Whom the gods would destroy they first make a genius
Do we need to talk about Diego Maradona? From his antics at this World Cup, we really should. From the looks of it, he is red-lining on a whiteline trip to be the life of a party he thinks was thrown just for him. Amidst the chuckles and shakes of the head about Maradona and the devil’s dandruff, there are fears that this may be a bender too far.
Maradona’s life has been a series of benders, from drama to depression back to drama again, amped by booze, the afore-mentioned dandruff and an incredible ego, but it seems amplified in Russia.
Perhaps it is because of social media. Perhaps it is because of his age. Perhaps it is because it just seems so damn sad. His inebriated eyes drooping as he tries to smile and pose for fans shooting a video of him; the so-over-this look on the face of one of his minders holding on to him lest he topples over the barrier; sleeping during the match; being carried into the VIP suite for medical tests. He does not seem to have kind people around him. He has enablers egging him on to greater excess and madness. He is their toy.
The Daily Mail revealed this week that Maradona was providing some “incredible footage” for a documentary about his life. It is being produced by director Asif Kapadia, who won an Oscar for his 2016 documentary on Amy Winehouse.
He also shot an acclaimed 2012 documentary on Ayrton Senna and, according to the Mail, “sees his Maradona work as the third part of a trilogy on child geniuses and fame”.
The rumours flew after the win over Nigeria. Maradona was in hospital. Maradona was dead. Maradona responded with rambling WhatsApp messages to Argentinian journalists, telling them he was okay, just a little hammered after drinking “all the wine”.
Those journalists can count themselves lucky. Back in 1994, he preferred firing an air rifle at journalists. Tottenham Hotspur coach Mauricio Pochettino shared a room during a training camp with Maradona that year when the two were teammates at Newell Old Boys.
“… in the morning, I woke up and he wasn’t in bed,” Pochettino told the 42.ie site in 2017. “I then go to breakfast, the manager asked about him and I said: ‘No, no, no, he didn’t come back to the hotel.’ After breakfast we went to training.
“Nobody knew about Diego and at lunchtime it was breaking news on the TV … ‘Diego shoots journalists in Buenos Aires!’ 400km away!”
Pochettino believes the world does not know the “real” Maradona, the one away from the madness. He is more than the gurning, uncontrolled face of rage from the 1994 World Cup.
He is more than the man doing vodka shots on a private jet in Russia in 2018, a plastic bag of white powder beside his left arm. He is more than just an Oompa Loompa on speed.
Argentinian journalist Marcela Mora y Araujo translated Maradona’s autobiography into English and has known him for over two decades. Twelve years ago, Araujo wrote in the Observer of a time when Maradona seemed to have won his battle with cocaine addiction and obesity. He was 45, weighed 74kg and was, as he said at his birthday party, somehow “alive”.
That was no joke. Maradona lived hard. He had been in hospital more than once. In 2006, Araujo spoke to Cesar Luis Menotti, manager of Argentina when they won the 1978 World Cup and who left the 17-year-old Maradona in tears when he did not select him. “You know, there are a very few people who really love him,” said Menotti in 2006.
“His family, yes, I think so. Everyone else has used him to sell something, in his success and in his failures. Even though he doesn’t want to admit it — and it’s not my intention to relieve him of responsibility for the wrong turns in his life — Diego has been a victim. He was one of the first footballers to be stolen from the football family by the jet set.”
So, what to make of this extraordinary football player, whose life has the morbid fascination of a car crash?
One day, Maradona may leave this world in an ugly way, slumped in a chair, a bender too far. On that day, some will still joke and mock, but on that day, we will all wonder if things might have been different.