THE GIANTS : THEN AND NOW

                                                                                                 

Football-The most popular game on earth,a game whose beauty mesmerizes one and all. The slick passing,dribbling and immense potential for creativity makes this game unique in sea of sports dominating the world.Like every discipline in life, this game has mostly below average and average players,some good players,some brilliant players,who come,ply there trade and then go away just to be forgotten. But only a few people in this age old game still stand out and are remembered as the crown jewels of this 90-minute nerve racking sport.

Among the sea of names like Beckenbauer,Cryuff,Platini,Best,Esuebio,Zico,Zidane,and inumerable others stand out two names,whom even those who have never seen a football match or touched a football in life , know about- Pele and Maradona.

Pele or "The Black Pearl" hails from the great soccer nation of Brasil,which is renowned for producing awesome talents most recently Ronaldo,Ronaldinho and Kaka.He is the most feared striker of all time and his stats of more than a thousand goals in alomst as many appearences is overwhelming, to say the least.

From the biggest rival nation of  Brasil comes the other undoubted great of the game, Argentine Diego Armando Maradona.Little Guy Maradona stood only  5foot 5 inches tall but still displayed the strength and a touch of magic to trick the best defenders in the game.

Both of these greats are forwards and forwards are known more then defenders because you score to win.Both had great club careers- Pele was part of Santos,the brasilian outfit,which was the best team in the world at that time,while Maradona was a big impact at Napoli, winning the scudetto with the team almost single handedly. Both had great international careers- Pele winning World Cups in 1958,1962 and 1970(with a team considered to be the best ever football team),whereas Maradona winning the 1986 world cup (scoring the infamous "Hand of god" goal and "The best goal ever" in the process),with an average bunch of players.

Who the greatest is of all time will always remain disputable although its safe to say that Maradona would have been far better without a drug addicton.

Nowadays amongst people like Rooney,Torres, Villa, Ibrahamovic,Maldini,Gerrard,Lampard,Xavi,Iniesta,Ribery,Ronaldinho and other excellent players,the ones catching most attention are the Real Madrid Duo of Kaka and Ronaldo,and the Barca Star Messi.

The Brazilian Kaka is amongst the best passers of ball of the present age,while Ronaldo is amongst the most complete attacking players around while Messi is constant threat from the Right and the centre.

At the club levels, Ronaldo and Messi have done a lot,just look at Manchester United's last three seasons and Barcelona last year,  but when it comes to international football more is wanted of them,infact both Argentina and Portugal are struggling to qualify for the world cup.

So my question is... is the world of football changing... where the best players play their hearts out for their clubs and just don national colours for the sake of it?