to count here but none who have actually lived up to the tag.
Until Leo Messi came along. He really was the new Maradona, we were told. No, this time he really is. ‘Yeah yeah, heard it all before,’ we cried.
But a few years down the line and it seems the young lad from Rosario really is a bit tasty after all. Week after week he seems to score a wonder goal for Barcelona, and only those pundits who haven’t seem him play would be claiming Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s best player.
Today in 2007 little Leo scored a goal that sent the media berserk. After carrying around the ‘new Maradona’ tag for years, Messi scored an identical goal to the magical one scored by El Diego against England in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1986 (the really amazing one, not the Hand of God).
The similarity between Messi’s strike against Getafe at the Camp Nou to Maradona’s run through the England defence was uncanny. Played side by side on a split screen and the goals are virtually indistinguishable.
Maradona raced in from the right, ran half the length of the pitch, beat five men and finished beyond a diving sixth. Messi did the same, only for Beardsley, Reid, Butcher, Fenwick, Shilton and Stevens, read Paredes, Nacho, Alexis, Belenguer, García and Redondo.
The Spanish papers went bonkers over the goal. One reporter from a pro-Real Madrid paper said: “I feel like crying. Holy Christ! Long Live Football! Long Live Leo!”
Another wrote: “So, you can copy a work of art, after all. This was a replica, with the same path, the same acceleration with every touch, the same pauses and feints, always escaping on the same side. The only difference was Messi finishing with his right foot.”
Messi’s face was on the back of the Catalan daily Sport, with a note saying: “If you want to disguise yourself as God, simply cut this out and put it on.” Indeed.
Have a look at both goals above. Something much less exciting was also happened on this football day, but if that razor-sharp pitch didn’t sell it to you, then just come back tomorrow for more from us.
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