“Si yo fuera Maradona, viviría como él...”
Unfortunately, one of the greatest players to ever juggle the ball has left us yesterday. Diego Armando Maradona died and no football or futsal fan in the world received that news with indifference. Today and in the coming days, if not weeks, football community worldwide will remember Maradona for the unmeasurable legacy he brought to the sport.
Recently, FutsalFeed has created a list of top footballers that have played futsal, or still play it from time to time. From those players, we created three imaginary futsal teams for a fun little thought experiment. Obviously, we had to find a place for Diego Maradona in one of those teams. If you still hadn’t check them, make sure that you do and give us your opinion on which team you think would win?
Although Maradona did not become famous because of futsal, it is pretty safe to assume that futsal helped (at least a bit!) develop his skills when he started to play with the ball on the streets of Buenos Aires.
There are numerous videos showing Maradona involved in futsal, or at least in something looking very similar to futsal, including the Showbol event. Nevertheless, Maradona showed his extraordinary skillset in each of these games, regardless of their importance. Stands were filled with crowd trying to catch a small part of his magic.
In the videos throughout this article you can see Maradona use many futsal skills that modern players use still today. As some futsal pundits already noticed: “He shoots a toe punt, rolls the ball to round approaching goalkeepers, always aims for the far post on shots, plays well with his back to opponents…”
Not so known fact is that when Maradona got suspended from football in 1991, he actually did play a futsal match for Club Social Parque in which he scored six goals which was reported by El Tiempo. There are pictures from this match with Maradona wearing Sampdoria’s jersey.
Furthermore, Club Social Parque, a Buenos Aires based footballing academy, and their head scout Ramon Maddoni said in an interview for The Sun that Club Social Parque’s academy produced more footballing stars than famous Barcelona’s La Massia. In fact, Maddoni states that one of those superstars is Diego Maradona himself!
This academy, operating from one of those working-class areas of Buenos Aires, is still active today and competes in a variety of indoor soccer competitions.
Just how inspiring Maradona’s technique really was is maybe best depicted in a way that futsal community said goodbye to one of the greatest ever to juggle the ball.
🖤 Adiós Diego, adiós LEYENDA.
— ElPozo Murcia FS (@ElPozoMurcia_FS) November 25, 2020
Siempre serás ETERNO #MaradonaDEP pic.twitter.com/5vR4jNsTgS
Era dios en el cielo y Maradona en la tierra, pues ahora estamos mejores guardados que nunca con dois dioses en el cielo!!! El mejor 10 que he visto en mi vida!!!! pic.twitter.com/KVIeTvPUSM
— ricardinho10 (@ricardinho10ofi) November 25, 2020
🖤 Uno de los primeros minutos de silencio oficiales que habrá en memoria de Diego Armando Maradona
— Carrusel Deportivo (@carrusel) November 25, 2020
💔⚽ Ha sido en el partido de la @UEFAFutsal Champions League que enfrenta al @ACCSFutsal de Ricardinho, Ortiz y Jesús Velasco contra el Estrella Roja pic.twitter.com/6qNUmjsDWL
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