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Why Maradona Is God — And Messi Isn’t
Maradona was everything but an easy character, but the sports legend represents so much more for Argentinians.
Somewhere around 2013, I was at the gym, finishing my workout on the treadmill, when I glanced at the door and saw a short, chubby man walk in the door, followed by a bleach-blond woman 30 years younger and a personal trainer three times his size. His attitude was that of someone who owned not just the gym, but the whole city.
It took me a couple of seconds to understand this tiny man with a potbelly walking around the gym in his tracksuit was El Diego. Diego Armando Maradona, one of the undeniably best football players of all time, alongside Brazil’s Pelé.
I saw Maradona a couple more times in those days, before he got a job coaching a team in Dubai. He was still doing okay, sort of, although he did look physically much older than most men his age, only 50 at the time.
Remembering the moment later, I couldn’t get over one thing: How could a mythical creature like that be so tiny?
Even I, a person born and raised in Finland who had never been interested in football, understood the importance of this character, and the strangeness of stumbling into a situation where I shared the same air with him…
