Diego Maradona claims that he is the reason behind Lionel Messi’s insane free-kicks, as his interaction with Messi helped him.
Lionel Messi has massively improved his free-kick skills, and probably have one of the most successful conversation rate in Europe while taking free-kicks.
In recent claims by Diego Maradona, the Argentine football legend claims that he is responsible for Messi’s brilliance at taking free-kicks.
Maradona was the coach of Argentina from 2008-2010, and at that time Messi played under his guidance. Argentine even played the 2010 World Cup under him.
“I coached the best, Messi, and nobody can tell me otherwise, because he was able to skip past up to five players – a phenomenon,” Maradona, who recently became the boss of Gimnasia de La Plata, said, per Goal.
“He had an issue with free-kicks. When we finished every training session, we kept Leo behind so he could practice, and he started to hit the post.”
“I didn’t teach him how to take a free-kick, then he asked me how I was able to score. I said, ‘you just have to hit it in the middle. They aren’t going to give me an Oscar to teach you this’.” he further added.
“And he replied, ‘but I hit it in the middle and the ball goes this way or that way’ and I told him, ‘don’t worry, you’re going to make it’. Now he just can’t miss.”
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If this is true, then the best learnt from the best, as both the players had decorated careers, with Messi still going ahead and strong.
Both the players are considered among the greatest players to grace the game. Meanwhile, there was a lot of hype at that time around this duo before the World Cup. However, things did not go well for Argentina as they crashed out of the World Cup in the quarter finals after facing a 4-0 defeat against Germany.
