It is well known that genetics play a huge part in football, from how quick you are to how tall you are or whether you have the mythical 'low centre of gravity' but having a completely different bone structure is another thing all together.
Argentina star Diego Maradona's feet had a particular feature that made them and him different from the rest.
Maradona had a left foot that was revered in his homeland for decades, one that like an artist's brush painted many a picture for the 'Albiceleste' over the years and one, it seems, that was unique anatomically.
In a report in magazine 'Enganche', it is claimed that tales of Maradona's anatomical marvels date back to his infancy, when he was born with an extra bone in his instep that made his feet appear bigger than most. Naturally this took some getting used to but it allowed the legend to treat the ball differently to most players, given that it was not a common issue among sportsmen.
"Diego had a problem that very few people know about. He had an extra bone in each of his insteps. Imagine if the ball hits you on that bone, if could fly anywhere. It was much harder for Diego than when the balll hits you on the knee and bounces off the muscle," explained Sergio Garcia, the goalkeeper who won the 1979 FIFA World Youth Cham,pionship alongside Maradona.
But that 'problem', as Garcia called it, never prevented Maradona from playing at the highest level, not even after a serious injury suffered playing for Barca that kept him on the sidelines for months.
From then on, seeing Maradona with an inflamed ankle during games was a common sight. Barca tried all sorts of treatments to solve the problem, from injections to ointments with tar in them in an attempt to get the player on the pitch.
"Maradona had that since he was born. He didn't overcome any adversity. It was a natural thing for him, ever since he started playing as a child he got used to it. Many people put cotton on their insteps in order to avoid getting caught there, because the hardest tackles are always in that area. Not to balace that out like they tell me. The biggest thing was after Maradona's injury. That's when I started to train with him. Diego had to get used to the way his body worked again to get back to his best. In the end, he succeeded in becoming even more effective than he was before," explained the aforementioned report.
The best-kept secret about a player who dazzled world football for decades and left behind a legacy of goals, tricks and skills that not even this revelation can go any real way to explaining.