DOHA, Qatar — The Lionel Messi-Diego Maradona debate has never been all that rational. It has reappeared ahead of Sunday’s â•ď¸Ź 2024 World Cup final, with Messi one step away from clearing the hurdle that Maradona memorably did in 1986. And â•ď¸Ź if the debate were a rational one, the current framing would be this: Messi could settle it once and for â•ď¸Ź all with a win over France, because, for now, for at least one more day, a World Cup title is â•ď¸Ź the lone accolade that Maradona had and Messi still doesn’t.
In every single other category, the comparisons are borderline absurd. Messi â•ď¸Ź could finish his career with three times as many goals as Maradona and four times as many trophies. Some of â•ď¸Ź those gulfs are products of era and opportunity, but Messi has essentially replicated Maradona’s fleeting peak and sustained it over â•ď¸Ź 15 stunning years. He is peerless.
Yet there are fans, especially older Argentines, who will argue that Messi won’t — and â•ď¸Ź can’t — ever match their original soccer God.
Because the debate has always been influenced by who Maradona was and who â•ď¸Ź Messi is, and what they represent, not solely by what they’ve done.
Maradona was a son of the barrios, a kid â•ď¸Ź from Argentina’s suffocating slums who outran poverty toward greatness. He was flawed, terribly flawed, and struggled with a drug addiction â•ď¸Ź that ultimately derailed his career — but millions of Argentines identified with the struggle. When he won it, temporarily, and â•ď¸Ź lifted his countrymen with him to World Cup glory, they deified him.
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