Maradona sets his sights on Pele and Platini

Never one to mince his words, Diego Maradona has lashed out at Pele, his arch-rival for the position of best player in the world, saying he should "go back in the museum".

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, he lambasted the Brazilian legend after a journalist brought up comments made by Pele earlier in the week, when he said that Maradona had only taken the Argentina manager's job because he "needed the money".

Their feud is long-running, bitter and public. Luxury goods designers Louis Vuitton even made an advert - released last month - which played on their rivalry, showing them duke-ing it out at table football, along with French great Zinedine Zidane.

Zidane may also have taken umbrage with Maradona's comments yesterday as the Argentine rounded on the French in general, and Michel Platini, another famous former number 10 and President of UEFA, in particular.

"I always had a distant relationship with Platini," he said. "It was 'Hi' and 'Bye', never more than that. But we know how the French are and Platini is French. He believes he's better than everyone else."

And what did Platini do to deserve such a character assassination? The other day he pointed out that: "[Maradona] has very little experience, and Argentina's qualifying campaign was not good."

Maradona, of course, dismisses any criticism of his side and was eager to talk up the world's best player, Lionel Messi. In doing so he also managed to talk down Germany, Brazil and South Korea, Argentina's next opponents.

"I've seen some good performances here from people like Podolski and Maicon but none can compare to Messi's," announced Maradona. "None of them reached even 40 per cent of what Messi did.

"South Korea is a good team built on a strong collective and hard work but with all due respect, they do not have a Messi." ·