¿Diego Maradona o Lionel MessiWhat is the favorite of Argentinians? The glory in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar not only gave the third star to the Argentine National Team but also elevated the 10 of Rosario to the status of genius, idol and legend to share the throne with the 10 of Fiorito. Preferences aside, who is coming after these monsters?
A viral video that appeared on Twitter shared by the English account “Out of context Football” (with 4.2 million followers on that network) focuses on the opinion of 40 Argentines, gathering the opinions of men and women from different areas and parts of the country. And they were all asked the same question: “Who are the three best Argentine soccer players in history?”.
Everyone, or almost everyone, chose Diego and Lionel, but what was striking about the opinions was collecting the votes to discover who came in third place, a name that, due to its youth, until recently would not have even been included in the list that compiled the 1000 best Argentines but they have a very long way to go.
“Asking people in Argentina to name their top 3 argentinian football players in history”, the viral video begins in English, very well edited, so that its duration does not reach four minutes. A boy with a Gimnasia shirt, a waiter, a driver who seems to be a taxi driver, a worker in the Andean zone and a university girl, among others, are some of the “votes” that name the players, almost all of them with merits to appear on the list.
Angel Di Maria, Alfredo Di Stefano, Mario Alberto Kempes, Gabriel Batistuta, Juan roman riquelme y Emiliano “Back” Martinez, some of the phenomena that appear in the compulsa. But the blow came from whoever is behind Messi and Maradona.
“You’ll never believe who finished third,” someone says in English, previewing what’s to come. The thing is that the third for the preference of these fans is nothing less than Julian Alvarezthe 24-year-old from Cordoba from Calchín who emerged in River, who was already champion of the Copa Libertadores and the Champions League, and is the current and only world king both at national team and club level, conquering the planet with the Argentine National Team and the Manchester City.
“Voice of the people, voice of God”, says the Latin expression. Although we would have to raise some asterisks to the video with the elections, especially in the part where a girl names Mauro Icardiputting him at the level of Maradona and Messi.
The great absence of this election is Daniel Passarellawho was captain of the team that won the 1978 World Cup and was part of the team that won in Mexico 1986, becoming the owner of two champion medals, an unprecedented privilege in these latitudes.
The final positions show that Messi added 37 votes, Maradona 34 and Julián reached 12. The rest, a little further: Di María, Dibu and Riquelme, 6; Di Stefano 5; Batistuta and Kempes, 3; Enrique Bochini2; Juan Sebastian Veron, Mauro Icardi, Enzo Fernández y Carlos Tevez1.