Similarities and differences between Maradona and Messi after being thrown by Barcelona

Said goodbye to Barcelona believing to die. As if that spasmodic crying pressed against his heart during the minute and a half of the final, agonized applause. He was at the front of the room like a heartbroken creature with a crumpled tissue, two immobile microphones and his gaze fixed on the front row, where his wife and three children were, who had been assured that they would continue to live in their usual home.

Stammering and under a strong emotional impact, the most sincere phrases came out. One of them was:

— ”A lot of things go through my head, I’m a bit blocked. Until today I do not fall into the reality of leaving this place, this club, of changing my life completely. I’ve been in the first team for 16 years and now it’s time to start from scratch. It is a hard change for my family, because I know what it feels like to be in this city, but I also know that we are going to adapt and be fine. You have to accept it and assimilate it, start again; I feel sad, very sad because I am leaving the club that I love… ”.

During noon on Sunday, August 8, 2021, Messi felt that an unexpected and treacherous bomb had destroyed his idealized world because Barcelona had thrown him out incredibly. The journalistic reports were very generous and accurate in explaining the reasons for the strict compliance with the Financial Fair Play imposed by the president of the League, Javier Tebas and also the surprising lack of reaction of Joan Laporta, owner of Barça, to offer alternatives.

The sad thing is that after the best vacation of his life with his family and the Copa América “Attached to his heart”, the best soccer player in the world was still free, he had no club, he was a “Gioconda in search of a museum”, despite the promises and verbal agreements with Laporta until the night before. Then came the collapse of an unusual and cruel statement.

Once again, Barcelona had disrespected football since 37 years ago he had done it with Maradona and in the middle with other cracks –smaller dimension– such as Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Riquelme, Figo, Neymar, Luis Suarez placeholder image Among many.

Diego always said that Barcelona was an institution with discriminatory leaders. He gave examples of the differences in how they treated – and tolerated all behaviors – the Dutch (Cruyff, Koeman, Kluivert …) or Ter Stegen (German) or Gary Lineker (English), with respect to the South American and African players. And in this sense, it is worth rereading the note of Pablo Cavallero in Infobae of August 9, 2021. In one of its paragraphs Diego says in 2017: “I know that Messi is going to go badly with Barcelona. Or, at least, he is not going to go as he deserves … I left the same. Barcelona, ​​the Barcelona club, don’t care what you give them, they don’t thank you. They are going to pay you like they paid me ”.

Now that everything happened so quickly – presentation, medical check-up, signing, press conference, first training sessions and the sound of the inaugural acclaim for your presence in the Princes Park to see with the family the match against Racing de Strasbourg- some asymmetries can be traced between that Diego and this Messi

The timeline indicates some items:

• Diego was 22 years old; Messi 34.

• Diego and Claudia were a childless couple; Messi and Antonela enjoy Thiago (9), Mateo (6) and Ciro (3).

• Diego and Messi, –was and is– captains of the Argentine soccer team and the best players in the world of each era.

• Diego left Barcelona after suffering from Hepatitis B and a fracture of the malleolus with a torn left ankle ligament after a kick from Andoni Goikoetxea of ​​Atletico de Bilbao (1983). It happened in such circumstances that some “friend of the champion” –an Argentinian national– gave him his cross to try cocaine. In total, he was inactive for 154 days during the course of his two years at Barcelona: seasons 82′-83 ‘and 83′-84’.

• Messi suffered few major injuries such as hamstring, elbow, muscle trauma from blows and gastric reflux treatments that left him inactive for 396 days in 18 years of professionalism.

• Diego, when he left Barcelona, ​​was financially burned out; Furthermore, he had to sell his house in the Pedralbes neighborhood, his car and some personal jewel at a low price to pay off debts before leaving Catalonia.

• Messi – legitimately and deservedly – has a fortune that exceeds 400 million dollars and ranks 2nd in personal wealth among athletes. The first is still Floyd Mayweather, according to the Forbes magazine ranking, which was prior to this new link between Lio and PSG. Furthermore, the diary Sport de Barcelona reported that the club was owing Messi 52 million euros for rescheduled salaries as a result of the pandemic.

• Diego negotiated his contract with the president of Napoli, Corrado Ferlaini and a couple of Neapolitan leaders through his representative Jorge Cyterszpiler. He was the one who closed the deal by scribbling on hotel letterheads. Princess Sofia from Barcelona. That meeting lasted 4 hours during which Maradona was being consulted by phone by Jorge until the agreement was reached. Few people, a piece of paper and the end of shaken hands, the old-fashioned way …

• Messi’s company –with Don Jorge at the helm– negotiated the surprise contract with the PSG president, Nasser Al Khelaifi, 48, after two long days of meetings between teams of lawyers, accountants, taxpayers, auditors and advisers; in total 14 top-level European professionals. That is how the approval of the Royal family of Qatar was achieved, PSG investor whose most decisive representation is exercised by Prince Tamin bin Hamad al Zani. This is the most influential man in soccer in the world, since Qatar is a great sponsor of FIFA, confederations, federations, many important clubs in the universe and the greatest soccer stars of today and the past who They operate for Qatar as international influencers.

• Diego’s first contract with Napoli was for an annual premium of $ 800,000. Then he generated 1 million more for publicity and image that he had to share with the Camorra, an obligatory partner.

• Messi’s contract with PSG is for 35 million Euros per year –two seasons- and may be automatically renewed in 2023/24. Obviously, royalties, prizes, and income from image, advertising, merchandising, cryptocurrencies, or any other royalty that when added will greatly exceed the salary as a player are not counted. Note that in the first 4 days as a new PSG figure with only two training sessions, 832,000 T-shirts were sold with the N ° 30 – Messi’s – generating a collection of 105 million euros. In other words, the institution had 10.5 million euros free, since its percentage is 10 percent of everything that is sold as merchandising. Then, from such a percentage for the club, Messi will have an important participation.

• When Diego arrived in Napoli, among the most prominent teammates we could mention Daniel Bertoni, Ciro Ferrara and Salvatore Bagni. However, two years later Napoli with modest reinforcements, won the Scudetto 86-87 and 89-90, also the Coppa Italia of 87, the UEFA Cup of 88-89 and the Super Cup of 90 having been the scorer of 87 and the brightest player from Mexico 86, where Argentina won the World Cup …

• Messi, the record player for everything known and to be known in world football, was added to a squad whose most prominent figures are Mbappé, Neymar, Sergio Ramos, Donnarumma, Wijnaldum, Hakimi, Verrati, Di María, just to mention a few .

After witnessing the neat, aesthetic, glamorous presentation of the new PSG figures, I recall what happened 37 years ago in Napoli, how not to remember that passionate overflow of the crowd. So I wrote:

– Ecstasy and anguish coexist in the hero’s heart. The blood becomes thick, dense and its passage slows the transit until it deforms the visible veins of the neck. In the final section of the San Paolo stadium tunnel, a roar of human sounds is heard, unmistakable voices from the crowd. We still have to climb the seven rungs of the last ladder. Surrounded by a score of excited people who speak to him at the same time, his eyes of particular vivacity do not stop in any focus, they look without seeing. Three of the four syllables of his surname reach his ears with the prolongation of the “o”, as if he were in La Bombonera. It was a Ma-ra-dooo … Ma-ra-dooo with which the “ultras napoletani”, the most characterized “tifosi” of curves A and B welcomed him along with the other fans, the vast majority, who occupied totally the stadium and could be estimated at 80,000 people.

– That Thursday, July 5, 1984, he was wearing a light blue jogging suit that they had given him in the dressing room, a white Puma shirt and a Napoli scarf, which at the last minute the president of the club Corrado Ferlaino approached him to wear on his neck. and it would look good in all the photos that were to travel the world.-

– He gave a kiss to his wife, Claudia Villafañe, a hug to his representative of that historical moment (Jorge Cyterszpiler), he quickly climbed that last flight of the stairs and felt trembling as the San Paolo became an erupting volcano like Vesuvius on its first outburst.

– Diego stood on a flag that served as a carpet with the club’s colors, raised his arms and remembered what he had learned by heart after signing his contract with the only club that had already tempted him in 1979 and whose leaders traveled to Barcelona to give him back to football, happiness and hope. Told them:

“Good evening Napolitani, I’m very happy to be with you” (Good evening Neapolitans, I am very happy to be here with you….). After saying this, a “wet cellophane” covered Maradona’s gaze and the saliva found a barrier to pass down his throat. The stands celebrated it as if it were a goal. The descendants of Greeks, Romans, Normans and Spaniards who make up the ancestry of the million Neapolitans saw a messiah. The already dying twilight of that unforgettable summer night designed the most perfect symbiosis in football: Diego and Napoli.

– Already in front of the journalists, recovered from the emotion and the trembling of his legs, Diego calmly declared: “I would like to become the idol of the poor kids of Naples, because they are like I was when I lived in Buenos Aires”.

Now we are in front of the two cries of Messi. The first of outrage at the unexpected news about the unfair attitude of Barcelona. The second cry was of emotion at the clamorous welcome of many French.

To Messi it must have seemed that the dream world was collapsing and he felt the virginal sensation of his first life challenge. What will this be to put on another shirt …?

For Diego, on the other hand, leaving Barcelona made him experience his nature to the full: fight, start over, puff up your chest, try a joy for the displaced …

Makes you want to close your eyes and think about new smiles; to imagine Messi reaching the symmetrical point that equals Diego in the madness of winning a World Cup. It deserves it.

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