Maradona and Me
By: Sebastián Arana
Tags: Diego Maradona, Tck, Soccer

This pretty much came out in one go as soon as I heard Maradona had died. I was at work, on a fifteen minute break. I had to stop midway, but finished as soon as I got home.:

The ’86 World Cup was the first that I could watch, and that which has had the clearest impression on my eyes and memories.

I grew up and have lived in the U.S. Here, at that time, you couldn’t watch much soccer on TV. There was only the indoor style of soccer that we have in my city, and I can’t recall that those games were ever televised. I have another entry in FB about a favorite player on that team (August 2020).

Sometimes, on cable, they would show German soccer on Sunday mornings, and I would get very excited. I still can’t entirely explain why I get excited about this sport. I’ve spent my life asking myself whether it’s an artifact of the Latino/Hispanic culture with which I feel slightly disconnected or whether it’s for the game alone. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Sometimes I’ve thought that the sport for me was a way to free myself of the knot of cultures within which I lived. Sport doesn’t care about that. The rules stay the same, no matter where in the world you are.

Maybe that’s why I felt free there.

I once watched a speech from a physicist who was within months of death from terminal cancer, and I will not forget something that he said. Although he looked nothing like any type of athlete, he expressed something quite clear: When he had a football in his hands, and when he found himself on a football gridiron, he felt, like no other place on earth, at home.

You could say the same about me with soccer.

Some years ago, I went by the fields near the home where I grew up. It was the beginning of September, still summer, with the surrounding trees a deep green, and the grass the dark color of life.

I left my bike aside, and walked through the pitches, and as if I had entered some kind of portal, forgot everything. Maybe it was because I was so close to my childhood home, which gave that sense of security that doesn’t go away and surrounded me, but in those moments, I felt at home, and a peace came upon me that I cannot describe.

I thought of what the man said in his speech.

Another quotation that occurs to me comes from the movie,”Goal!” It’s about a young Mexican who comes to the U.S. illegally with his father, where he’s discovered as a player, and ends up playing for Real Madrid. In a moment of angst, he confides to his girlfriend that he doesn’t know where home is. She replies,”Yeah ya do. It’s green an’ it’s got a goal post at each end.”

The ’86 World Cup, thanks to the station Univision, which will always have my support if only for this reason, was televised for all the games of that tournament. I don’t think I missed one, sitting on my father’s rolling, black, cushioned chair, my legs dangling over the armrest, as I was still small.

I remember my father’s enthusiasm as he joined me watching some games, his words of praise and surprise that I imagine were thought, felt, and expressed all around the world at the same time, watching Maradona’s indelible plays live.

It was the tournament during which I watched the most games with my father. I also, over time, have lost the patience to watch as many games, but, well, the passion continues in one way or another.

Maradona was, as a player, an example for me, THE example. At that time, Pelé was still king, but he was unreachable to me, maybe because I was too young to have watched him play live.

Maradona, a contemporary, was much more accessible, palpable. He defined for me what a star player was, the best.

It wasn’t until the strategy changes came that the “10” position began to diminish. Maybe it was with Riquelme, another Argentine, that the “10” really died. The game has changed so much.

It was only over time, since we did not have access to world news as we do now, that I began to learn about Maradona as a person.

I highly recommend the movie “Diego Maradona,” which came out last year, directed by Asif Kapadia. He goes deep into Maradona’s life during his time at Napoli, and describes well his trajectory from his youth to adulthood, not only as a player, but as a man.

It’s profoundly sad that a person who exemplified, in his greatest moments, the best of us as physical specimens, has had to die at the age of sixty, that he had to suffer with a body that he could not dominate outside of the pitch. It seems unfair.

Maybe it’s a reflection of our own selfishness, always looking for the best among us, abusing them, without realizing it, or perhaps not caring, about the effects on the lives of those stars.

There are only a few things left that I can do: Recognize it, feel it, and know that he, like me, is only human.