PLAYING AGAINST GENIUS DIEGO IS ONE OF MY
I WAS just 17 when I first met Diego Maradona. It was a wonderful, slightly surreal experience in, of all places, Saudi Arabia. I thought he was the greatest player I had ever seen. I still do. At the time, I was a youngster with Brondby. We’d been invited to play in a friendly against a local side. Somehow, Maradona was flown out to play for the Saudis. I’m not sure how the arrangement came about but, for me, it was just incredible to see this amazing talent I had watched on television. It was 1987, not that long after he won the World Cup with Argentina. He was at his peak, just indescribably brilliant. We met him before the game and shook hands. It was awe inspiring. He was doing this thing with the ball, juggling it, but all the while looking at people and talking to them. The ball never hit the ground. His gaze never shifted. It was mind-blowing. Then the game started. What he did was unbelievable, even in a friendly match like that. He scored two goals that were sublime. What a day it was. To be on the same pitch as this genius was something I’ll never forget. I got his shirt afterwards, but back then you didn’t have names printed on the back. So nobody except me knows for sure it belonged to Maradona! Next time I met him was six years later, in Mar del Plata in Argentina. It was for the Artemio Franchi Trophy, pitching the champions of Europe and South America against each other. Denmark had won Euro ’92 the year before and I was picked to be captain for the first time. It was a 1-1 draw — Argentina won on penalties — but that’s not what I really remember about the game. Maradona was captain of Argentina, so we shook hands before kick-off. My son, Nicolai, actually found a photograph of it recently and it’s one I’ll always want to keep. It’s a stand-out memory from my career. Maradona was approaching the end of his career by that time and was a different kind of figure to the one I’d seen in Saudi Arabia. He wasn’t moving that much on the pitch but every time he was on the ball, you felt something phenomenal could happen. And what a phenomenon he was. Not just for Argentina, but Napoli as well. The season I spent with AC Milan in the early 90s made me think even more highly of what he achieved in Italy. Some of the legends in Milan’s dressing room had been there in the years before when Maradona inspired Napoli to two
Scudettos. In the 1989-90 season, Milan won the European Cup. But Napoli won Serie A. Because of Maradona. The significance of it was about more than just football. In Italy at the time, it was always about the wealth of the north and the poverty of the south. Maradona changed that. He carried so much weight on his shoulders, as he did with Argentina. They had good players but would they have won the 1986 World Cup without him? No. Never. We know he was a genius on the pitch and flawed away from it. His troubles showed he was a human being after all. Because when you saw him play football you were convinced he was from another planet. He had his demons and perhaps took them into retirement. But it must have been so difficult for him at times, when he was so popular around the world. Maradona made so many people smile during his career. He made them feel spectacular. He made them feel important. He did that for a whole city in Naples and a whole nation in Argentina. His death is sad but he leaves a legacy of joy.