Maradona the best I played against: Gazza
MUSCAT: Former England midfielder Paul Gascoigne has named Argentina superstar Diego Maradona as the best player he’s ever faced.
‘Gazza’, as he is fondly remembered, was in Oman on Thursday evening, speaking about his experiences as a football player both on and off the pitch, to a packed auditorium featuring about 200 football fans at the Grand Hormuz Hotel in Seeb.
Gascoigne faced off against the legendary attacker in 1992, when he was playing for Italian Serie A side Lazio, with his opposite number featuring for Spanish outfit Sevilla, in a friendly game at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium in Seville. He had shone in Lazio’s previous game against Italian giants AC Milan, which ended in a 2-2 draw in Rome, and having scored against the Rossoneri, was keen to continue his good form against heavyweights Juventus.
Lazio, though, had other plans for him. “I remember scoring a goal against AC Milan and I thought I had done well, and I told the boss that I was really excited to face Juventus next week,” recalled Gascoigne, who is touring Oman and other Middle Eastern nations. “But the boss told me ‘I am going to rest you against Juventus because the owner wants you to play against Napoli’.”
Although the owners had elected to field Gazza against Napoli because of the strong rivalry between the two clubs, and the bragging rights that would follow, the Naples club were no were near as illustrious or as strong as Turinbased Juventus.
“I told him I wasn’t having that, because I really wanted to play against Juventus, because they’ve always been one of the top clubs in the world, but the manager wasn’t going to see it any other way, so I decided to skip the matches and go to Euro Disney,” he admitted, “I remember being there in Paris and picking a fight with Mickey Mouse and Pluto.”>