Footballer divine diego maradona’s appeal transcended his sublime soccer skills

Footballer divine diego maradona’s appeal transcended his sublime soccer skills

Diego Armando Maradona lived six decades. During one of those decades, the 1980s, his sublime skills on the football field transformed him into a demigod. The outpouring of grief after his demise this week was not limited to his native Argentina. He was a global icon. The high noon of his career was the 1986 World Cup, where his brilliance inspired a team to play beyond its capability and triumph. It remains one of the most consequential displays by an individual across the entire spectrum of team games. Maradona is arguably the most impactful footballer ever.

His iconic status was not just on account of his exploits on the field. Pele and he were after all joint winners of FIFA’s award for the player of the 20th century. It was the vicissitudes of Maradona’s life on and off the field that made him so relatable. For Argentina, throttled by a military junta, in seemingly irreversible economic decline and having received a drubbing in the Falklands War, Maradona’s magic in the 1980s provided succour and hope. He was drawn to Latin America’s polarising political leaders. The feeling was mutual. He had his “second father” Fidel Castro’s face tattooed on his leg and Hugo Chavez was another friend.

Maradona’s uniqueness lay in the manner in which people from all walks of life could use him to express themselves. England in the 1986 World Cup was at the receiving end of Maradona’s most discussed goals, the infamous ‘Hand of God’ which was followed by a magical waltz past half the English team. Nineteen years later, Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, used Maradona’s goals in that match to explain how modern central banks functioned. He had a name for it: The Maradona theory of interest rates. Match that, Ronaldo and Messi.