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The Maradona magic

When on song, Diego Maradona was a matchless magician who turned sport into a sort of super-sport, writes Nirmal Shekar

The squat little man’s journey begins from behind the halfway line. Every pair of eyes in the stadium is focussed on the ball as time itself seems to come to a standstill. A thick mop of sweat-drenched black hair bouncing off his forehead, the man brushes aside huge English tacklers as if they were frail autumnal leaves as he dances along in a magic moment of sheer inspiration.

The race downfield accelerates as its nonchalant author feints a pivot to the right, surges ahead to the left, clears yet another hurdle and then, in a timeless moment of sporting genius, makes that giant among goalkeepers, Peter Shilton, look like a hapless amateur as he effortlessly guides the ball into the goal.

Brilliant goal

It is an impossible goal. Yet, it is one that is made to look so simple by the genius of the squat little man. It is a goal that is as enigmatic as the man himself, yet something that is as uncomplicated as the great game itself. It is one brilliant piece of athletic perfection and a hundred perfect little parts fused into a matchless whole.

It is an act of liberation and an act of triumph. It is an act of celebration and an act of will. All this expressed in an universal language in the most truly universal of ballgames

In the not-too-distant future, when I sit down with my grandchildren and recollect some of the greatest moments in a long career watching and reporting sport, that piece of action, enacted in the 1986 World Cup by Diego Maradona — it was his second goal of the match, the first, the Hand of God goal, as infamous as this one is famous — will be right at the top of the list.

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 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.

From the time he first played for Argentina as a 16-year-old prodigy, through success and failure, injury and good health, glorious feats and inglorious dark moments of despair, Maradona managed to remain the most celebrated sportsman of his times.

Remarkable career

If the undisputed high point of a remarkable roller-coaster career was the World Cup triumph in Mexico in 1986, then even the widely acknowledged low points of the gifted Argentine’s life as a playing professional assumed a significance seemingly far beyond the scope of sport.

Pele, widely acknowledged as the greatest footballer of all time, may have had a more productive career both at the club and country levels but when on song Maradona was, arguably, even better than the great Brazilian.

No World Cup in football is as intimately connected with a single player as is the 1986 edition. It was a World Cup that proved beyond doubt that for all the talk about disciplined organisation and teamwork, a team often needs only that special touch of genius to bring up a major triumph.

It was a World Cup in which Maradona’s goals against Belgium, England and Italy brought up moments of pure magic. Not only did they offer spectacular surprises to the mind and eye but they also stood out as masterpieces in motion for their sheer technical virtuosity and inventive genius.

Dazzling dribbles, wicked feints, superb balance, devastating acceleration, flick-knife back-heels — there was just about everything on offer as Maradona explored the range of his gifts.

Unfortunately, Maradona never again scaled such heights in a World Cup. In the early 1990s, he ran into all sorts of problems — something that might be inappropriate to dwell on at a time when Indian football lovers are celebrating his presence in their midst — but the remarkable aspect of Maradona’s life and career is that he has been able to pick himself up and look ahead cheerfully every single time he has been knocked down by life’s left hooks.

Bravo Diego.

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