If people think Maradona is better that's fine. Messi's has had a better career (not quite as good at national level, but solidly better at club level everything taken into consideration) But from what I can gather Maradona had a certain appealing improvisational flair that Messi lacks.
That's an interesting point of debate, and while I wouldn't completely go along with it (Messi has a fair few inspired magic moments of cheeky improv in his own showreel), it does touch upon another factor that makes him a slightly 'better' player than Maradona, for me.
I love Maradona and the way he approached the game; he had his influences (Bochini most notably), but he played in a way no one had seen before in one package. A very short, barrel-chested robust physical form with Garrincha-like close control at speed, and also an audacity akin to the likes of Pele, Cruyff, or Best. His rebellious cheek, and imagination, is probably what marked him out most when combined with that level of finely-honed technique. But I think Messi's is
more finely-honed, more precise. Certainly when it comes to his passing and those delicate pass-like angled shots beyond a helpless 'keeper, but also with his dribbling - I feel like Messi has the ball more tightly under his control, more magnetised to his feet than Maradona tended to. There's not a great deal in it, Diego was an unreal dribbler at speed, no question about that, but Leo is the best at it I've ever seen.
I've hoovered up as much footage as I can in my time for pretty much every world great, as far back as old newsreels of the Mighty Magyars and that original all-conquering Real Madrid side. I've watched shitloads of Maradona's play since I was a youngster, wherever possible, and feel he would just have an idea, and then go with it, flow with it like a bebop jazz musician, responding to what's happening nanosecond by nanosecond, as opposed to it seeming like a rehearsed move coming off. Of course, he trained from a child until he had a rare mastery of that ball, and would've played about with certain scenarios in training, tried unusual things out for a laugh outside of competition, but you tend not to get the impression he is always performing something exactly as he visualised from start to finish, it doesn't appear to be the product of intensive training drills in the sense that I, for one, defo get from someone like Cristiano Ronaldo when he does his special things. Maradona's art has a totally different vibe for me, like he's constantly applying his formidable technical expertise to a brand new style of painting, if you feel me?
To be able to do what he does, Messi obviously reacts insanely quickly with his mind and muscles to every micro-event. But, to me, he seems to have a precision that simply eclipses everyone else; it's like he has slowed the world down to a 1000fps crawl, while he assesses everything around him in normal time in his mind, planning out where next to put his feet, how best to touch the ball, where to move his weight and feint and shimmy. Much of it has to be pure instinct, just has to, but that utterly precise aspect to his magic is also what makes him seem not so much to be improvising and adapting - it seems like he knows exactly what he's doing at every step, it's exactly how he pictured it all going before he even began the move. How he paid tribute to Maradona's most notable goals,
in actual competitive games, appearing to deliberately mould the play to achieve the desired effect of replicating those goals so closely - that's fucking insane. Maradona invents it, then Messi replicates it at will to show his appreciation. That's a whole other level of genius, to be able to even dream up doing that in a match.
Now of course, as per how this discussion has gone, he has yet to replicate Maradona's most effective stuff in a World Cup. But despite, as I said before, such things not being a requirement for me to consider Messi the greatest at this stage, it's a positive in one sense, as he's hardly on his last legs (not yet 30!), and that still gives him "something to prove" (heh), an extra self-motivating factor. He's done everything at club level, better than anyone before him, and very likely never to be matched. He can't just decide to win an international tournament, click his fingers and have it happen, he'll require a hell of lot to fall fortunately into place for him outside of his control, and teammates who can at least provide solid support (good luck with that one). But it's another thing to keep driving him on at least, in case that "done it all before" thing starts to kick in and he considers proper, final retirement. It's good in a way that he's still got a big dangling carrot in front of him like that, rather than enter his 30s wondering what else is there for him to do in football. To be as stupendously good as he is, you'd have to have an undying love and committment to football, but everyone gets a bit jaded with the stuff you do day-in, day-out, especially if you've pretty much mastered it and earned all the recognition and acclaim you possibly can, and
especially if you sense your prime is now behind you.
