Maradona is like Aragorn while Messi is like Drizzt. Maradona’s story has more literary value. It has a hero (Maradona) and a villian (England/The rich Italian north):

He was born in extreme poverty, fought his way to a humble team in the Argentinian league, then to a big team in the Argentinian league and then to a big team in Europe. When he was transferred Europe, and at the highest point in his career, he had a terrible injury that put him out of the fields for more than half a year and ended his chances in Barcelona before they even started.

Eventually, he was transferred to a small team in Italy and again, had to fight his way to success. He had some serious shortcomings of his owns (drug use) that were exploited by people with more power and who didn’t like him. In general, he became a symbol of Argentina at the time: A small, poor country with great potential, but with serious internal problems that is being toyed by more powerful countries.

That climaxed in the quarter finals against England: That was right after the war between the two countries and Argentinians were frustrated. People are often confused about why Argentinians seem to remember the first goal more than the second one. The first one was illegal, the second was a piece of art. But the Hand of God, that illegal first goal, was the perfect representation of how the Argentinians felt: There was no way for Argentina to defeat the powerful England, but to cheat. It was the only way to stand out against a giant.

The small Argentina winning an impossible duel against the giant England

The second goal was the cherry on top. It was beautiful. But less emotional load.

Maradona’s story is a real life example of the path of a hero: A child marked from birth goes to a far away land looking for adventure, is called to greatness, refuses to take the call, is constantly tested by enemies, proves himself worthy and ends up coming back home for his final exam.

Now, Messi is probably a better player. He will likely break every single record that there is to break. But his story is not that appealing: He was also born in poverty, but instead of having to fight his way to Barcelona, he was selected as “special” before reaching adulthood, grew up in an academy surrounded by other soccer geniuses, played with other giants in the same club his whole career, never had one really serious injury, and just outpaced everyone out of pure superiority.

Maradona had to be creative when he was playing, Messi has no need. Everyone know what he is going to do: Self-pass, outrun the defense from the right, approach the goalkeeper in diagonal, and cross shoot. Everyone knows it. The defense who is seeing him coming, and the goalkeeper who is waiting the shot. But it doesn’t matter, because Messi is just better and cannot be stopped.

Messi is probably a better player than Maradona. But comparing Maradona’s story to Messi’s is like comparing Aragorn with Drizzt