He bounces up and down on the touchline with that silver
beard and bottle-black hair, looking like the product of an illicit
union between Eric Cantona and a Tasmanian Devil.
Wild-eyed with rage and waving imaginary cards in one moment,
kissing and hugging his players in happy tears the next, the
madness of Diego Maradona is there for all to see.
When a player is fouled, he snorts along the touchline, arms
flailing. If a chance is missed, he pulls his own hair in
frustration. He sifts rosary beads through his fingers and punches
the air repeatedly in delight. Watching the extraordinary
performance, it’s difficult to avoid the thought that the fourth
official might be better off putting down the numbers board and
grabbing tranquilisers and a straitjacket instead.
But there’s no taking your eyes off him. And the craziest thing
of all is that it actually seems to be working.
Maradona’s madcap antics are cajoling the best out of his side,
with Argentina materialising as arguably the most exciting prospect
of the tournament, playing an uninhibited game that sparkles as
brightly as their coach’s diamond earrings.
Few genuinely expected it to be this way, even back in his South
American homeland. Not after Maradona used 80 players in his first
year or presided over a 6-1 defeat at the hands of Bolivia,
Argentina’s worst result in 60 years.
When he scraped through the qualifying campaign with a victory
against Uruguay in the last game, a newspaper poll still found 80
per cent of voters wanted him sacked. The few brave enough to
suggest Argentina might be winners in South Africa always added the
asterisk that this team would succeed in spite of their coach, not
because of him.
It was a logical assumption. Maradona’s selection strategy was
described as unhinged when he left Inter Milan’s Champions
League-winning duo, Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso, out of
the squad.
His tactics seemed plucked from the asylum when he elected to
use four central defenders and no regular full backs.
There is a fine line between genius and insanity and Maradona
has always had one foot planted either side of that divide.
The two conflicting sides of that personality were evident in
that infamous 1986 World Cup quarter-final against England.
First, there was the cynical deception of his opening goal, which
he famously called the ‘Hand of God’. Then there was the
awe-inspiring slalom run to score the unforgettable second, which
remains the best solo strike in World Cup history.
Method in his madness: Diego Maradona cannot be
accused of not caring
But by rights, Maradona should not be managing his
nation at the World Cup. He should be dead.
The man has tried every conceivable way to bring an early end to
his life; be it bloating up to 20 stones through binge-eating or
stuffing various illegal substances up his nose. Those habits led
to the inevitable heart attack at the age of 43, where he was only
kept alive with the aid of a respirator.
Crowds in Argentina gathered at the hospital gates to lay
flowers and say goodbye, others beat drums to ‘chant him back to
life’.
To everyone’s surprise, Maradona recovered and, just 11 days
after his collapse, decided to discharge himself, head to a series
of barbecues, play a few rounds of golf (the sport for fat people,
clearly) and, much less surprisingly, was promptly rushed straight
back into hospital.
Alarmed at his mental state as much as his physical health, his
family sectioned him in a secure psychiatric clinic in Buenos
Aires.
Maradona demanded to be moved, first to a specialist centre in
Brazil (but only if they built him a minigolf course) and then to
Cuba.
As ever, he got his wish and left for Havana with his personal
physician, lawyer and astrologer to stay with Fidel Castro. As
rehabilitation plans go, it was revolutionary in every sense.
Maradona went on to host a chat show, undergo gastric-band
surgery to lose weight and, on his 43rd birthday, a Church of
Maradona was founded in his honour, or 43 DD as his followers
called it. Naturally, he then staged his own resurrection,
accepting the national manager’s job in December, 2008. It was all
chaos and controversy at first.
When he was not shooting at reporters with an air rifle, he was
receiving a UEFA ban for telling the media to suck his ****, or
running over cameramen and blaming them for the impertinence of
having their legs broken. ‘What an a**hole you are,’ he yelled.
‘How can you put your leg where it’s going to get run
over?’
This week, he said Pele ‘should go back to a museum’ ; he slated
Michel Platini after he heard the Frenchman had questioned his
coaching ability (but apologised when he found the original remarks
had been misquoted) and announced plans to run naked through the
streets of Buenos Aires if Argentina go on to win the trophy.
Basically, he is a 24-hour rolling news item.
But the signs are there is method in his madness. He has the
knack — intentional or otherwise — of sucking up the limelight and
taking the pressure away from his players. It’s Jose Mourinho, only
with more goals.
Now Messi is playing superbly, the team are scoring with abandon
and while the defence isn’t exactly solid, there is a tactical plan
to overcome this weakness.
Maradona’s plan is to put Messi alongside Carlos Tevez,
hat-trick hero Gonzalo Higuain and Real Madrid-bound Angel di
Maria. Then he throws on Atletico Madrid’s £35million striker
Sergio Aguero as a substitute and wonders how he might bring
treble-winning European champion striker Diego Milito off the
bench.
Tactics? There’s your tactics.
Maybe it will all turn out to be the delusions of a lunatic. Or
maybe Maradona has somehow managed to capture lightning in a
bottle, pulling every disparate element of his team together at
precisely the right moment. My God, we could even end up liking
him.
And just how mad would that be?