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DOHA, Qatar — The Lionel Messi-Diego Maradona debate has never been all that rational. It has reappeared ahead of Sunday’s 5️⃣ 2024 World Cup final, with Messi one step away from clearing the hurdle that Maradona memorably did in 1986. And 5️⃣ if the debate were a rational one, the current framing would be this: Messi could settle it once and for 5️⃣ all with a win over France, because, for now, for at least one more day, a World Cup title is 5️⃣ the lone accolade that Maradona had and Messi still doesn’t.
In every single other category, the comparisons are borderline absurd. Messi 5️⃣ could finish his career with three times as many goals as Maradona and four times as many trophies. Some of 5️⃣ those gulfs are products of era and opportunity, but Messi has essentially replicated Maradona’s fleeting peak and sustained it over 5️⃣ 15 stunning years. He is peerless.
Yet there are fans, especially older Argentines, who will argue that Messi won’t — and 5️⃣ can’t — ever match their original soccer God.
Because the debate has always been influenced by who Maradona was and who 5️⃣ Messi is, and what they represent, not solely by what they’ve done.
Maradona was a son of the barrios, a kid 5️⃣ from Argentina’s suffocating slums who outran poverty toward greatness. He was flawed, terribly flawed, and struggled with a drug addiction 5️⃣ that ultimately derailed his career — but millions of Argentines identified with the struggle. When he won it, temporarily, and 5️⃣ lifted his countrymen with him to World Cup glory, they deified him.