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Diego Maradona is gone. On October 30, 2020, he just celebrated his 60th birthday.
After a day of news bombardment, too much sadness, too much emotion, almost made our nerves tend to numb. So we decided to use a whole new perspective to explore how Maradona used a World Cup that year to almost change the world.
But in this part, you may not see too much Maradona, but on the contrary, we will talk about the bad words of "old horses" in the second part. These rough, bitter, dim corners and edges within him eventually drained his career and prematurely devoured his life. But the paradox of human nature is that it is these flaws that allow him to cross the boundaries from superstar to cultural icon, making this seemingly perpetually rebellious old South American boy almost become a "god".
12 hours after Maradona's death, the famous sports media outlet The Athletic published an article on the front page with a very clever title called "Diego and Maradona". But we felt that it was not direct enough, so we apologetically added two finals, and now we have the title "Diego the Devil, Maradona the Angel".
"The past is all false, memories are a road of no return, and the spring of the past is no longer there. Even the most fanatical and virtuous love is, in the final analysis, a fleeting reality, and only loneliness is eternal."
— García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Graphic finishing / Yin Haonan
01
"Angel" Maradona
Led by coach Carlos Bilardo, the Argentine national team stumbled to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
Ahead of the World Cup in Mexico, Argentina's ten-year journey was like a roller coaster. In 1978, when the Argentine military government was in full swing, at the homegrown World Cup, coach Menotti led the team to win the World Cup at home. Kempes scored twice, and the classic final drama of the overtime victory over the Netherlands also went down in history.
In 1982, the defending champion traveled to Spain for the World Cup. Argentina's manager is still Menotti, but this time there is one more player in the team, called Diego Maradona.
Still, Maradona's first World Cup trip was a mess. Against Italy, Maradona was stared at with the ball; against Brazil, the 22-year-old "Pony" kicked the opponent's buttocks and was sent off with a red card, and the defending champion was eventually eliminated in the second round of the group stage. After the World Cup in Spain, Coach Menotti, a generation of famous managers and staunch allies of the junta, was officially dismissed, and he was replaced by Carlos Bilardo, a dentist-turned-football iron figure.
Although the main reason for the change of coach is the poor record, The appointment of Bilardo still caused a lot of shock and controversy in Argentina. On the one hand, it is because of the super prestige established by Menotti leading the team to win the World Cup on home; on the other hand, it also comes from the tactical styles of the two managers.
Luis Menotti, with long flowing hair, gray sideburns, a gentleman, holding a cigarette in his hand, often cloudy, with sharp and thoughtful eyes. He was not only a coach, but a poet, a philosopher, and he lived up to the imagination of all Argentines. In the 1970s, Menotti led the Hurricanes to the Argentine First Division, allowing traditional, dashing and gorgeous tango football to resurface in South America.
With such prestige and merit, Menotti became the head coach of the Argentine national team.
Cesar Luis Menotti
What's even more interesting about Menotti is that a bohemian leftist figure had a very good relationship with the right-wing junta that was in power in Argentina at the time. Because Menotti hopes to use the power of the junta to help him put more national resources into football, and finally realize his dream of leading Argentina to the World Cup.
On the other hand, for the militaristic government that was deeply involved in the turmoil, it was also particularly necessary for Menotti's national team to perform, and it was necessary for him to have such a gorgeous style of play, to gain popular support at home, and to establish a better image internationally. Although the final rivals Holland were missing the big man Cruyff, football will not remember the losers, and this championship has also put Argentine football on a new historical peak.
However, Argentine football has never only a beautiful and dashing side, it also has a very direct, utilitarian and even rough side.
For example, the popular coach Offierdia in the 60s advocated a tactical style of destruction, oppression and high-level pressing. This has also given him great success and prestige in football. As a result, Argentine football also diverged from a group of centaurs who valued the spirit of pragmatism, which was in stark contrast to the traditional Romantic tango football in Argentina.
In fact, the popularity of football style is always a "one-off" cyclical situation. When the three-back was prevalent, people felt that there was no market for the four-back, and when the four-back rose, everyone thought that the three-back was dead. Similarly, when classical tango Argentine football reached its peak in 1978, it seemed that the pragmatics had run out of their way. But four years later, in 1982, it was a turning point in Argentina's fortunes. That year, they not only lost the Falklands War with Britain, which led to the downfall of the junta, but also Argentina's collapse in the World Cup in Spain also caused Menotti to leave the classroom.
"Change" has become the main theme in Argentina. And Bilaldo, who took office, was the representative of the pragmatic football in South America at that time.
Note: The Falklands War refers to a local war that broke out between April and June 1982 between The United Kingdom and Argentina for sovereignty over the British Overseas Territory of the Malvinas Islands (named earlier by French explorers and still spoken in Spanish). Seventy-four days of fighting resulted in the loss of 255 British troops (including 8 Hong Kong Chinese), 775 wounded, 649 Afghans killed and 1,657 wounded. Three other Falkland residents were killed by artillery fire during the British counteroffensive. The picture shows a monument erected in Argentina for fallen soldiers in St. Martin's Square.
Carlos Bilardo is also a very legendary manager. In addition to his status as a player, he also holds a medical qualification and is a gynecologist. After retiring from the army, in addition to practicing medicine, he also helped his father do the furniture business, and coaching the team has always been his career ideal.
Carlos Bilardo (suitist from the left)
A doctor, a furniture agent, a football manager, can be the same person – such a figure, placed in the present is almost unimaginable. The succession of Bilardo also represents the resurgence of pragmatic football in Argentina.
When playing, Bilardo's style is quite rough, he will stop at nothing to hinder the opponent's attack in various ways, and this utilitarian, pragmatic and extreme tactical style has also been brought into his coaching career.
Bilardo once said, "If you get second, you're nothing." This sentence can be said to run through the life of his own, and even his most proud disciple, Diego Maradona.
Before taking over as Argentina manager, Bilardo and Menotti maintained a good friendship. In 1978, after Argentina won the World Cup, Bilardo did not hesitate to praise and praise Menotti's national team. Still, what many didn't expect was that in Bilardo's first game in charge of the Argentine national team, he eliminated The players ThatNotti liked out of the starting lineup. So Menotti picked up the pen and personally wrote an article criticizing Bilardo in the Argentine "Horn", and the relationship between the two famous coaches broke down.
However, tough and tough, Bilardo has always been a very special figure in the history of Argentine football. The most special thing about him is that as long as it is not an important game, his team cannot win. In all kinds of warm-up matches, no matter who the opponent is, the losing side is always Argentina, which has more than Lar.
For Chinese fans, the most "famous" defeat is undoubtedly the 1984 third India Nehru Gold Cup football tournament, almost the main force of Argentina lost 0:1 to the Chinese men's football team. It may also be one of the greatest victories in the history of Chinese football. Although the Chinese men's football team at that time was not the same as now, but now, if an Argentine head coach even played such a faceless warm-up game, he might have left the class a long time ago - Bilardo is such a person, as long as it is not an important game, he will lose without any limit.
In this sense, he is very similar to Ramsey, who won the World Cup with LinkedIn Grand in 1966: they like to "show weakness" to the enemy in friendly matches and hide their true tactical intentions. It wasn't until the official game that the real murderous face was revealed.
Berardo also said, "Football is a game of 7 people defending and 3 people attacking." Fortunately, one of his Argentine "three" was Diego Maradona, who was in his prime.
In 1986, at the Aztec Stadium in Mexico, in the quarter-finals, Argentina met England.
Before the game, the atmosphere of the game was unprecedentedly tense. The connection between football, politics and society is never new. But before 1986, it seems that no other sports competition could attract as much attention as the World Cup that year. After all, just four years after the Anglo-Afghan War on the Falklands, the Argentines' idea was to borrow their favorite football, the shame of the Shema Island. Argentines are the best at football, and in England, the birthplace of football, there is also a great deal of importance to football.
The process of that game does not need to be described in too much detail. In five minutes, Maradona fully displayed the two different faces of "devil" and "angel".
With a "hand of God", Maradona jumped up high and "smashed" the ball into the door with his hand. Despite the constant protests of the England team, the Bulgarian referee did not change the sentence. The Bulgarian referee died a few years ago, and the blow was forever nailed to the shame column of "fainting", resulting in one of the most suspenseful and dramatic unjust cases in the history of world football. It is true that the English have been wronged, but it seems that the whole world is on the side of the Argentines.
The moment of the "Hand of God"
Just four minutes after the goal, Maradona scored the "goal of the century" by five in a row.
In general, there are probably three types of great goals: teamwork, fatal blows, and gorgeous dribbles. And for every goal, there is an "official" great representative: for example, Carlos Alberto's goal against Italy in the 1970 World Cup; Marco van Basten's goal against the Soviet Union at Euro 1988; and Diego Maradona's goal against England at the 1986 World Cup.
One detail was that this great goal against England ended up with Maradona passing England goalkeeper Hilton and then emptying the goal. But Maradona later revealed that in that moment he actually recalled a similar moment six years ago in the friendly against England at Wembley – when he tried to kick the ball straight past goalkeeper Clemens sideways but kicked the ball off the far post. On the night after the game, Maradona's younger brother Hugo called him to warn him that the England goalkeeper was ready and that he should pass the goalkeeper before finishing the shot.
At one point, Maradona was furious at his 10-year-old brother's finger-pointing. But on the 1986 World Cup stage, when he once again went straight to the Goalkeeper of England, he did not waste the opportunity again, but "followed" the advice of his brother Hugo, passed the goalkeeper and sent the ball into the net steadily.
The historical significance of this goal does not need to be said more. Many people's understanding of football begins with this ball. Back in the game, after conceding two goals in a row, although Bobby Robertson changed the team for England and pulled a goal back through Lineker, he was ultimately unable to return to the sky and regretted the loss.
After the match, Argentina reached the semi-finals. Even so, argentines already felt they had won the world, and after the defeat of the Falklands, they were expecting such an outbreak.
So, maybe Maradona is the true "ally" of the Avengers. In the minds of Argentine fans, why he can have such a high historical status, not only because of his great record, great skills, but also because in such a special historical and political background, all the fierce national emotions have melted into such a famous stadium as Azteca, and then Maradona has completely vented it in the most extreme and enjoyable way.
In the end, the increasingly courageous Argentine team defeated Belgium 2:0 in the semi-finals and the Federal Republic of Germany 3:2 in the final, once again lifting the Hercules Cup. Maradona also delivered a perfect performance of 5 goals and 5 assists, and completed 53 dribbles in that tournament, a full 37 more than the second place, making him the most dribbled player in the history of a single World Cup.
It must be mentioned that although Maradona is the most brilliant pearl in this football crown, it is still coach Bilardo who gives the laurel crown temperament.
A small story, before the final against the Federal Republic of Germany, In order to test whether the players were concentrating, Bilardo rushed into the room of Argentine defender Rugeri at four o'clock in the morning, and after shaking him from his bed, Bilardo asked him, "When Germany plays a corner in the final, who should you defend?"
However, even in the most confused time, Rugery still said the correct answer, "Rummenigge!" At this point, Bilardo was relieved. The "pragmatic" football representative is such a figure.
Four years later, in 1990, as a mentor-apprentice duo of Billardo and Maradona, Argentina once again appeared as the defending champions of the World Cup in Italy. Argentina eventually lost 0:1 to the Federal Republic of Germany, and was successfully revenged by the opponent, and did not win the championship. But what you may overlook is that there were two things in the 1990 World Cup that almost determined the fate of Argentines.
First, in the group stage in 1990, Maradona staged "Hands of God" again. This time, he was in his own penalty area, blocking a shot from the opponent with a handball in front of the goal, and the referee once again made a fool of himself, not blowing Maradona foul.
Then Maradona patted his goalkeeper Goyechea and said, "Rest assured, God is An argentine."
And this ball also helped Argentina escape the disaster and was able to stumble out of the group.
The second thing happened in the semi-finals. Argentina met their mortal opponent at the Stadio San Paolo in Naples: Italy.
In fact, many of the Italian players are from Argentina, and Maradona has deep ties to the Napoli team, because the most successful journey of his career was spent in Naples, and the Stadio San Paolo is one of the stadiums he is most familiar with. However, such a dramatic game, God does not seem to be fierce enough. As a result, the game was dragged to a penalty shootout, and the last person in Argentina to take the penalty was Maradona.
Under the watchful eyes of tens of thousands of Italian fans at the Stadio san Paolo, Maradona scored a penalty and sent the Italian back home.
But at the moment Maradona did not know that when he scored this goal, his fate in Italy took a historic turn. His fate in Argentina also took a historic turn.
In 1990, it became a very important watershed in Argentine football. Since that year, Argentine football has flourished and declined, Maradona has also flourished and declined, and Argentina's pragmatic leader Bilardo has finally come to the end of his national team coaching career.
Maradona (left) with Bilardo
Yes, Argentine football is like this, like a talented but often difficult to control the fine points patient, the style of play is always "one after the other". While people were still arguing about who was higher and who was lower than Bilardo and Menotti, the "middle way" faction represented by Bielsa, Diego Simeone and others began to grow into the new mainstream of Argentine football. Then in the decades of football time, an important chapter in history was written.
02
"Devil" Diego
On 6 October 2017, the International Association for the History and Statistics of Football (IFFHS) hosted a "World Football Festival" in Germany, which was undoubtedly a significant moment in the history of football.
At the star-studded celebration, IFFHS unveiled a number of awards. In the most closely watched "Player of the Century" selection, veteran journalists and former players from all continents of the world voted for Pele – so the Brazilian legend beat John Cruyff (1303 votes) and Franz Beckenbauer (1228 votes) with 1705 votes, winning the title of "Player of the Century", none of them.
Maradona, on the other hand, finished fifth with just 1214 votes, not even the Argentine player with the most votes – he "lost" to his Argentine compatriot Di Stefano by one vote.
The "Player of the Century" Top 10 listed by IFFHS is the player name/nationality/vote
Of course, it is undoubtedly absurd to set the strength and status of historical stars through just one award. But we must also admit that maradona is not the "perfect" person, even in terms of skill. For example, his right foot, if trained diligently, may belong to him more than one World Cup laurel, and the joke that "even Maradona will not have a right foot" will not become one of the best black words to describe many left-handed players today.
"Is Maradona's play really at the pinnacle of his game?" This question seems difficult to answer. Comparing him with other great stars in history one by one, it is even more thankless guan gongzhan Qin Qiong. But if Maradona is really the first person in the past, his skills should be perfect, so that future generations cannot reach or surpass. Sadly, Maradona wasn't perfect, at least his right foot was rather mediocre." Luo Ming, a well-known domestic football expert, once said in the article "Diego can do better".
"In times of lack of information, it is easier to generate a cult of personality. For those who have only seen Maradona play, Diego is certainly the best in their eyes. For example, in fifa's online selection of the world's best players, netizens put more votes on Maradona because they are a relatively young fan group."
A teenager mourns Maradona on the streets of Argentina on November 26
"Of course, the most comprehensive is not the best. However, the real qualified judges of Pele and Maradona are the professionals who have seen them play. For example, in the IFFHS's Best of the Century award, the voters are veteran journalists and former players, and the final result should be said to be a fair evaluation." Luo Ming wrote.
Perhaps the debate over Bailey and Maradona will continue indefinitely in the days to come. But the only fact about Maradona that is not debated is that no player has ever been able to inspire such a fierce love from the fans who love him.
"The more chaotic the more beautiful, the darker the brighter" — the New York Times wrote this in its report on Maradona after his death.
"He was never a simple football icon. He struggled with drug addiction for decades. Because he tested positive for doping, he was disgraced and expelled from the World Cup. Health problems plagued him, proving that he had been living a life of unbridled debauchery. These indulgences and struggles prevented him from accomplishing all the things he could have accomplished, and ultimately shortened his playing career." The New York Times wrote.
In contrast, modern soccer superstars live an almost spiritual life. For example, C Ronaldo, such as Messi, such as Levan, with the help of staff and clubs, pay attention to diet, maintain body shape, and control all the interference factors that are not conducive to their competitive state to a minimum.
But Maradona is the opposite. Especially in the years of Naples, can you imagine? He can go along with cocaine binge for days after a game, and then go home and close the door until the start of the next game.
Naples' "darling" Maradona Photo: Etsuo Hara/Getty Images
Maradona is even closely associated with the local Camorra criminal group. He drank in the bars of the gangster's turf, gleefully accepting their gifts, their complimentary champagne, their drugs, their sexual service. Whether in Barcelona, Naples, Seville or his hometown of Buenos Aires, his lifestyle is endless indulgence.
In addition to the sins that were covered by the sun, his criminal record that had been made public was equally innumerable.
In January 1991, maradona was charged with "possession and distribution of cocaine" after a phone conversation with a sex worker was intercepted by the police; three months later, he tested positive on a banned drug test and was banned from playing worldwide for 15 months; in 1994, after testing positive for doping at the World Cup in the United States, he was suspended again; a few years later, he was sentenced to two years and ten months of probation, because in an incident four years ago, he shot an air gun at a reporter, injuring four of them. And the allegations of domestic violence by his girlfriend have also pushed him to the cusp of the storm many times... No matter how loyal Maradona fans you are, you can't turn a blind eye to these negatives about idols.
Maradona walks to doping tests during the 1994 World Cup in the United States, holding the hand of a medical official Pictured: Michael Kunkel/Bongarts/Getty Images
In 1997, his illustrious career came to an end, ushering in a bitter ending in Argentina.
"Drugs made me a worse player than a better player. If it weren't for drugs, can you imagine what kind of player I would have become?" Years later, Maradona said in an interview.
Is this his confession? Maybe, maybe not.
According to the New York Times, during a 2005 tv variety show, he was asked what he would write on his epitaph after he died.
"Thanks to soccer." He said.
"This sport has given me the greatest joy, the greatest freedom. It was like touching the sky with your hand. Thanks to football."
"When you play on the pitch, the questions that bother you in life, the meaning of life itself, everything, are no longer important." He also said.
If I had to put it in a sensational way, it would be, "When Diego Maradona is on the pitch, the questions that bother you in life, the meaning of life itself, everything, is no longer important."
Maradona at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 Photo: ERIC GAILLARD/REUTERS
And when we turn off the circle of friends and put down the mobile phone, we find that such a day seems to have been a long, long time away from us.
We may not even have experienced it.
(End of full text)
The information in this article is mainly compiled from:
1. Xiao Shen is the keynote speaker of ECO Krypton's audio album "War and Sports - Anglo-Afghan Love Feud" EP4
Click on this link to jump to the Dragonfly FM Mini Program and search for "War and Sports" to listen
2.The Athletic《Diego and Maradona》
https://theathletic.com/2222291/2020/11/25/diego-and-maradona/
3.nytimes《The Most Human of Immortals》
https://cn.nytimes.com/culture/20201126/diego-maradona/dual/
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