Many have been called the new Maradona, an unfair tag if ever there was one, but even the great man himself acknowledges that Lionel Messi is something special. Like Diego in Japan, in 1979, Lionel inspired Argentina to triumph at FIFA's U-20 World Cup in the Netherlands, in 2005, where he was voted the tournament's best player aka MVP (John Obi Mikel was 2nd and Taiye Taiwo was 3rd). He also picked up the Golden Shoe for top scorer - Diego was 2nd highest top scorer in '79.
Diego had a rather unhappy time at Barcelona, where he moved after his exploits in Japan, but found his feet at Napoli where he led them to 2 scudettos in 1987 and 1990. Messi has already won La Liga twice with Barça and in Germany last year, he tantalised us during his all too brief cameos for Argentina - it was mystifying, to say the least, when Jose Pekerman decided to substitute him in the game against Germany.
Maradona's 2nd goal against Enland in the 1986 quarterfinal match has been labelled the best World Cup goal, even though the English players seemed spellbound and didn't make any decent tackles. To my mind, this makes Messi's goal against Getafe better because he skipped past some committed tackles. It was fitting that in the post match interview, Messi paid tribute to Maradona and wished him a speedy recovery.
Messi to lead Argentina to victory at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010 - you read it here first.
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