Maradona was a flawed genius, Messi is the complete package

There’s no doubt that many of us—maybe some—have been ensorcelled by Diego Maradona’s 1986 magic. Not surprisingly, no other sorcerer has passed our spell test. That’s being (very) unfair. Lionel Messi has been an equal in skill and execution for nearly two decades. He may not be as fleet-footed as Ronaldinho, as wiry as Cristiano Ronaldo or as fantabulous as Maradona but he has shown us that he’s a complete package. And yet we are still caught in a time warp: 1986.

True, Messi is yet to come up with the mother of all goals, the one that defines greatness. Watch Maradona’s second goal against England in World Cup 1986, beating 5 outfielders and executed in 10 seconds. Called the goal of the century, it’s the pinnacle of speed, dribble, cunning and wizardry. It has been the metric every great footballer has been measured against since. But it’s also freakish as much as it is real.

To be fair, let’s not expect genius to match freakishness. After all, Messi is more human than Maradona; let’s accept him as such. (Unfairly) Sunday’s victory was a confirmation we all wanted, to crown him king. His genius was established long ago, though: around the time he got his first Ballon d’Or in 2009. Six more were to follow during his extraordinary years at Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain. But only a World Cup win would confirm his GGOAT gene!

Well, the Argentine has always thrived in the other Argentine’s shadow. The languid attacker has often been compared with the oxy-horsy Ronaldo: perhaps football’s ultimate athlete. But even here, Messi has the edge: craft has triumphed speed. Much as you would like to shake him off, Maradona has been Messi’s bugbear, always handy for off-the-shelf comparison. The rivalry, even if it’s filial, has undeniably favoured the 1986 legend.

Let’s suppress the Maradona variable for a while and look at the absolute Messi. In a fascinating piece in The New York Times, David Foster Wallace describes the (Roger) Federer moments: “These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you’re O.K.” But Wallace dips into the grace and serenity of the moment: “Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.”

We owe Messi an apology for doubting his genius. He always deserved our vote for the greatest. We missed recognising him in the mist of 1986.