This is so true and a much overlooked fact of how football has changed. The poster you responded to, rightly pointed out the incredible example of Gentile assaulting Maradona in that game. He was fouled 23 times in one match. With one booking received by the opposing side. By modern standards, it defies belief. The other team would've ended with 7 players on the pitch in today's football.....or, as is the case today, Maradona would've found himself in innumerably more goalscoring/creating situations, because they couldn't just hack him to pieces.
The game has immeasurably changed in favour of attacking and technical players in the last thirty years. Everything from no back pass, to the offside rule, have given an advantage to forwards. The minimal contact needed for a foul these days is unthinkable by the standards of the 60s/70s/80s, let alone what justifies a yellow. If you go back and watch some of these matches with Maradona and other players from his era, like Platini, the fouls they received would be hard yellows today, and many would be reds. Back then, half of them were just basic fouls. No card, and no incentive to stop. It's pretty crazy if you go back and watch the highlights of those games. On top of that, balls, boots, and pitches are all so much better now, it's unreal. There is a famous story about THAT goal Maradona scored in '86 (the good one, not the hand), that the pitch was so bad, that layers of turf were sliding under the feet of players. Several of the England players called the surface borderline unplayable, even by 80's standards. Yet Maradona danced through it like a fecking ballerina on ice.
It is very complicated to judge players across eras, but a player like Maradona today, would just be even greater, with all the protections forwards get afforded. The added professionalism in the game, drug testing etc, would have potentially saved him from the worst sides of himself too. He did half of what he did in his career, while also having a drug problem, smoking and drinking.
I would say that Messi is the greatest player ever in terms of what he has actually put down on the field. The level of technical excellence, and relentless brilliance, is just unmatched. But he also played in an era where that was possible. If you took him back to the 70's, 80's and early 90's, he'd still be a superb player, but I don't think he would be anything close to what he is today. Maradona, on the other hand, I think he is the greatest player to ever play the game. He did what he did in an era where he was essentially assaulted every single match. He was ridiculous. I would love to see him in the modern era. Under modern coaching, conditions, protections etc,, he would be something even greater than he was from a technical perspective of what he put down on the field. Yet, with all that said, Maradona was also emblematic of the era he played in. Right down to the cocaine addiction, so maybe he is just best suited to the era he played in. One thing is for sure....we will never know.
I think Messi could be Messi on any period, just looking at vids in his Youth and when he started and even in his prime, he was targeted as hell too. The thing it's that he would more than probably faced some long term injury with a foul of the sort Emerson did to him in his first days.
Yet the fella it's accostume to constant fouling, he fuels from them, it's worse when he doesn't reach the ball and is kept away from him, then his worse side appears and he can become frustrated and disconnected you foul him? it's game on.
Every vid out there in close up shows how is he actually treated, or even testimony of players agaisnt him. The main diff it's that players would be more aware of trying a Bilbao on him, even if he had faced some of those (I've just recall that Chelsea game of Del horno, it's a miracle Messi walked after it, plus he suffererd one of the clearest penalties ever).
So every coin has two sides:
Players in the older periods were massacred, but they could retalliate and even be the agressor too.
The pitches were bad many times, the ball heavier to strike it or head it...yet a heavier ball, it's also easier to control, to "kill" it, many new balls at certain moments act like a freaking ballon or toy version of it.
Pitches many times were awuful in the past, yet everyone played in such conditions and the ones that were born with better athletism, had it "easier" to keep that advantage given there wasn't s much facilities and knowledge to create an army of cyborgs to face them like nowadays.
The time a player has on the ball in comparison is way way less nowadays than in the past, at the same time players are more protected against over the top fouls, that helps to avoid a long term injury or basicly taking someone out of the game...YET tactical fouls still exist even more and harsh ones didn't disapeared.
SIDE NOTE: also many matches of for isntance Messi against Chelsea, Real, Bilbao, Aleti, etc...there some proper 70's fouls all over the pitch (when they actually can catch him), or the eliminatories and Copa America sometimes look like freeze in time with the level of shithousery involved.
So it's better thess days to avoid an awuful injury, YEAP, it's not astronomically better when comes to actually play, produce given the pressure and speed of the game.
That is why also even with players of the same period, like any comparison of Messi with Cris, should start with games when they faced each other, how the rival team dealt with them, the type of marking and attention on them, it was always quite different and it was diff agisnt other rivals too.
Messi it's perhaps the player every team, on every game made a particular tactical disposition to just avoid him playing with sometimes even 4 players dedicated full time on him, with the addition of all the extra information now everyone have on players, plus the cyborgs at disposal to try to nulify those special players...yet he still did it almost every time, time and again...in fact, he still did it in his last match. So he would score more, less, someone would end his carreer or not, but he would still be Messi (viceversa, same the other old fellas in current era).
At the end of the day, more than periods, pitches, fouls, stamina etc., when it comes to imagine these type of very special fellas to enjoy a better version of them or not in diff periods. It's not that different to the scenario every current player has to deal now, or any current player had to deal in the past:
The most improtant stuff to deal is: the team you land on, how that team plays and mostly the coach in charge.
You can be Pele, Diego, Cryuff, that if sthgs it's no working with just the coach, your mates, the moment and timing of the Club, plus your very own mental state or physycal form some shyte would happen, sthg. would not click entirely.
This is more important than Leagues, pitches, periods....if for some reason Pele felt saudade in Europe, he would have feel it and it won't have anything to do with his talent in the pitch, If his coach was an idiot that benched him? it's the coach.
Way lesser players like Mascherano apparently was not good enough for the starting line up of West Ham, no EPL material, but just Benitez trusting him made him become the destroyer of Liverpool...this stuff matters way a lot more than the usual "it's not made for the EPL", "in that period he would not score a thing or he would score 5000 goals"...that's nonsense, that even former players repeat like idiots. It's from the same school that still doesn't get that even Japan can get you out of a WC being Brazil if you do not understand how that Competition works since ever.
I miss football from when the classic number 10 was prominent, even a little later with Del Piero, Hagi, Michael Laudrup, Rui Costa etc