Why was Gerd Muller 🇩🇪 never compared to Diego Armando Maradona 🇦🇷?
Gerd Muller was one of the greatest number 9s ever. His instincts, positioning inside the box, and finishing ability were insane. The man was a complete striker. Individually, he held almost every major scoring record of his era: most league goals in Europe, most Golden Boots, most goals in a calendar year, most goals in a season, and 4 European Cup top scorer awards. He scored around 700 official goals with nearly a goal per game average, almost double Maradona’s career goals.
Collectively, he won it all too: a World Cup, a European Championship with Germany, three consecutive European Cups with Bayern, and countless league titles. He even won the Ballon d’Or in 1970. Gerd Muller almost won double the trophies Maradona did.
Yet despite all that, nobody ever compared him to Maradona.
Why?
Because football wasn’t and shouldn’t be judged mainly by goals and trophies. As legendary as Gerd Müller was, he simply was never on Maradona’s level as an overall footballer. Not even close.
Maradona didn’t own scoring records. What made him special was pure football genius. Dribbling, creativity, control, playmaking, carrying entire teams… that’s what historically defined the greatest footballers, long before football debates became obsessed with goals and stats during the PR7 era 🇵🇹.
Now imagine a player who made his debut for Barcelona in 2004-05 at 17 years old, played with the same magic and genius of Maradona almost every single season, while also adding elite end product and eventually breaking nearly every major scoring record Gerd Müller once had.
That little guy was called Lionel Andrés Messi 🇦🇷
A player with Maradona’s footballing genius combined with unmatched production and longevity. A player who amazed the world with his football while simultaneously breaking almost every major individual and collective record in the sport, all while staying humble and down to earth.
This is why comparing Messi to anyone else never ever made sense.
You can score 2000 goals instead of 1000, win 2 World Cups instead of 1, win 100 trophies instead of 50… and still never come close to Messi’s level as a footballer.
Because football greatness was never about numbers. And Messi mastered the art of football better than anyone in history 🐐
The way Messi turns into a different animal when a world cup is near needs to be studied.
At this point, he might really win another world cup golden ball before his retirement. 😭
@UnknownGenius17@TomBrady80@MuumiNipsu@SelecaoTalk How close ?
Neymar can never be the top scorer of his team, he is not a killer. Messi can be the top scorer & main creative player, Messi is also underrated physical, he is/ was strong as fuck.
@Messilizer0 Physical, he is amazing right now but need to shot with more power & take better decisions sometimes but I like most of the things i see.
@CRISGOATIANO@Akorede3_1@8bdrssss Lol, tell Cristiano to retire he is the one that play terrible football. You were watching Messi but no-one can watch 90 minutes of Penaldo.