Disagree here, televised football has been massive since the 70s/80s. Man... even here in the UK we had Italian football from early 90s on "Football Italia"
I'd argue that if a player has done something special on the pitch, the footage will surface, regardless of era. There was some exaggeration on my part saying that they can be condensed into 10 minute videos. But take this video for example, this guy is obviously a big Napoli fan and has managed to put Maradona's 7 year Napoli career in a 29 minute video. Will there be stuff missing? Of course.. but imagine trying to fit 7 year's of Messi's Barca career in a 29 minute video.
[youtube]pBCBGWXiRGI[/youtube]
Riqui Puig comparison is a stretch. For a start I doubt you could find 20 minute's of highlights from his career, remember a highlight could only be a 10 second clip and we're comparing a B team player to players who were in Europe's top leagues in their era.
Televised football has been massive since the 70s/80s, and the footage surely exists, but that does not mean all of it will ever make it to a modern day highlight reel.
-Most football video creators are young lads that were not around during Maradona's time, therefore cannot recall all the instances of his brilliance beyond the highly publicized ones. Even fans from that time will no be able to remember close everything.
-Today everything brilliant Messi does is clipped and put on Twitter and YouTube making the accessing of highlights easier than ever. Footage of old timers needs to be dug out of full matches from obscure archives.
-Nobody has the time or patience to sit through hundreds of Maradona matches in low resolution and clip out every impressive action he produces. Messi fans in the digital age have had the luxury of watching every match of Messi's career in real time and gathering all his impressive moments from that match on their computer mere minutes later. This allows for the collection of comprehensive and complete highlights. You can find all of Messi's individual touches on the ball in any particular match pretty easily on the internet. This is massively helpful.
You are massively mistaken and rather naive if you think 29 minutes is enough to show every impressive move from R9, Zidane's or Maradona's career. That would barely touch the surface. I think Messi is the best ever, but you are also massively underrating these older legends.
You could pretty easily make a 7 year Messi compilation in 29 minutes if you wanted to. It would not be remotely complete and you would know there is a ton missing because you have watched all the matches. For someone not from the previous era with a great memory there is no way for you tell there is much beyond the same overused highlights of a certain player.
Even the most dedicated Napoli or Argentina fans cannot come close to showing all of Maradona's brilliance in a single 29 minute video. Editors need to keep the watch times manageable and do not have the time to dig out all the clips. It is also impossible to remember all of them 30 years later. Messi has hundreds upon hundreds of young fans with editing skills that have made it their mission to document everything he does.
Look at this:
[youtube]OAprFqaZEyM[/youtube]
Even fecking Dembele has a 23 minute video of crazy moves in the first two years of his career. There is also a few clips from his first few Barca matches, but it is mostly highlights from two seasons and they are all unique.
If even Dembele of all players can produce so many highlights in a short span in what world do you not think all-time legends like Zidane, R9 and Maradona don't have hours upon hours in footage of great actions? Don't be immature now.
