Five ‘new Maradonas’ who didn’t live up to the hype: Latorre, D’Alessandro

The ‘new Diego Maradona’ label is one that has gone out of fashion over the last decade, replaced in Argentina and elsewhere by the more modern-sounding but equally undesirable ‘new Lionel Messi’ tag.

But between Maradona’s prime years and Messi cementing his status as one of the all-time greats, there were plenty who received that ‘new Maradona’ title, mostly from over-excited journalists, club directors or coaches.

Of the new Maradonas, it was only Messi who fully justified the predictions, but there were others who did admirably in their quest.

Carlos Tevez and Juan Roman Riquelme both became heroes at Boca, like Maradona was. Ariel Ortega and Angel Di Maria have had long, illustrious careers with Argentina. Maradona’s son-in-law Sergio Aguero won title after title at Manchester City.

Other new Maradonas, however, have not had quite the same impact, perhaps weighed down by expectation, or possibly just not quite good enough. Here, we’ve picked out five who didn’t live up to the hype.

One of the very first to receive the tag, Latorre was only nine years younger than the real Maradona. And like Maradona, he played for Boca as a young man, standing out in attack alongside Gabriel Batistuta and earning a place in the Argentina squad that won the Copa America in 1991.

Following another successful campaign with Boca in which he scored 12 goals, Latorre moved to Fiorentina to join Batistuta in 1992, but while Batigol became a Serie A legend, Latorre’s career stalled.

He never played for Argentina again and just two appearances in Florence were followed by a spell in Spain with Tenerife and UD Salamanca, before a return to Boca.

The striker spent two years back at the club that made him – alongside Maradona, who had returned