If one of today's top coaches asked his star play to operate in a 'free' role, he might find it a difficult task. We are used to seeing modern footballers' movements choreographed down to the last centimetre, and located within overly elaborate tactical systems - to the point where the idea of positional freedom seems to have been lost. In the modern game players need to know where they will play.
Not even Lionel Messi can run where he likes, in spite of possessing all the qualities to operate in any part of the pitch. The Barcelona wizard still needs his team-mates tracking close, full-backs on the overlap, midfielders to play off and forwards to feed him outside the box. In Pep Guardiola's time he broke through the middle and found his position, before reinventing himself on the right wing to make best use of his dizzying ball skills and his ability to penetrate from wide.
Thirty years ago, however, there was one player who enjoyed the luxury of a position invented practically for his own use: the Diego Maradona role. How did it work? The theory behind Carlos Bilardo's tactical innovation was fairly simple. Goal studied one of the key matches the Argentina team faced in Mexico on June 5 against Italy, in the second Group B clash of the 1986 World Cup. In Puebla's Estadio Cuauhtemoc Maradona put in one of the best performances of his career.
He was so good, so untouchable, that even an obsessive fan of order and structure like Bilardo had to let him loose.
One game for Argentina, another for Maradona
The two graphs above show the zones Diego touched the ball and the exact position he stood when in contact. If they fail to make much sense, that is no mistake. In the strategy created by Bilardo, Maradona trusted his own instincts: he moved across the attacking line as he pleased, dropping back to look for the ball wherever necessary and pushing wide if the moment called for it. When Argentina flooded forward he would always be at the head of the offensive.
What orders did he have? Just one, to get ahead of the ball when the Albiceleste were in possession. At 25 years old and at the height of his powers, Maradona did not have any problem in fulfilling that command. Even against Italy, left limping thanks to the brutal attentions of the bloodthirsty Azzurri defence, Maradona would trot back and jump back into the action with his side on the defensive.
Against Italy, Maradona had to put up with several kicks that most likely would have left any other player writhing in agony and out of the game. Enzo Bearzot's team focused on not giving the Napoli star breathing space, a contrast with the slightly naive gameplan of South Korea a matter of days earlier. He refused to quit, however.
At times he ambled down the right. In the next passage he would appear on the left. When the game was poised at 1-1, almost content with the result, he dropped back a handful of yards and left Jorge Valdano up front as a sole forward.
His goal, the first of five at the World Cup, was dispatched with Maradona acting as a poacher rather than playmaker. The Argentina captain spun like a tornado and flew around the back of the fearsome Gaetano Scirea. Goalkeeper Giovanni Galli was then beaten with a touch of the highest quality. The goal was a display of free-flowing genius, the ingredient he needed to become the best in the world.
..... - Goal