The Next Maradona

Diego Maradona was arguably, and I hate blogging about him in the past tense because despite hepatitis and an alcohol problem he is still very much with us, one of the best if not the best soccer players ever to play the game. Argentina has had a love affair with him on the level, and oddly  enough in the same manner, that they had with Eva Peron. I won’t go into the gist of that  history. Suffice it to say: they crazy.

Almost from the beginning with Boca Juniors the Argentinian press and the public have worried, fretted about, and prayed (and preyed) for a successor. Each new Argentinian wunderkind to come out of the Boca or River academy (which constitutes every other club in Argentina by the way) is dubbed “the next Maradona” and sent on his way to play in Spain or Italy. We’ve seen since retirement, easily 15 new Maradonas.

The lineage is striking, a group of great Argentinian players like his contemporaries Ariel Ortega, Marcello Gallardo, Gabriel Batistuta, to youger models like Hernan Crespo, Javier Saviola, Pablo Aimar, Juan Roma Riquelme, or even younger still like Carlos Tevez, or Kun Aguero. Some if not all of them at any given time have been given the term “next Maradona” by the master himself. Most of us just laughed to ourselves and called it Diego was talking to himself again. No one believed him.

Until he said it again this past week, about Barcelona youngster Lionel Messi. Now don’t believe me, but look at his goal (it’s on google or youtube) and tell me if that’s not Diego circa Mexico ‘86.

I won’t go as far as to say that the goal was better than Maradona’s. It was great, and Messi did finish it from a harder angle, but you have to factor who he did it against.

Getafe are a small neighborhood cousin of Real Madrid, and while they have had an excellent La Liga campaign and they are one of its best defensive teams, you cannot compare the level of defending to what Diego faced in the England squad of Mexico ‘86.

Still, none of those other “next Maradonas” had the goal. Messi’s goal this week was a Hollywood reimagining of a timeless classic, not Casablanca recolored or Psycho reshot, but one that is as good as the original and comes at the beginning and not so close to the dire end of a remarkable career.

Lionel Messi may be the “next Maradona” or he may not, but I guarantee you that there are going to be youngsters born this week, this month or this year, and for many years to come with the unattainable moniker of the “next Messi”.

Hand of God

Look, let’s get this out of the way. I hated Diego Maradona. I thought he was a cheat, a drunkard and an addict. Every game I saw him play live was another in a string of missed opportunities, a bloated shadow of his supposed former self. I never in his entire career saw what everyone was so exited about. I heard the adulation, god it was impossible to grow up in Los Angeles in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s without hearing the name Maradona, but he was always to me a media manufactured idol. Much like David Beckham is today, I saw Diego much in the same manner.

I was 12 when Argentina won their first World Cup and the talk on Mexican television was how they had left a young superstar off their roster. I vaguely remember the 1982 Cup, one that my beloved Italy won and the first in which the diminutive #10 with a big heart and small stature captivated the world audience, but failed to secure a repeat title.

4 years later in Mexico, the first World Cup that I remember clearly, I was 19 years old I remember him fisting the ball over Peter Shilton into the England net but I never saw the other goal, the one where he beats 6 men in a 60 meter dash to slot it into an open net, the one that is called the greatest of all time. 1990 was a wasted opportunity and 1994 here in the United States was his downfall and still I heard the adulation.

I remember being in my cousin Alex’s house for the Argentina game that year in 1994. He’s married to a Connie, an Argentinian, and I saw their last match live at their house. I heard his inlaws talking about their wasted chances, the lack of creativity, and of course the plot to destroy their “idolo”.

Well, I finally read a little about Diego, in Jimmy Burns excellent book Hand of God, and I must say that I have a greater appreciation about the flawed genius that is Diego Maradona. He seems to be a pawn of his family, his associates since we can’t really call them friends, the politicians and football apparatchiks who exploited his talent, and his very human failings that the 40 year old in me can understand better than the 20 year old that first saw him play.

Look at his youtube videos, watch this little man with tree trunk legs and lightning pace turn much larger men into statues and you understand the depth of his footballing genius, but you can never see the man behind the ball, the eight ball that is, until you read the book.

I may still not like the player, I guess I’m still too much of a moralistic prude, but I’m much more sympathetic to the man. He and I share alot, even more than just a common name like Armando, and a mutual connection to Cuba.

Jimmy Burns captures him warts and all, in this unauthorized biography, and makes him a compelling figure in the history of Soccer. A great book.