Diego Armando Maradona Biography and life history

30 October 1960 Diego Armando Maradona was born in Lanús, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. He is the fifth of the eight children of Diego Maradona and Dalma Salvadora Franco. December 5, 1970 Starts playing with the Cebollitas, the youth team of Argentinos Juniors football team. Cesar Menotti, May 1978 the coach of Argentina, does not include him in the list of the 22 players for the world cup saying that Diego is too young to handle pressures.

Diego Armando Maradona is arguably the greatest footballer that has ever put on a pair of boots. Maradona is born in the slums of Villa Fiorito near Buenos Aires as the fifth of eight children. He enters professional football at the astonishing age of 15. By the time he turns 16, Maradona is called in the senior national squad of Argentina. Regardless of his talent, Maradona is considered too young by coach Cesar Menotti, who rejects him from his selection for the 1978 World Cup. Bitterly disappointed, Diego watches the tournament from home as his country wins gold. In the following 4 years, Maradona dominates his country's domestic league and is eventually added to the Argentine squad for Spain 1982.
Argentina advances from the first stage of the tournament by losing to Belgium, but beating Hungary and Salvador. Maradona manages to leave his mark with two beautiful, yet not critical goals. In the the second stage of the tournament, Maradona is manhandled by his Italian marker Claudio Gentile. Diego's frustration gets him sent off. Argentina fails to advance and Diego is again suppressed from unleashing his full potential. Although unsuccessful, the brilliance of the Argentine footballer does not go unnoticed and after the World Cup, he is picked up by European powerhouse Barcelona. By 1984, Maradona had established himself in Barca and is picked up by the Italian club Napoli.

 

At the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, he makes his return on the World stage in a spectacular fashion. After leading his team to a quarter final against England, Diego steals the attention of millions with both his controversial character and technical brilliance. The fuss around the Argentina-England encounter is further elevated by the Falkland Islands conflict, which at that time had turned both countries against each other. Diego opens the game 1-0 by striking the ball with his hand over the English goalkeeper Shilton. Unnoticed by the referees, the mishap is ruled a goal. 5 minutes later, Maradona single handedly takes the ball through the entire English defense with a slalom from midfield right down to the goal line. After the match, when confronted with the video footage of the illegal goal, Maradona replies simply "Even if there was a hand, it must have been the hand of God." Maradona silenced his critics by deciding the following semi and final matches. By scoring two goals in the first and with an assist in the second, Maradona practically earns the World Cup for his nation.
Diego's influence on his teammates was carried over to his club side Napoli, as they reached unprecedented heights, winning their very first and second Scudetto (1997 and 1990) and the UEFA Cup in 1988/99.

At Italy 1990, all eyes are on Argentina and its brightest star Diego Maradona. Diego comes close to replicating his success from four years ago. With Maradona's ability, Argentina defeats Brazil, Yugoslavia and Italy on its way to the final. Most memorable is the semi-final match between Argentina and Italy played at Diego's club home Naples. To the torment of Maradona, the fans at his own club stadium boo him during the match. Nevertheless, Argentina eliminates Italy after a penalty shootout. The final of the 1990 World Cup, leaves Diego helpless as Argentina are defeated 0-1 by West Germany with a goal from a questionable penalty. After the loss against West Germany, Maradona's career plummets. In March of 1991, he tested positive for doping and is banned from football for 15 months.  Maradona's career 1994 World Cup confirms in international football is over. He is suspended again after failing yet another doping test. Hurt by his absence, Argentina is eventually eliminated by Romania in the second stage. 

Lionel Messi Biography and Career

When I started writing this Lionel Messi biography, I had some doubts in regards of what I'll write about since, after all, he's only been on the stage of big football in the past two years. But those 2 years were so eventful, that Messi covered in this short period what other soccer players cover in their lifetime. Let's take a look how the young Argentinean started out and how he rose to the level of fame he has today.

Full name Lionel Andres Messi Date of birth June 24, 1987 Place of birth Rosario, Argentina Height 5.7FT - 1.69M Playing position Attacking Midfielder/Striker

Lionel Messi Biography and Career - Messi Born in the Santa Fe province of Argentina in a family where soccer was king, Lionel Messi started kicking the ball at an early age and when he was just five years old, he joined the training sessions of the club his father was coaching at that time, Grandoli.

Although he was close to his father at Grandoli, they both knew this club would not be one to offer the young boy a future as a soccer player, so his father decided to take him to one of the most prestigious youth academies in Argentina, that of Newell's Old Boys. This happened in 1995, when he was just 8 years old.

Lionel Messi start career  FC Barcelona

Recovering from his growth deficiency problem, the Argentinean started playing regularly for FC Barcelona's youth squad and in a few years, he was taken to the B squad of Barcelona, where Lionel Messi's goals started placing the spotlight on him once again.

Years	National Team	Games	Goals
2005-Present	Argentina	22	6

Despite his small frame, he managed an impressive 35 goals in 30 matches and in 2004 he made his official debut for the senior squad of the Catalan team, in a local derby against Espanyol Barcelona. He was 17 years and 3 months old on his debut. He didn't play in a lot of other games in that season, but in May 2005, he managed to score his first official goal, against Albacete, becoming the youngest player to ever score a game

for Barcelona in a league game.

He is the best pound-for-pound soccer player in the world, and perhaps of all time. At 22, Messi has won just about everything there is to win, both individually and in club soccer. Missing is any sort of hardware with Argentina, aside from an Olympic gold medal. Messi's game relies on its unpredictability and magnificent control of the ball, which seldom demurs to anything Messi asks it to do. Listed at a charitable 5-foot-7, he's even a good header. While transcendent with his club, Barcelona, in the last few years (his 17 goals this season are tied for the most in Spain), the knock on Messi has been that he doesn't match that dominance for Argentina. For the most part, this is blamed on Argentina manager Diego Maradona's refusal to deploy him in his natural position -- on the right, allowing him to cut in -- and posting him behind a deep striker instead. Maradona, one of the best of all time as a player, has named Messi his successor as Argentina's soccer savior, a label that has proved disastrous for all others so designated previously by Maradona.

Scouting thumbnail: Technical genius with a low center of gravity and pace who can break down any defense off the dribble and conjure something out of nothing. Struggles when used as a striker and prefers playing out wide and cutting in on his left foot. 

Sachin Tendulkar crosses 14000 runs in the history of the test cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar became the first ever batsman in the history of Test cricket to get to 14000 runs. Tendulkar achieved the 14000 run mark on the second day of the second Test match against Australia at Bangalore.

Sachin is a 1st batsman in world crosses 14000 runs.  He has obviously become the first cricketer ever to scale the 14k peak. Only eight batsmen in Test cricket have scored more than 10,000 runs and the table of the most runs scorer in lead by Tendulkar. Let us put Sachin’s record under perspective by taking a look at the list of the run machines in Test cricket.

 

By scoring over 1000 runs this year in 13 innings of eight Test matches, the master blaster set the record of scoring more than 1000 runs in a calendar year for the most times. Australian Matthew Hayden and West Indian Brian Lara shared the previous record of making more than 1000 runs in a calendar year for the five times each. Tendulkar also scored more than 1000 runs in 1997 (1000 runs in 12 matches), in 1999(1088 runs in 10 matches), in 2001 (1003 runs in 10 matches) in 2002 (1392 runs n 16 matches) and in 2008 (1063 in 13 matches). He scored 1047 runs in 14 innings of nine Test matches in 2010.

The first batsman to score 1000 runs in Test cricket was England’s Arthur Shrewsbury. The right hand batsman, achieved this feat during his 106-run knock against Australia at Lord’s on July 18,1893. It was 36th innings of 21st Test match.

Tendulkar also has more than 17500 runs in ODI cricket, apart from possessing an average of 56 in Test matches and 45 in ODI cricket. Tendulkar also scored a double century in an ODI, the first and the only batsman to have done so in ODI cricket.