10 greatest comebacks made by footballers

#10 Diego Maradona

Whilst we celebrate the talent that Diego Maradona was, people often forget that the world beater had to come back from a near career-ending injury. Many paragraphs had been written about Maradona’s ego clash with the Barcelona president but not much light has been shone on the tackle that nearly took one of football’s greatest gifts away from us.

Maradona’s career was nearly put in jeopardy by a nasty challenge by Athletic Bilbao’s infamous defender Andoni Goikoetxea. Goikoetxea, who was also nicknamed “the butcher from Bilbao”, put in a ferocious tackle on the Argentine, breaking his ankle and putting him out of action for eight months. It’s hard to imagine how a player doesn’t even get a warning for such atrocious behaviour.

A comeback and a few bust ups later, Maradona would move to Napoli. There he went on to win five trophies and the 1986 World Cup for Argentina.