I confess – I’m a recent convert to football. I’ve been a cricket fangirl for the longest time, but my colleagues made me love this beautiful game so much that I’ve left all thoughts of Dhoni’s men far, far behind.
For instance, Vinay wrote about the beauty of the bicycle kick and other spectacular goals here.
And Princy made me fall in love with Messi, the boy, who overcame physical limitations to become the phenomenon that he is today.
And Anirban educated me on the various contentious goals in the world of football – including Maradona’s infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal, one that he later admitted to ‘handling with care’, like Bikash calls it.
The more I read about the game, the more I wanted to know; the more I knew, the more I wanted to watch the game; and the more I stayed up to see the matches, the more I wanted Argentina to win.
For two reasons:
One, Messi – somewhere along the way, I started seeing him through Princy’s eyes, and if I can be allowed a moment of utter honesty, fell in love with him like she has.And two, Maradona – if there was one coach whose feet were on the field, even if only in his mind’s eye, it was him. While other coaches and managers screamed from the sidelines, cursed their teams, tried to communicate telepathically with their boys out on the field, Maradona was the 12th hungry man, if you will. If his ill-fitted suit and formal shoes and age and the ravages of time and wrong decisions weren’t standing in his way, he’d have been out there on the field, maneuvering the Jabulani exactly where he wanted it to go.
But as I saw Maradona’s WC dream get shattered bit by bit with every goal that Germany scored in the third quarterfinal of the WC, my heart went out to him – all that energy that couldn’t be contained in that stocky body all this while went out in one audible sigh that was heard over the buzz of a million vuvuzelas.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a case of sour grapes. Germany outclassed Argentina, no doubt about it. With Muller’s first goal in the third minute, I suspect Maradona knew Argentina’s fate was sealed. But till the last 10 minutes of the game, you could see him trying to hold on to the last glimmer of hope that somehow, in some way, Tevez or Higuain or Messi would get past the Berlin Wall that Germany put up right from the start of the game, to do what he would have done, had he been on the field.
Granted he’s perhaps the most notorious legend of the game. Granted he was a drug addict. Granted he’s used the wrong means sometimes to see his team through in the games that mattered. But all that comes to nought (at least for me) when you see the unbridled passion he has for the game.
For him, it’s not just about winning , though that is a huge part of the deal. It’s about *not* losing – it’s about staying on the field despite screaming muscles till the last second, till the referee sounds the death knell on the match, till he’s convinced beyond a reason of doubt of the result of the match.And even if the result is not what he wants it to be, till every player in his team is kissed and hugged.
Like Prem says in his post on the best book on football, Eduardo Galeano’s Soccer in Sun and Shadow, the author writes about how the game has today become a business – it’s all about strategy, planning, money and all that bunkum. Maradona to me is what the game in its purest form is all about – the adrenaline, the passion, the joy of foot connecting with ball and the sight of the ball clearing all hurdles and heading to its netted destination.
And the collective roar of a million fans who in that one instant know where home truly is.
And for that, just for that, I wanted Argentina to win. And I wanted Maradona to get his chance to streak on the streets of Argentina.
