December, 2017.
He had just about settled down in his chair for the interview when I decided to spice things up a little. “Cristiano Ronaldo claims he is the greatest,” I said. “How do you react to it?” As his interpreter translated the question for him, I thought I sensed a degree of unease. I was wrong. All of a sudden, he burst into a fit of laughter. And interestingly, it continued for nearly 15-20 seconds. “Cristiano is a very good player,” said Diego Maradona, before pausing. “But, greatest?” He looked at me, and just indicated himself with the certainty that made him what he was. A temperamental genius, and the most charismatic footballer ever.
I tried one more time. “If [Lionel] Messi does lead Argentina to a World Cup win, do you think he can claim to have equalled you?” I asked. This time round, the answer was immediate. “Leo can never be Maradona.”
In the second half of his life, he put on a lot of weight. But the skill that enthralled millions never deserted him. With 10000 people cheering for Maradona, it was fitting that we asked him to sign a few balls and kick them into the crowd. Maradona was keen to oblige. But just as I handed him the marker to sign the ball, something changed. Even as he signed the ball, his gaze was somewhere else. And even before I had realised it, he had back-heeled the ball into the crowd.
In a minute, three balls had been sent to three different corners of the crowd, sending thousands into ruptures. And all of it happened in a flash, leaving us stunned and bewildered. If the entire English team were unable to stop this man in 1986, who was I to feel stunned, I consoled myself. And Maradona enjoyed every bit of the action. He knew he had scored, and laughed and gave me a pat as if to say ‘try another time’.
The best, however, was reserved for the moment he was asked to sign a life-size cut-out of himself. Before I could hand him the marker, he had run to the cut-out and started speaking to it. This monologue continued for a good three or four minutes, and ended when he carried the cut-out with him to the interview set and placed it in a strategic position where it was visible to him.
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“He is saying: are you the same person my dear,” said his interpreter. “He is saying this man (referring to the cut-out) has scored some fantastic goals and is the best football player in the world. And sensing this is the cut-out from the 1986 match against England, he says this is the best he has ever played and this goal is the best ever in the history of world football.”
Vanity? May be.
Deserved? No one could disagree.
“I had to win the World Cup,” he told me. “They had all gone after me in 1982 and I was much too young. 1986 had to be my year. Beating England and Belgium and Germany, it could not have been better. It meant the world to us in Argentina and showed that facilities don’t produce champions.”
And as we parted, Maradona dribbled past us one final time. “He is asking: you have met Pele and now you have met Diego,” said the interpreter. “So, who do you think is better, Diego or Pele?” Maradona, I could see, had a wicked smile on his face and was enjoying each second of what was going on. He was jury and referee clubbed into one. I had no option of saying Pele, and he loved the awkwardness.
As he celebrates another birthday in heaven, the one wish I have on behalf of every football fan from across the world for the gatekeepers of the afterlife is that Maradona should be greeted today with a football. That’s the only way he will be at peace with himself, for that was what he most enjoyed in his 60 years in this world.
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