With the World Cup nearly upon us, I felt it was time I put fingers to keyboard and write something about the World's favourite sport. For me personally, I have no greater hate figure in the world of sport as Diego Maradona. I feel I should say that I have no desire to slander anyone on these pages, so let me get through some of my objections to this human being one at a time and make sure I don't say anything illegal.
Maradona is a short, cheating, drug-taking, Argentinian footballer. Nothing illegal there, as far as I can see. He is short, something like 5 feet 5 inches in stature. Cheating? Yep, let's just take a quick look at the "Hand of God" moment from 1986. I think only blinkered Argentinian fans and the sodding referee and linesmen from that match would possibly think otherwise. Drug-taking? How much proof do you need? Diego has probably stuck more Colombian marching powder up his hooter then the Rolling Stones combined. Argentinian footballer? OK, OK.
I, like many England football fans, sat and watched that match from Mexico in 1986, live on TV. I still remember the moment the homunculoid little shit fisted the ball into the net beyond the despairing Peter Shilton. I sat and waited for the referee to rule it out. And I sat. And I waited. And I waited a bit more. After several more waits, it suddenly dawned on me that the half-wit in black was going to let it stand. How on Earth could he have missed it? To compound matters, he then goes on to score one of the finest individual goals ever seen. Gary Lineker pulls one back for England. Then in the dying seconds, John Barnes skips round the back of the Argentinian defence, scoops over a perfect cross and Lineker, steaming in, JUST misses nodding it into an inviting net. It never crossed Gary's mind to raise his hand and punch it past the Argentinian goalie. What would dear little Diego have said then if it had been allowed to stand? Would he have just shrugged his tiny shoulders, mumbled something about waiting all this time for a hand of God and then two come along at once and carried on with the game? Somehow I doubt it. Whenever there is a poll of the most skillfull player who has ever lived, Pele has to win. Everytime. Not just because he was a better all round player than the vertically challenged, cocaine-snorting, ball punching, cheating little toss-pot, but because punching a ball past an opponents goalkeeper would never have crossed Pele's mind. Why should it? If you have that much skill at your disposal, why bother to cheat as well?
In the latest National Geographical Magazine, they have an article which, in typical American style, is called "Soccer - The World's Favorite Game". In it, Thomas Jones from the London Review of Books writes about Diego Maradona and THAT match. He rather gratingly states at the end of his piece: I've always suspected that high-minded censure of the Hand of God is a way of dressing up disappointment and frustration that England lost; that the behavior for which England fans will never be able to forgive Maradona is not his cheating, but his running around five England players like so many wooden posts to score the greatest goal that's ever been scored and knock England out of the World Cup. Is it BOLLOCKS. If Maradona had beaten England by two superb LEGAL goals he would be rightly feted as the greatest footballer of all time. But he didn't. He beat England by cheating disgustingly and THEN showing the world his true class. And that is something real football fans will never be able to forgive him for, which just goes to show that Thomas Jones is not a real football fan.
Room 101 for both him and Diego.
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