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The miracle of Diego Maradona

It was the 1986 World Cup quarter-final match in Mexico where the two rival teams Argentina and Englandmet for the first time since the 1982 Falklands war. There was a sizzling pre-match temperament amongstthe Argentine team members and according to theArgentine defender Jos Luis Brown, Everybody in thatsquad knew of someone who had been sent to fight for the country and each one of us had our own

feelings. The Argentine captain Diego Maradona scored two memorable goals in the match and

permanently imprinted this famous encounter and himself into the folklore of world football. The first onewas scored in the 50th minute of the match by a punch of his hand - it was the infamous Hand of Godgoal. If the Tunisian referee Ali Bin Nasser had properly noticed the action, he would have certainlypenalized Maradona and disqualified the goal as a handball. Maradona however, symbolically attributedthis goal as a sweet revenge to Argentina's Falklands war defeat in the hand of the British force andremained impenitent about the goal for twenty long years only to coyly admit later that the goal was A littleof the hand of God, and a little of the head of Maradona. Also in his bestselling memoirYo Soy El Diegohehad confirmed that, Now, yes, I can say what I could not say before.What hand of God? It was the handof Diego!

The second goal was the one cited today as the greatest goal in the history of World Cup and also the Goal

of the Century. This is a goal worth describing. Six minutes after the infamous first, Maradona possessedthe ball near the right sidelines in his own half. After gaining control of the ball in the fraction of a second,he masterfully dribbles out half of the England team with eleven virtuoso touches of his foot (he had amiraculous left foot and rarely touched the ball with his right) that apparently made the world-class Englishplayers look haplessly nave. He finally dribbled past the English goalkeeper Peter Shilton to calmly roll theball into the net. This marvel of 10 seconds was undoubtedly a piece of sheer magic. Gary Lineker, theEnglish striker later recalled that he just stood there on the halfway line and thought, Wow. That couldhave meant we were out of the World Cup, but it was just breathtaking. Argentina defeated England 2 -1 toenter the semi-final. (SeeChris Hunt:The Hand Of God)

In many ways, the 1986 FIFA World Cup will be everlastingly connected with Maradonas name. Never inthe history of the World Cup since 1930 did a single player seen to absolutely dominate the entire

tournament as the Argentine jersey number 10 did it in 1986. Maradona was the captain of a relatively weakside, energetically played every Argentine matches in that tournament with a supreme presence on theground, was the powerhouse behind the game strategy of his side and was singly responsible for convertingArgentina from a good team to a great team. Following the quarter-final match against England he nettedtwo more brilliant goals in the semi-final against Belgium. In the final match against the reasonably strongWest German side, the German players were by and large successful to pin down Maradona in the entirematch by double-marking him except once when Maradona made-up enough space for him to send alethally accurate through pass to Jorge Burruchaga to score the match winning goal. Argentina lifted thecup beating Germany 3-2. Indisputably, Maradona won the Golden Ball award as the tournament's best

player. It is widely accepted today that any participating team on that particular World Cup could have beenthe champion if they had Maradona on their side.

The legend of Maradona is the universal story of a genius with real hardship behind, a career dotted withmomentous highs and lows. Diego Armando Maradona grew up in the working-class barrio of Villa Fioritolocated on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires. The place was poor and troubled; inhabited by paupers,drug addicts, drug peddlers, thieves and stray dogs. Describing the place Maradona once said that If it waspossible to eat, people ate. And if it wasn't, they didn't. Though Maradonas family was poor, theircondition was not as terrible as some of the other neighboring families as his factory worker father had ajob. He spent his childhood in a shack, shared a room with seven brothers and sisters. While rainfall, theirbeds had to be moved to keep away from the ceiling leakages and regularly walked down the street to fetch

water from a community tap for the familys daily use. (SeeMatt Dickinson:Maradona, a slum and thebirth of a legend)

It is on the same potholed streets of Villa Fiorito where the gifted Maradona started kicking the football

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along with the local urchins. Lucky for him, his genius was spotted in his early age of 11 while he wasplaying in the local club Estrella Roja. From then onwards it was a straight rags-to-riches story. Hisprofessional career started ten days before his sixteenth birthday in 1976 with the Buenos Aires clubArgentinos Juniors, where he played for the next three years and later joined the famous Boca Juniors. Atthe age of 16 he was selected in the Argentine national team as the youngest player ever. His first World Cuptournament was in 1982 and he continued to play in three consecutive World Cups. He captained hiscountry in 1986 and 1990, winning the first and losing the second in the finals to West Germany. He playedhis last World Cup in 1994. After the second match against Nigeria he was tested positive for ephedrine

doping and expelled from rest of the tournament. He was subsequently banned by a FIFA disciplinary panelfrom playing nationally or internationally for the next 15 months and was fined $15,400. The whole worldwas shell shocked by this startling news. The media which always had a love-hate relationship with him wasparticularly harsh. In response to the ongoing Maradona bashing by the press,Nicolas Michael in a letter tothe sports editor of The New York Timeswrote:

Diego Maradona messed up. Diego Maradona is far from perfect. All of these facts have been covered in substantial

detail and with much emphasis again and again. There is one other fact that also needs to be covered again and again,

with the same amount of emphasis. Diego Maradona was not just a very good soccer player. Diego Maradona was the

best player to play this game, with perhaps one exception, that of the great Brazilian player Pele.

Maradona also had a phenomenal club career. After his initial stint with Argentinos Juniors, from 1981-84he played for Boca Juniors and FC Barcelona and from 1984-92 for SSC Napoli. It is at Napoli were hisprofessional career reached its zenith and also elevated the Italy club to the most successful era of itshistory. His Napoli years ended disgracefully in 1992 after he served a 15-month ban for failing a drug test.

It is widely believed that Maradona got addicted to cocaine in the mid 80s during his Barcelona days due tohis failure to cope with the pressures of success and his roller-coaster lifestyle. His addiction aggravatedwhile he was with Napoli. In 1991, Maradona was tested positive for cocaine use after an Italian leaguematch and was suspended from professional football for 15 month. Few months later he was arrested forpossessing half-kg of cocaine and was slapped with another suspension for 14 months. After the 1994 World

Cup disaster, Maradona gradually retired from professional football. Following his retirement, his healthcondition worsened. He became overweight and suffered increasingly from obesity. In 2000, Maradonawent to Cuba for treating his heart problems and cocaine addiction. Wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and ahuge Che tattoo on his right arm he commented after arriving at Havana that he chose Cuba because of thedignity of its people. He had also donated the Cuban royalties of his memoir to the Cuban people andFidel. Maradona returned to Argentina in 2001 after staying for nearly two years in Cuba only to go back

again in 2004, after a major heart attack that almost took his life. However, in 2007 he announced that hewas finally been able to quit drug and drinking. In 2008, Maradona was handed over the job to coachArgentinas national team for the 2010 World Cupin South Africa.

In the recent years, Maradona has openly displayed his leftist sympathies and anti-imperialist stand. Hebecame a friend of Fidel Castro and Evo Morales, supported Hugo Chvez, declared Che Guevara as hishero and grew more and more anti-American. He posed for the famous photograph wearing a T-shirtlabeled STOP BUSH and called George Bush human garbage. In 2007, he stated that he hate everythingthat comes from the United States.

During his recent visit at Kolkata, the public was seen to turn almost crazy. Was it due to this leftist anti-American stand of Maradona? Certainly not. What was then the reason? Why the crowd was seen topatiently wait for the entire night at the airport to have a glimpse of him? Was it just because he was a livinglegend? Why many of their eyes got moistened with joy when they finally saw him? Why were they soemotionally aroused when they touched the famous Hand of God? Arecent article by Nirmal Shekarin The

Hinduhas incisively described it:

"For a good part of the 1980s and well into the 1990s, no single sportsperson captured the imagination of a greater

number of sportslovers all over the world than did Maradona. From the dusty maidans of Kolkata to the village greens

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of middle England, from the shanty towns of sub-Saharan Africa to the football-crazy Italian cities of Naples and

Milan, his was the most readily recognisable name in sport, his was the face that stirred emotions like no other, his

were the feet that at once brought back memories of transcendental magic."

Watching Maradona on the field was like looking at a delicate piece of oriental artwork. Every bit and pieceof his game was decorated with glittering artistry. Diego Armando Maradona was the artist par excellencewho could create extraordinary moments of splendor on the football ground at ease. His outstandingtechnical mastery with the ball, his marvelous sense of timing, his ability to find out amazing openingsbetween the huddle of players in a very limited space, his high-speed short and long sprints, his incredibledribbling power, his ability to take deadly free-kicks and reverse-cross pass shot behind the leg, his amiableskill of holding the ball for a longer time amid fierce challenges from opponent defenders and intelligentlyreleasing sudden but accurate passes en route for his fellow players to finish all this has made him thegreatest creator of football magic in recent times and an extremely delightful player to watch.

It is heartbreaking to see that most of India hardly recognizes Maradona. It is also a pity that todays kids donot feel the similar goose bumps their fathers and grandfathers still experience while recalling thismiraculous footballer in their minds. But they cannot be blamed for it. They have not seen Maradonaplaying the 1986 World Cup.