Soccer: Foul play

By PAUL LEWIS


It's difficult to think of anyone in sport more unlovely than Diego Maradona. I have never met the man, never seen him play live, only ever seen him on television. I have recognised the football genius, sure, no one could miss it.

But in years of following and writing sport, I have always felt that most sports-people have a certain sliver of gold that runs parallel to the steel that forms in their spines. Sportspeople know about sacrifice, discipline, commitment. They also know about disappointment, deflation and the pain from the needling of a nation of critics. They know about triumph, but most of them also know about the humility that goes with it - lest the triumph be over-celebrated and the athlete lose touch with the ordinary folk from whom he or she sprang and must one day rejoin.

That's pretty much true of sportspeople around the globe. They may not always be the most intelligent or worldly people around - some of them are too closeted within the narrow confines of their sport - but they have a quality about them that makes us warm to them.

Not, it seems, Maradona. I picked up el diego, "the autobiography of the world's greatest footballer" (Random House, to be released November 19) with some anticipation. Here, in his own words, was the chance to dig deep into the psyche of the tiny kid who went from Buenos Aires poverty to footballing genius to a bloated, drug-ridden, sneering and volatile encapsulation of all that is poisonous and decayed about football.

He claims to be the people's own, but gives the lie to that by forcing up his nose designer drugs denied to poor people because of the price and a lifestyle about which you can say the same.

And his autobiography is littered not with insight, but the protestations of the wronged demi-god. His life is a long and ultimately charmless series of clashes with other players, coaches, managers, referees, media, police, family, etc, etc, et-doomed-cetera. Always they are wrong. Always El Diego - and this is how he refers to himself - is right.

He likes, even now as he clings to a life where his heart is at risk of exploding, to position himself as a rebel. He feels this way, you cannot help but observe, because everyone else is against him. Che Guevara is his hero and he feels there is an obvious comparison. God help us.

You can excuse his stance and his life by making the apology that he did not have the intelligence nor the will power to be able to resist the seduction of fame. But this is an ultimately empty effort to explain a man whose book reveals him as empty of anything except himself.

At the beginning of the book, the ghost writer feels the need to explain some of the street patois used by Maradona, plus some slang the little genius invented himself. One is the word "vaccinate". Maradona uses this word in the same way as 'f***', and refers to vaccinating women and vaccinating opponents by scoring a goal against them. I am no prude and no stranger to bad language, but you can't help but feel that the liberal use of this and other language underlines the sickness in the game and the man.

He may be remembered as the world's greatest footballer but also the world's greatest cheat. The "hand of God" episode where he cunningly handballed a goal to score against England at the 1986 World Cup still reverberates, not only for the cheating, but for the sheer megalomania of the term Maradona chose to describe his wrongdoing.

Granted, politics and the Falklands war was invested in this particular game, but the ambiguity of the hand of God statement speaks volumes about Maradona.

His second goal in that game, in which Maradona mazed and twisted his way past a series of defenders, is the one that people talk about as something godly. But even here, with his artistry centre-stage, he still manages to spoil things.

I got a lot of pleasure from the other goal as well. Sometimes I think I almost enjoyed that one more, the first one. Now I feel I am able to say what I couldn't then. At the time, I called it the 'hand of God'. Bollocks was it the hand of God, it was the hand of Diego! And it felt a little bit like pickpocketing the English.

Ah, the joy of cheating. But there is another excerpt which catches el diego better.

I met the Pope. It was disappointing. He gave a rosary to my Mum. He gave a rosary to Claudia. When it came to my turn, he said to me: "This one's special, just for you."

As they left, Maradona realised that his rosary was the same as the others.

So I went back to him and asked: "Excuse me, your Holiness, what is the difference between mine and my mother's?" He didn't answer. He just looked at me, gave me a little pat on the back, smiled and carried on walking.

Total lack of respect - he just patted me on the back and smiled, that's it! As if he was saying, Diego, stop breaking my balls and get going - I've got people waiting for me.

Of course I was angry with him. It's why I've got angry with so many people. Because they are two-faced, because they say one thing here and then another there, because they'd stab you in the back, because they lie.

You might say the hand of God got diddled by the hand of the Pope.