Psychiatric problems and support to the Iranian government

Time for a bit of respite from the history lesson, dear reader, so with a drop of the shoulder I’ll shufty over to all matters Diego for a little aside.

Ultimately my plan for this blog is to get bit of basic background out there first. How Argentina qualified, a look at some of the players, then a bit more of a daily reporting sort of thing, and that remains the plan.

Argentina as a country gets pretty much sneered at from England, for fairly obvious historical reasons, which means that any football coverage is more often than not bundled into the novelty ‘and finally’ category. Surfboarding dog, pizza with the face of our lord and.......... “f*ck me look how fat Maradona is!” You get the drift.

Actually, that is a bit freaky

Bit of a shame really as I’ve taken to watching a lot of South American league football via the gift on the interweb over the last few years. I’ve found myself with the choice of Stoke v Bolton, or a rerun of Boca Juniors v River Plate, and it really is a no brainer. I understand why the premier league is so popular the world over, but the skill on offer from even the poor sides in Brazil and Argentina is pretty mesmerising.

Now I can get all purist on the subject of the beautiful game and it's still a big deal to me; but you and I both know why we are here. Diego. It’s all about him really. I’ve named the blog after him after all, so it’s only fair the guy gets his dues. Typing ‘maradona scandal’ into Google gets 312,000 results, which tells its own story. Although typing ‘toilet Disney’ gets 2.2million so I think I’ve lost my way a bit there. And ‘tongue christmas’ gets 8million. Anyways, what I’m trying to get at here is that controversy has always followed El Diego like a fluffy little Labrador.

Air rifles have been fired at the press, donations made to Fidel Castro. There have been divorces, illegitimate children, drugs, alcohol, heart attacks, liver failures, hepatitis, death (3 times at the last count), psychiatric problems and support to the Iranian government. When I read a recent headline titled ‘Maradona in dog attack’ I found myself surprised that a pooch had gone for El Diego, as opposed to the other way around.

Having done a bit of a straw poll (no, me neither) at work the other day regarding how Diego is now, the general consensus was that Maradona was roughly 120 stone, and categorically off his face. The latter may still have an element of truth, but Diego actually lost the weight in 2005 after gastric band surgery and a general warning that he was in the last chance saloon. Prior to taking on the national job Diego had been a regular football pundit on Argentine TV and did particularly well in a ‘director of football' role with Boca for two years. He also managed to host a ratings topping talk show on Argentine TV, La Noche del 10, (The Night of the no. 10, if you didn’t manage to work that out).

Mustn't grumble

To be fair I’ve no idea whether Diego is totally clean these days, but for a bloke of 49 he looks in pretty good nick considering what’s gone before.