h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Diego Armando Maradona - Footballer - A9852393
Author: Annie - Happy 88th birthday Dad! My journal to post greetings please! - U128652

I've tidied this up for hopeful inclusion to the EG. Original entry:A575011 by author Gedge U128041

You can start corrections, typos, grammar, etc., straight away, thanks.

Annie


Submitted 03/03/06

Original entry A575011

**please post here for comments on the entry on Diego Armando Maradona - Footballer**

Thank you

My suggestions for a quick closing paragraph on his post-football career (and to bring this well above the dead thread!)

Cocaine, heart operation, obesity, chat show, stomach op., thinner!

Azara

Thanks! Is cocaine what he was chucked out of the World Cup for? or something new?

I think he'd previously been suspended from his club because of cocaine, but it was a failed test for ephedrine that actually got him thrown out of the 1994 World Cup. But the cocaine habit seems to be what has had him in and out of rehab clinics for years.

Azara

I could have sworn there was an edited entry on cocaine but I can't find it. Is it called something else?

Not as far as I know.

There's a bit in the giant Billy Joel We Didn't Start the Fire project on crack cocaine, at A2701513. That might be what you remember.

Azara

OK I wasn't sure how much you wanted me to write so how's this:

Post Football Career

Maradona spent the first few years of the new millennium in various clinics to attempt to cure his addiction to cocaine. He was also hospitalized with various other health ailments. In 2005 he had a gastric by-pass (stomach stapling) to help him lose the flab after his weight ballooned.

Maradona cleaned up his act and now, looking fit and trim, he hosts a two-hour chat show called La Noche del Diez (The Night of the Number Ten) - a reference to the Number 10 shirt he wore when playing for Argentina. His first high-profile guest was Brazilian footballing legend Pele; then his friend Cuban President Fidel Castro bumped up the ratings somewhat.

Some Argentine fans are so in awe of Diego Maradona they worship him as a god, with its own 'Maradonian' religion, ten commandments (one of which is to call your son Diego) and Hand of God church. Italian director Marco Risi is going to make a film about Maradona's life. It is expected to be titled La Mano di Dio, (The Hand of God) - the phrase Maradona used to explain the infamous goal against England in 1986. How could it be called anything else?

That certainly covers it nicely!
One tiny point:
"they worship him as a god, with its own 'Maradonian' religion,"
The "its" doesn't quite match: maybe just "they worship him, with their own 'Maradonian' religion," (I assume he doesn't actually take the 'religion' very seriously, so it's probably better not to say "his" religion!)


Azara

"When only fifteen, he was just 10 days short of his sixteenth birthday"

That's slightly stating the obvious! I don't think it needs two ages.

I thought that was rather obvious, but I've tried not to change too much of the original author's work, as I don't know this person at all. Have I put enough links in? I haven't even used the h2g2 search engine yet, too distracting in RL atm.

I'll make those amendments you both suggest.

Thanks very much for the reviews

Updated. Added a few links, can anyone suggest any more?

I'm expecting football fans to turn up anytime

go and ask the VSC at A243677

Hi Annie, as a football fan it appears that the entry is comprehensive enough for the little "ch*at"! Ouch - yes the "hand of God" goal still hurts after all this time.
The post football career is almost as interesting. He was hospitalised in Cuba to try & cure his drug abuse.
Following this, on March 6, 2005, it was announced that Maradona underwent gastric bypass surgery in a clinic in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. When Maradona resumed public appearances shortly afterwards, he displayed a notably thinner figure.
On 15 August 2005, Maradona made his debut as host of a talk-variety show on Argentine television, La Noche del 10 ("The Night of the #10"). His main guest on opening night was Pelé. Later shows featured guests from the worlds of football and show business.
Also, I seem to recall that he went on Italian tv on something like a dancing cum chat show but the regular commute from Argentina was too much, but cannot find any hard evidence of this.

> Arguably one of the most talented players of his generation

I don't think there is any argument about it, is there? Sure, there's the "hand of God" thing and the drugs problems, but most football fans don't hold this against his talent. In fact I would go as far as to say that the "of his generation" should be upgraded to "ever". I would say that his problems detracted from his status - without them I don't think there's much doubt that most pundits would now be describing him as better than Pele.

> He went on captain the Argentine team to victory in the final, making Maradona World Champion.

You know, I was sure that he wasn't the captain in that tournament - for some reason I have this image in my head of a different player receiving the trophy - but searching for the last few minutes has proved to me that it is the case. Well, I was only 7 years old at the time I remember he almost single-handedly won the final against West Germany (even though he didn't actually score) - his pass that set up the winning goal was something else.

He was captain in 1990, the tournament where the Argentines basically played for a penalty shoot-out in each game and then ironically lost the final to a dodgy penalty, and had two players sent off as well (and I'm sure that Maradona openly wept at the presentation ceremony afterwards).

> USA 1994 ... "total disaster" ...

Again, I remember him scoring a goal and doing a particularly manic celebration in a pretty large win over Nigeria (on reflection, it was quite obvious he had taken something)... so it wasn't all bad, I guess.

Maradona at the 1986 World Cup was as good as it gets for a footballer. David Pleat said that 'Arsenal would have won the World Cup with Maradona.' That's how good he was. This entry is ok, but for me Maradona's story is almost like a Greek tragedy. Unsurpassed talent which the protagonist never knew how to cope with, one WC from four in which his talent fully expressed himself(an interesting fact is that one of his feet was injured, swollen to a size 8 whereas his normal size was a size 5). Nobody has ever done so much to win a World Cup under so much pressure.

The game against England sums him up; a bit of lowdown opportunism followed by the greatest individual goal in the history of the World Cup. Don't forget he also score 2 superb individual goals against Belgium, plus one against Italy, one disallowed against Uruguay. This link is mibbe the most fantastic photo I've ever seen of a football match.
http://www.allstarsignings.com/IMAGES/maradona%20belgium%20BIG.jpg

An entry on Maradona should give a hint of the highs and the lows, why he was perhaps the most talented but never the greatest player ever, not just be a synopsis of his career.

'...I've tried not to change too much of the original author's work...'

This is obvious, Annie, the punctuation and grammar isn't up to your usual standard - it needs a really good look over in that respect

Pedro has put something very well in his last paragraph there. Maradona was a genius, a magician; someone capable of doing things no-one else in the world could. I have no recollection of watching the Hand of God goal, but the other one from the same game - my god. At the age of ten, watching with my Dad in the lounge, I remember it happening, and I remember us re-creating it in the playground the next day and for weeks afterwards. Don't forget, this was the most vilified man in football as far as the English were concerned.

I digress. Reading this entry, I feel like I would if I read a biography of Sinatra that only talked about his record sales. It's odd, but the story of Maradona just feels like it should have more ecstacy and tragedy, just as his life has.

What it does is very good, but I feel it needs more about the man rather than the deeds.

I don't have a clue who David Pleat is, but that's a great quote and I'll put that in.

I'll try and have another go at this, but if it's woefully inadequate I'll have to Flea Market it and let a football fan do the job.

Is Maradona comparable to George Best then? (I could have written that staory almost without research). I would have written his bio but someone else beat me to it.

Feel free to point out the punctuation and grammar errors - I don't mind humungous posts,

OK I've added another header on Maradona the Man which I know requires more info and I have to break for lunch, but feel free to read what I've done so far and post comments.

I'm adding you all as co-authors as I go along and add stuff because this is already a collaborate entry, if anyone doesn't want to be listed just tell me and I'll change it, or you can remove yourself, I won't be offended.