 |
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Diego who? You can't keep a good man down -- nor Maradona
Posted: Thursday January 06, 2000 06:13 PM
Let me start this piece by saying that at the dawn of the new millenium I didn't expect to be writing any kind of prose about Diego Maradona. A relic of the previous century whose rise to fame came principally in the decade of western excess -- the 1980s, the man who epitomized the era had long since been consigned to the pages of history in my mind. Sadly, you can't keep a good man down, nor Diego. The recent revelation that the hypertension and irregular heartbeat that sent him scurrying to a Uruguayan hospital was exacerbated, if not caused, by cocaine use, having once again enticed the world's media to put pen to paper on the subject of one of the most flawed sporting heroes of our time. The question is -- why should anyone care? Granted, he was a good player, and indeed the results of our recent World Sport Web site poll suggest most of you think he was a great one.
But let's face it, off the field, you'd have to say his "acting" ability ran his footballing skills a close second. Acts of contrition were his stock in trade, usually coming at the end of a script that went: sin, get found out, deny, admit, repent. It happened so often it was boring. Of course, throughout his career there was always another chance to make amends because he was a genius. And for younger Websurfers who might have missed his heyday, rest assured his ability to win a match singlehandedly was probably without parallel, as my own home nation, England, discovered in the infamous "hand-of-God" quarterfinal in Argentina's World Cup winning year of 1986. In fact, even in his retirement, there've been some prepared to ignore the unsavory side of his personality, his recent selection as Argentina's sportsman of the century serving as a case in point of an entire nation prepared to forgive and forget. This time, however, the benefit of the doubt should surely not be forthcoming. There are no excuses. It's time to tell it like it is. For all his brilliance, Diego Maradona is and was among the most self-indulgent, insincere shysters that ever laced-up a boot. And now he's just Joe Blow with an apparent death wish, instead of a football phenomenon. It's high time we stopped feeding him the headlines he seems to crave.
Terry Baddoo is a co-host of "World Sport," the international sports show that airs live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN International.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
