Diego Maradona--A boy and a ball

Diego Maradona, the best footballer of his generation, died on November 25th, aged 60. Sent on an errand, or packed off to school, Diego Maradona didn't walk. He practised keepie-uppies, instep to thigh to backheel to head, with anything roughly round he could find. Scrumpled paper would do, or an orange, or a ball of rags. Tac-tac-tac, on and on and on. Then he hopped on his right foot, especially up the steps of the railway bridge, while his left foot tried out skills.

If no one was wanting him he would head for the waste ground of Villa Fiorito, one of the worst shanty-towns in Buenos Aires, but home to him, to have kickabouts with friends until night fell, or later. He wanted nothing from life but football. He could live on it. Then, perhaps, he might have enough money to buy a second pair of trousers to replace the tired old corduroys he always wore, winter and summer.

Little did he think that by 1986, after playing for Argentinos Juniors and Boca Juniors in the first division, at Barcelona and at Napoli, as well as in the national side, he would be able to have all the fine clothes he wanted, as well as all the flash cars; and that he would be on a podium in Mexico City, as Argentina's captain, kissing and shaking the shining gold World Cup, hardly knowing what to do with it, except to keep it in his hands.

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