Brasilia, July 3:
As the former Argentina international Jorge Valdano once observed: “One does try to avoid comparing Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona. The problem is that Messi doesn’t help.”
The comparisons will only increase ahead of Argentina’s World Cup quarter-final with Belgium on Saturday, for it was against the Belgians that two of Maradona’s most iconic moments occurred.
In a 1982 World Cup group-stage match in Barcelona, a photograph was taken of Maradona facing up to a throng of six Belgian defenders that has become one of the most well-known of him as a player.
The image was slightly misleading — the Belgian players were fanning out from a defensive wall, rather than massing in opposition to the squat, raven-haired Argentina number 10 — but it vividly evoked the terror the 21-year-old was liable to spread in opposition defences.(Agencies)
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