Diego Armando Maradona: a legend

[yanno]

Just because Maradona's paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get him

Argentina's much-maligned manager may have qualified for next year's World Cup, but his mood was anything but mellow



"You lot take it up the arse," were Diego Maradona's words to the press immediately after his team secured a place at next year's World Cup finals. It was almost adding injury to the insult when he scanned the room and added, "if the ladies will pardon the expression". Looking increasingly Botox-ridden, the angry yet victorious Argentina coach was somehow able to raise a nervous chuckle from those on the receiving end of the abuse.

He wanted to dedicate the triumph to the fans back home and especially those who bothered to cross into Uruguay, to his girls Dalma and Giannina, and to his squad, who worked like never before for the 1–0 result. "But certain people who have not supported me, and you know who you are, can keep sucking," he added.

Grotesque and undignified, Maradona then grabbed his genitals with both hands, signalling some sort of manly insult to the TV cameras in the tunnel outside the dressing room.

In stark contrast, Uruguay's manager, Oscar Tabárez, praised his own team and their opponents. He had also impressed with the gentle manner in which he had helped Carlos Tevez back to his feet after a Uruguayan tackle had rolled the Argentina forward off the pitch during the game, and with the kind but firm way in which he expressed the view that his side could still make it to South Africa via next month's two-leg play-off with Costa Rica.

The Uruguay-born commentator Víctor Hugo Morales described the match as mediocre – "it is so bad it's not surprising the fans are celebrating a goal scored in a different match altogether," he said when news of the already qualified Chile's goal against Ecuador spread – and it was one which Argentina arguably won despite, rather than because of, Maradona's influence. Afterwards the players hugged each other and wept with joy as their manager wobbled towards the 70-year-old general manager, Carlos Bilardo, and they clutched each other sobbing.

When those two joined forces for their first World Cup, in 1986, they famously felt everyone was out to get them. "We had to leg it out of the country, even the government were asking for my head," Bilardo would later recount. Their sense of triumph in adversity was a theme throughout that tournament, and when Fifa's cameras captured the dressing-room celebration of a demented Diego waving his shirt in the air after the final and bellowing "we dedicate this to all of you, the fucking whore that gave birth to you", the clip was slotted into an otherwise classy edit of the tournament and released as a successful film, Hero.

There has been a sense that something similar is in the air right now: almost as if the antagonism fuels Maradona, keeps him alive even. As ever there is an element of truth in his opinions, and they shape his perceptions. But just because he's paranoid does not mean they're not all out to get him.

After an initial treading-on-eggshells approach, the Argentinian press has been more and more candid about its reservations. Criticisms are dealt out more readily and severely, and the personal gets mixed up with the professional.

And Maradona himself blurs the lines: his first game, against Scotland in Glasgow, saw a weepy manager discuss his daughter's pregnancy in detail after she had been admitted to hospital. The child's father, the striker Sergio "El Kun" Agüero, left the training camp to be with her. Maradona considered this the main issue of the day, praising his players for their ability to behave like caring human beings. There was no mention of tactics, line-ups, or anything else related to the game.

Almost a year on baby Benjamin has been born and amid rumours that the young couple are going through a rough patch, Agüero did not even get a place on the bench last night. Although these titbits of gossip are not published, they spread like wildfire.

Inside details from the camp are leaked in streams of text messages to selected journalists. The afternoon before the Uruguay match, one AFA insider messaged several of them just before 3pm, saying Maradona had just got up. It's hard not to be paranoid in that context.

But more worryingly still, Maradona's outburst echoes the warring attitude of the long-standing AFA president, Julio Grondona, towards the main media in particular, and most of the press in general. Yesterday he had a slight loss of cool when he spoke of how he is tired of "taking it" for 18 years. Singling out obscure radio stations for very specific criticisms of him, Grondona said he reads and listens to everything, all night long. His language of hatred and the way it was delivered left a sour taste.

And it is not just Maradona's team who are finding it difficult. The Under-20s failed to qualify for their World Cup, something which has hardly been discussed in the press yet.

Wednesday may have been the night on which Argentina confirmed their reservation at South Africa 2010, but if it goes on like this it ain't going to be pretty. And even though some of us chuckled during Maradona's press conference, deep down we also know that it's not funny either

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/oct/15/diego-maradona-argentina-world-cup

 

[Caco]

You should read his autobiography. Talks about himself in the third person. Was an absolute legend as a player though.

One thing about football legends though, you have to be flawed to be truly loved.

Maradona

Best

McGrath

Gazza

Cryuff

Cloughie

Greeves

Schuster

Etc.

As opposed to Pele, Beckenbaur, Charlton.

I think it has something to do with the fact that ordinary people can relate more to people with real life problems.

 

[yanno]

Maradona, like many on your list of great players with very human flaws, is a neverending melodrama, a real life soap opera.

Reality TV featuring a living legend. Not C-list celebs locked up in some bubble space residence, gazing at their own and other's navels. Rather a national icon at the heart of very real events, coaching his national team in World Cup qualifying.

Unfortunately, watching Maradona as a coach is like imagining someone with the tactical stupidity of Kevin Keegan supercharged on crystal meth.

His outburst at the press after achieving qualification is entirely understandable. His emotions were very human and I'm sure he feels he's right and has been unfairly criticized.

However, Argentina have been dire under his stewardship, and his everchanging selectiions have been bizarre. He picked the always ordinary veteran Martin Palermo ahead of both Tevez and Aguero, with Aguero not even making the bench against Uruguay. Perhaps Aguero had had a fight with his partner and the mother of his child, who just happens to be coach Maradona's daughter...

Jonas Gutierrez got relegated with Newcastle and is now playing Championship football because he's an ordinary player and noone's prepared to pay to get him out of barcode land. Yet Maradona has regularly picked Jonas ahead of the likes of Maxi Rodriguez and, effectively, Tevez and Aguero if the Argies played a 4-2-3-1.

And Lucho Gonzalez, Cambiasso and Zanetti don't even make the squad.

I doubt the head of the Argentine FA has the cojones to fire Maradona, so the World Cup should be pretty astonishing.

It's a dead cert that we'll see those wild wild Maradona eyes again.

 

[Caco]

Maradona, like many on your list of great players with very human flaws, is a neverending melodrama, a real life soap opera.

Reality TV featuring a living legend. Not C-list celebs locked up in some bubble space residence, gazing at their own and other's navels. Rather a national icon at the heart of very real events, coaching his national team in World Cup qualifying.

Unfortunately, watching Maradona as a coach is like imagining someone with the tactical stupidity of Kevin Keegan supercharged on crystal meth.

His outburst at the press after achieving qualification is entirely understandable. His emotions were very human and I'm sure he feels he's right and has been unfairly criticized.

However, Argentina have been dire under his stewardship, and his everchanging selectiions have been bizarre. He picked the always ordinary veteran Martin Palermo ahead of both Tevez and Aguero, with Aguero not even making the bench against Uruguay. Perhaps Aguero had had a fight with his partner and the mother of his child, who just happens to be coach Maradona's daughter...

Jonas Gutierrez got relegated with Newcastle and is now playing Championship football because he's an ordinary player and noone's prepared to pay to get him out of barcode land. Yet Maradona has regularly picked Jonas ahead of the likes of Maxi Rodriguez and, effectively, Tevez and Aguero if the Argies played a 4-2-3-1.

And Lucho Gonzalez, Cambiasso and Zanetti don't even make the squad.

I doubt the head of the Argentine FA has the cojones to fire Maradona, so the World Cup should be pretty astonishing.

It's a dead cert that we'll see those wild wild Maradona eyes again.

I don't think Maradona is going to win any awards as a coach as he compares everyone to himself and as footballers they don't make the grade.

Unfortunately for Argentina, his ego also causes him to fall out with players who he could do with in his team. Riquelme being the most high profile. Even though he is one player who Diego once highlighted as Argentina's greatest ever player.

I think its similar to the Roy Keane situation. He had certain standards for himself as a player and can't accept or understand how any of his players don't aspire to them.

Maradona was always anti-establishment in everything he did. He hates FIFA, he hates the Argentine FA, he hates Pele cause he's a politician. Whereas he loves Fidel Castro and Claudio Caniggia.

As a footballer, an absolute legend. Too big of an ego to manage.