Bigger achievement...MJ 6 titles or Maradona winning 2 titles with Napoli?

[Sedale Threatt]

He was a f'ing animal. It's a shame he had injuries because in his prime he was about as dynamic a goal scorer as I've ever seen. His Barcelona highlights might be my favorite of any player.

[maradro]

Finally, fútbol has changed a ton, players today play a lot of matches against a lot of crappy teams

I wouldn't say this is untrue -- at the very least, they play more matches -- but having lived in England when I was a kid in the late 80s, the difference between the old First Division and the Premier League isn't even remotely comparable.

They barely even had any foreign players at that point and it was a badge of honor to go out and regularly get sht-faced after games, to the point that you would be a pariah on some teams if you didn't. Chris Waddle, for example, played most of his career with a pot belly and he was one of the best players in Europe. Just the difference in tempo, with the emphasis on pressing across the entire pitch, is in a totally different stratosphere. I loved some of those players -- Lineker, Waddle, Robson, Walker, Barnes, etc -- but in pretty much every way you can measure the sport it is a totally different and vastly superior game. You used to be able to languish on the ball in midfield and pick out your target; now if you don't make split-second decisions you're getting tackled and the ball is going the other way.

Hell, even when you're playing relegation fodder I still don't take a road Premier League match for granted just because, with all the money available, even bad teams can buy a handful of good players who can cause you real problems if you fkc around. So while I would agree that most leagues definitely have their minnows, that has always been the case. Overall, like most other sports, I don't see how anybody can argue with a straight face that football hasn't improved by leaps and bounds over the past 30 years, particularly in Europe after effectively strip-mining the rest of the world for the top talent.

well thats the other big change, the bosman rule. long story short, a player gets trapped by his team and sues, and several years later (98?) a european court opens up and regulates club contracts, it was a big win for the players (and maradona was of course involved taking sides against FIFA, he started to organize a union with other players but FIFA stole their thunder). before that most leagues had maximum 2-3 foreign players per team, and south american teams mostly dominated international competition. same reason maradona never won a ballon dor, he wasnt eligible for it since he wasnt european (i think they eventually gave him a legacy one after the rule changed)

football in maradonas era was very defensive and aggressive, players today dont get hit as hard but they do run harder and faster. personally my favorite era is late 90s, I think today its similar to basketball where teams all kind of focus on pressing and forcing a mistake vs running an offense, its more efficient but not as satisfying to follow IMO

[maradro]

oh and i decided to look up just as an example-

1988 UCL total games played- 59
2023 UCL total games played- 124

1990 WC UEFA qualifier total games played- 250
2022 WC UEFA qualifier total games played - 509

[Sedale Threatt]

Finally, fútbol has changed a ton, players today play a lot of matches against a lot of crappy teams

I wouldn't say this is untrue -- at the very least, they play more matches -- but having lived in England when I was a kid in the late 80s, the difference between the old First Division and the Premier League isn't even remotely comparable.

They barely even had any foreign players at that point and it was a badge of honor to go out and regularly get sht-faced after games, to the point that you would be a pariah on some teams if you didn't. Chris Waddle, for example, played most of his career with a pot belly and he was one of the best players in Europe. Just the difference in tempo, with the emphasis on pressing across the entire pitch, is in a totally different stratosphere. I loved some of those players -- Lineker, Waddle, Robson, Walker, Barnes, etc -- but in pretty much every way you can measure the sport it is a totally different and vastly superior game. You used to be able to languish on the ball in midfield and pick out your target; now if you don't make split-second decisions you're getting tackled and the ball is going the other way.

Hell, even when you're playing relegation fodder I still don't take a road Premier League match for granted just because, with all the money available, even bad teams can buy a handful of good players who can cause you real problems if you fkc around. So while I would agree that most leagues definitely have their minnows, that has always been the case. Overall, like most other sports, I don't see how anybody can argue with a straight face that football hasn't improved by leaps and bounds over the past 30 years, particularly in Europe after effectively strip-mining the rest of the world for the top talent.

well thats the other big change, the bosman rule. long story short, a player gets trapped by his team and sues, and several years later (98?) a european court opens up and regulates club contracts, it was a big win for the players (and maradona was of course involved taking sides against FIFA, he started to organize a union with other players but FIFA stole their thunder). before that most leagues had maximum 2-3 foreign players per team, and south american teams mostly dominated international competition. same reason maradona never won a ballon dor, he wasnt eligible for it since he wasnt european (i think they eventually gave him a legacy one after the rule changed)

football in maradonas era was very defensive and aggressive, players today dont get hit as hard but they do run harder and faster. personally my favorite era is late 90s, I think today its similar to basketball where teams all kind of focus on pressing and forcing a mistake vs running an offense, its more efficient but not as satisfying to follow IMO

I love it, personally. Every weekend the speed, quickness and mental acuity it takes to thrive at the top level blows me away. Like Casemiro's horror show last weekend -- amazing player, obviously past his prime, but if you're not up to that standard there's a really good chance you're going to be crucified for it.

I understand why, and I think it's come a looooooong way, but part of my problem with football assessment is how little of it relies on tangible measures, even basic stats. Football isn't necessarily a sport that lends itself to that. But it's a huge difference from American sports and leaves a lot more room for narrative than I like. Which is largely what Maradona's legacy comes down to.

I totally get the differences between eras and you raised some good points about having more games to put up digits, and obviously it was a lot more rugged and a lot less tactical. But regardless of all that, you go through what Messi and Ronaldo did for years at the very highest level and it's still mind-boggling. Messi averaged something like 1.2 goal involvements over 800 matches, which is something you'd see in Football Manager. That's alien-level production we will almost certainly never see again in our lifetimes.

From a pure skill standpoint obviously Maradona compares to anybody. But in terms of virtually any measure that we'd use to assess a basketball player he just doesn't measure up.

[bkkrh]

Winning domestic titles in European soccer is not impressive at all. For those of you who don't follow the sport, the bigger clubs have more money available to spend and buy the rights to the best players (either from other big clubs or lower tier clubs). That's what allows a team such as Real Madrid to remain competitive for the past 25+ years running.

In the case of Napoli, they weren't a historical powerhouse, but they said the record for transfer fee on Maradona at the time and had a very strong squad. Perhaps in modern times you can compare it to PSG - not a historical powerhouse, but the owners bough Mbappe, Messi and Neymar. All 3 are now gone, but the team would domestic titles with the trio.

TLDR - In Euro soccer, you can buy domestic titles. The big prize is UEFA Champions League - it's where the best of the best teams from all Euro leagues compete.

You are projecting the current situation on an era with completely different rules. European Football before the Bosman case in 1995 was working completely different. Players could only change through transfers, there were no free transfers due to expiring contracts. Teams could only have 2, later 3 foreigners on their roster. There were no teams like today's PSG or Real and so on. League's were strong because they also had strong national teams. There was no Champions League with guaranteed Millions through group phases. Only the Champions from each country qualified and it was a knockout tournament from the start. If Real Madrid played Juve in round 1 it meant that one team will have 1 home game that season internationally.

The Italian league had by a landslide the best players in the world. Based on the foreigner restriction, it meant that world class players wound up at smaller clubs as well. Like Maradona in Napoli, or Zico at Udinese, or Socrates at Fiorentina.

While Napoli had a great team by the late 80s, their amount of good players is absolutely nothing compared to some of the big teams. Milan had as their 3 foreign players the Dutch trio of Rijkaard, van Basten and Gullitt, which were the key players in winning the European Championship in 88. Inter on the other side had as their foreign trio 3 German players with Matthäus, Brehme and Klinsmann, which won the World Cup in 90. That year Matthäus won the Ballon d'Or (best European footballer), Brehme placed 3rd and Klinsmann was tied for 6th. 7 of the top 10 vote getters played in Italy at that time. 10 of the 22 German players that won the World Cup either already played in Italy at that time, or were transferred to an Italian team after the World Cup. Besides those teams you also had Juve, Roma, Sampdoria Genua, Lazio and so on.

Simply put, during that period, the Serie A was bigger than the Premier League is today.