Maradona - The Legend

There is no doubt that Diego Maradona was a football legend. At the same time, he was in limelight due to non footballing reasons too. When you look at the sportsperson from the someone whom you would like follow, sadly Maradona was a far away from that category. However, irrespective of his off the field image he was the most loved footballer by the whole world for his football skills. 

His story is not different than a typical bollywood movie where a hero fights against all odds and wins at the end. When we watch these kind of movies, we usually say that these things happen only in movies. When you look at the entire campaign of 1986 Football World Cup, you would start believing that the things like this can happen in the real word too. And the hero of this movie was the Diego Maradona. 

In 1986 World Cup which took place in Mexico, no one expected anything special from the team Argentina. However, Maradona had some other plans. He was leading an inexperienced team but with his leadership skills and beautiful display of football he won the world cup for Argentina. This tournament is remembered for two goals of Maradona: One is known as a hand of God and another is known as one of the best goals. 

In the first goal, Maradona used his hand to push the ball in the England Net, the entire world saw this but the man who needed to spot this; the referee of this match missed out this moment. The world would have labelled Maradona a villain but the God had some other plans for him. After few moments only, Maradona displayed his brilliance on the field. 

The England team was in a shock with what happened a few moments ago. Maradona beat 5 to 6 English players with his dribbling skills and before anyone got what was happening, he put balls in the English net. One can that Maradona helped Argentina a single handed in the final. This one match put him near to god for football fans. 

In the final, which was Argentina played against a very strong German team, he did not score any goal. However, he lead the team upfront and provided an assist for the winning goal when the match was tied 2-2. Pale always had good players around him. European team always played with some legendary names in their ranks. Messi also do not have any trophy under his name in the Argentine jersey. I think, only Ronaldo has achieved this feat, but I guess he saw the final Euro Championship from the sideline when Portugal won that tournament. 

So that's it. Only one match helped him to achieve the legendary status. A very people remember that Maradona lead Argentina to reach the final of 1990 World Cup but they ended up as the runner up. It is not a less feat to reach the final of this global tournament. In football, no one remembers you if you are on losing side even if it is a final of the world cup. Fans simply follow the winner takes it all approach.