Diego: ‘I’d have more Ballons d’Or…’

By Football Italia staff

Napoli legend Diego Maradona says he’d have more Ballons d’Or than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo if he played today.

When the Argentine legend was playing, only European players could win the France Football prize, but Messi and Ronaldo now have five each.

The latter declared that made him the best player ever to play, but El Diego doesn’t quite see it that way.

“Tell him to stop taking the p…” Maradona told AS.

“Compared to me? That’s why I said to stop taking the p…

“For me, from what little I’ve seen the best ever are… Alfredo Di Stéfano, [Johan] Cruyff… And Messi. Cristiano could be up there too.

“For me it was more difficult [to play in my day].

“Now they have VAR. I remember the first ball that I took down, it came in from over there, I took it down on my chest, and when I went to turn, they gave me a bicycle kick to the face.

“A bicycle kick to the face! And the defender said to me: ‘There you go lad, that’s the first one!’.

“The Spaniards went for the man a bit. I remember [José Antonio] Camacho. Camacho chased after me all my life.

“I did this to Camacho… tac. And carried on running around the other side! I remember he said to me: ‘When I catch you, when I catch you…’

“I said to him: ‘Don’t run any more Camacho, you’re not going to catch me…’

“The Ballon d’Or? As a trophy… It’s very difficult to give just one Ballon d’Or to a player. Because giving one to Cristiano and to Messi… it’s boring now.

“You’d have to put [Edinson] Cavani, [Kylian] Mbappé, [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic in the fight. I don’t know.

“If I could have won it? I would have more than Cristiano and Messi.”

Maradona also gave his opinion on Gareth Bale, and predicted he could move to Italy.

“Sell Bale, give Bale away.

“He’ll surely be a makeweight for something, and Florentino [Perez, Real Madrid President] will be left with half of Madrid or half of Italy and Bale will play for Milan or Inter.”

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