Ask a room of football fans who the biggest villain in the game's history is, and the room usually splits down the middle. One half says Diego Maradona: the Hand of God, the failed drug tests, a life lived in total chaos. The other half says Luis Suárez, who bit three opponents, handled the ball against Ghana and was banned for racism. Both cases deserve a proper hearing.
Maradona or Suárez: who did worse?
Maradona's file reads like a charge sheet. The Hand of God in 1986, drug bans in 1991 and 1994, shots at journalists, and still worshipped as a god. His cheating also came at a World Cup that Argentina went on to win, which is about as high as the stakes get.
Suárez went for teeth. Bakkal in 2010, Ivanović in 2013, Chiellini in 2014. Three separate bites by one professional footballer takes some explaining. Then there is the handball against Ghana at the 2010 World Cup, which kept an entire continent from its first semi-final.
Both were genuine geniuses as well. Maradona won the World Cup with Argentina, and Suárez won the Champions League with Barcelona.
On scale, Maradona's crimes are bigger: drugs, violence, cheating at a World Cup. On strangeness, Suárez wins comfortably, because biting three people is not something most careers include. Maradona is the tragic villain. Suárez is the chaotic one. Only one of them can be number one.
The answer comes tomorrow.
