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And not forgetting footwear too. Combine this with modern day footballs and you have a significant difference.

To balance this out it should however be remembered that Ronaldo & Messi don’t have to deal with tackles from behind and are over protected by referees. Think back to Maradona’s brutal treatment from the likes of Claudio Gentile and Andoni Goitkoexea (known as the ‘Butcher of Bilbao’).

When debating who is the greatest, you can churn out stats (and Pele, Ronaldo and Messi are streets ahead of Maradona in terms of goals scored), but for me it comes down to which player has given me the greatest buzz and mesmerised me the most with his play. I’ve been watching football since the...