New Maradona

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Messi is the player most popularly referred to as a 'new Maradona', due to his exploits in La Liga, where he scored goals identical to what Maradona became famous for.

New Maradona or New Diego is a title given by the press and public to promising Argentine football players in reference (and reverence) to the legendary Diego Maradona as a benchmark. Since Maradona retired, people have been anticipating someone to lead the Argentine team like Maradona once did. As a consequence, very talented youngsters are quickly labeled as New Maradona. The New Maradonas are predominately players in attacking roles; forwards, wingers, or attacking midfielders.

Players who have been called the New Maradona include Diego Latorre^[1] (originally), Ariel Ortega^[2], Juan Román Riquelme^[3], Pablo Aimar^[4], Andrés D'Alessandro^[5], Javier Saviola^[6], Carlos Marinelli^[7], Carlos Tevez^[8], Lionel Messi^[9], Sergio Agüero^[10], Franco Di Santo^[11] and most recently Ezequiel Lavezzi^[12].

On October 14, 2006 in a match against Recreativo Huelva, Lionel Messi scored a goal with his hand, which made people draw comparisons to the Hand of God goal scored by Maradona against England in 1986 FIFA World Cup. On April 18, 2007 Lionel Messi scored a goal against Getafe CF, one of which was very similar to Maradona's second goal against England, called the Goal of the Century. The world's sports press exploded with Maradona comparisons, and the Spanish press labeled Messi "Messidona".^[13] Messi also scored a goal using his hand in Barcelona's 2-2 draw with RCD Espanyol, leading to many people drawing comparisons to Maradona's first goal against England.^[14]