Jeff Powell and Philip Quinn reflect on a legend
Maradona, a tortured soul who soared to greatness
TO MANY, Diego Maradona is best remembered for the Hand of God goal that knocked England out of Mexico 86 and his later descent into drugs. But Jeff Powell, who was there in the early days to witness his genius, believes the little Argentine should be celebrated as the greatest player (bar one) to have graced the game.
TWO nights after Argentina’s tumultuous winning of the 1978 World Cup, the streets of Buenos Aires still thronged with millions of celebrants as Cesar Luis Menotti held court in the bar of a downtown hotel.
That most languid of football managers was savouring the moment of glory with his heroes.
As Menotti clinked glasses with Daniel Passarella and Ossie Ardiles, Mario Kempes and Leopoldo Luque, a slight figure sat in a dim corner. Too small to be noticed, too young to drink.
Diego Armando Maradona was occupying only a vague recess of Menotti’s mind.
The boy slipped away early into the night and not until dawn was breaking did Menotti have reason to discuss the future of that unobtrusive boy.
Kempes, the goal-scoring hero in the World Cup and its extraordinary final against Holland, had just informed his manager that he was unlikely to be released by his Spanish club for FIFA’s anniversary showpiece fixture, to which Argentina were committed to the following year.
As the players dispersed, in the reluctant way triumphant gladiators do, I asked Menotti how he could possibly replace the great Kempes for such a prestigious occasion.
‘Did you notice that nino in the bar earlier?’ he asked. ‘He will be wearing the No 10 shirt the next time we take the field. Let me give you one piece of advice. Be there.’
Maradona had been disappointed to be considered too young at 17 to be part of the home glory of 1978. But the advent of the unlikely-looking genius who was to become the most potent challenger to Pele’s mantle of Greatest Footballer Of All Time would not be delayed for long. As advised, I travelled to Switzerland the following May and watched in awe as Maradona unfurled his phenomenal talent in Argentina’s reprise of their World Cup final against Holland.
Such was my enthusiasm for the new wonder boy of the world game that several of my most distinguished sports writing colleagues chided me gently for going over the top. But they had not been there.
When Argentina toured on from Switzerland, first to Hampden Park to play Scotland and then a year later to face England at Wembley, so the rest of Fleet Street saw Maradona’s brilliance for themselves — and were astonished.
Now, as the Hand of God has taken him, it is time to remember the magnificence, not the human frailties.
Argentina is crying for Diego, now he has lost, at 60, his protracted battle with a cruel manner of self-inflicted illnesses, culminating in brain haemorrhage and a heart attack.
Not for nothing is the world of football and beyond falling into mourning.
The facile tendency in England to vilify Maradona as nothing more than the culprit in the handball goal which helped defeat Bobby Robson’s brigade in the World Cup quarter-finals of Mexico 86 does no justice to one of the most gifted sportsmen of all time.
As Menotti described him on that long, hot night so many years earlier: ‘You will see that this boy, Diego, is a footballer made in heaven.’
Argentina’s love affair with their flawed phenomenon is all the stronger because he was born in the barrios. Maradona, as he rose from the poverty of the Buenos Aires slums to play for Boca Juniors — the team which represented every poor Argentine boy’s dream — and then to illuminate Argentina’s second World Cup triumph, became a symbol of hope for his people.
That he was a rascal, an incorrigible mischief-maker, a troubled human being and, ultimately, a waster of his own talent only serves to make him all the more heroic to countrymen and women immersed in the melancholy of the tango. They like genius to come wrapped in controversy and bubbling with volatility in South America.
That was one reason Pele was so reluctant to embrace the natural successor to his throne. The other was that Maradona represented the most threatening challenge to the l egendary Brazilian’s unique place in the pantheon of the game.
The unlikely body in which those mercurial gifts were to be found — short, squat, bow- l egged and no-necked — made Maradona’s status in Edson Arantes do Nascimento’s beautiful game all the more difficult to acknowledge.
Yet it was that low centre of gravity which blessed Diego Armando with a remarkable dexterity on t he t urn and acceleration with the ball.
It was that capacity to produce magical skills at electrifying pace — especially in the deadly zone around goal — which still sets him apart from even the sublime likes of Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo,
Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and all the rest of Pele’s apostles.
The most vivid demonstration of those talents came, we should remember, against England in Mexico. Robson and his players of the day remember i t only too well.
No, not the one nudged in with his hand but the other goal. The one he scored with a dazzling pirouette away from a posse of England players, an unstoppable run from the halfway line and a typically impudent finish. That stands, still, as the greatest World Cup goal of all time.
But what of the Hand of God? Does that not diminish Maradona’s r eputation as much as his misspent life?
Not, if pressed to the truth, in the estimation of Gary Lineker, Robson and Co.
Whisper it when Peter Shilton is in earshot, but for the most part, that England team faulted their goalkeeper for not thumping his way through the head and body of the short Maradona to clear the ball.
A calm study of the photograph of that incident reveals Maradona with his eyes closed and his arm raised as if to protect himself from the expected impact of Shilton’s advance from his line.
Subsequently, he became the victim of his own, clever little phrase to describe that momentous happening.
Maradona a nd Argentina deserved to win that World Cup. Four years l ater, he was the captain and hero of the team which lost that trophy.
And I do mean hero. Argentina staggered into the final of Italia 90 — which West Germany reached by virtue of their expert penalty shootout against England — under the self-inflicted handicap of several suspensions as a consequence of their cynical football. But Maradona was still trying to work his sorcery even though he had virtually been crippled by opponents desperate to subdue him. He showed me his ankles two days before the final — a forlorn affair in Argentina’s case — and they were as black, blue and swollen as his self-abused body finally became.
By the time he got to the United States in 1994, he was sustaining himself on drugs and, after one magical but manic moment, he was caught and shamed by the testers.
Mistaken though he had been in his means of trying to cling to the dying of the light, he was a lost soul from that moment on.
The addictions, the scandals, the physical assaults on intrusive representatives of the media and the retreat to such absurd havens as Havana all spoke of his desperation.
Argentina still loved him but he no longer loved himself.
Maradona saw himself for what he was, the little fat boy who never grew up. In the eyes of his nation, he was Peter Pan, an enchanting child, albeit in a grotesque, misshapen form.
Now, after bringing so many so much pleasure, he is due a full measure of our sympathy.
Think of him not as the Hand of God. Think of him as the second greatest footballer ever to grace the game. Perhaps the greatest.
Think of him not as a drugged fiend. Think of him as a broken doll in a toy hospital. A Pinocchio awaiting the gift of life. That blessing which t he hand of God had delivered on several occasions before.
Until the Almighty decided the time had come to bring peace to this tortured soul.
He rose from the slums and became a symbol of hope for his people, who like genius bubbling with volatility
It was his capacity to produce magical skills at electrifying pace around the goal which set him apart