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The year 1990 on the Gregorian calendar may not be significant in the lives of many. But it has a special place in my memory. For me, the source of the first understanding of frustration, achievement, and advancement in the flow of life can be ninety. And this year I met him, but I can say that I met him, Diego Armando Maradona Franco, my favorite Maradona.
Even then the age did not reach double digits. At that time Mirpur was quite far from Dhaka, we lived in a sublet house in the Shahjahanpur railway colony. Moved in February 1990. Life began to float with the school, the neighborhood environment, the newly understood friendship and the new feeling of backwardness. The Nippon brand’s 20-inch black and white television at home was a source of pride for lower-middle-class families at the time. It came to the family four years before the relocation. Even then, television was not widely available to middle class families in Dhaka. Perhaps that is why our new rented accommodation in Mirpur became popular with locals for at least the first three or four months due to television. Especially the soccer World Cup in June-July of the nineties. The matches were broadcast live from Italy on Bangladesh Television-BTV.
It is only the age to learn to understand the touches of madness surrounding the Soccer World Cup. The name of the ‘defending champion’ team is Argentina. Hero of the World Cup Maradona. I don’t understand the meaning of playing soccer, but Maradona and Maradona are everywhere inside and outside the home. Selling flags in the streets, scattering displays and posters. The rush to buy football at home. It exists in shops, fields, mahallas, living rooms or bedrooms of houses, cemetery walls and even in the place of disposal of excreta.
Maradona, a soccer icon at the time, led the world-class Argentine team to a World Cup victory at home in singles. But I didn’t see the world-winning hero captain Maradona. The one I have seen, the one I know, is a defeated legend, an indelible memory of a footballer who burst into tears like a child. Hundreds of thousands of hopes were shattered in the stadium in Rome on July 7, 1990: the World Cup in the hands of the German Lothar Matthias, Maradona with his head down and a medal around his neck.
However, the youth of Dhaka did not take long to face the pain, the name of the achievement was ‘fall of the dictatorship’. The mass uprising that flew the red-green flag of independent Bangladesh in the 1970s, the mass uprising was flown by the military in the 1990s. Mass Uprising – The application of difficult words is an essential fact of the history of a nation, but at least now I am proud. The last staging was in 2013 in Dhaka. However, there is no excuse to stray from the topic. For me, ninety is literally the beginning of a new chapter in Dhaka, a turning point in history and a year for Maradona.
He probably would not have felt the need to write if he had not said goodbye, on November 25, 2020. Death embraced Maradona. Rather, you can obtain immortality through it. This should not be lost, come back to mind again and again. Those who love Maradona, how can they forget? He is one of the few people who has stood out in the last century. But he was as fragile as we are; he also painted a chaotic chapter on greed, sin, and enjoyment. It didn’t take long for the character to change from hero to villain.
He was banned from soccer for the first time in 1991. The drug cocaine could not avoid responsibility in the drug test, ban for 15 months. Although the beginning of the mischief is even earlier. According to the newspaper’s report, the Spanish club Barcelona was caught in the clutches of drugs after breaking the transfer rate record at the time. These seeds of intoxication matched the stalks when he made his speech at the Italian club Napoli. Permanent relief from cocaine addiction has never matched it. Outside of the soccer field in Italy, Maradona may not be very popular with anyone. The clashes with criminals, the allegations of corruption, the use of drugs, the shooting of journalists, were not covered by the media.
He befriended Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro in search of a way out of drug addiction. La Pedrera went to the clinic for treatment but couldn’t stop using cocaine, but she did get a cigar. Castro, the enemy of Western capitalism, and Maradona, one of the world’s soccer brands, have a strange father-son relationship. After a year and a half of suspension, he returned to the court, but did not return to the rhythm of ‘El Paybe the Auro’ – which in English is called ‘Golden Boy’.
Following his expulsion from Napoli, what he hoped for came true when he failed another drug test at the 1994 World Cup in the United States. And I … or us, what a nightmare! Argentina vs Brazil, Abahani vs Mohammedan, Pakistan vs India at school – I know this is a pointless conversation for the current generation. But how can we forget the insanity of the duality of childhood and adolescence! Especially who is the best? If not Maradona!
Ah, sitting on the side bench against Romania in the second round of the World Cup in Los Angeles in the 1990s, watching another defeat for the team, saying goodbye with tears again. The next day, I was also defeated by the mockery of the Brazilian fans and the Pel fans. Brazil won the World Cup!
Although my love for soccer has grown over time, cricket has started to gain popularity in the country. That Abahani-Mohammedan emotion was quietly lost from life, the discussion about Sabbir-Aslam’s superiority was lost. Akram Khan, Rafiqs came, Ashraful also came. Saeed Anwar, Sachin Tendulkar, and Brian Lara are brilliant in discussion. Football was then on the side bench. But I haven’t forgotten about Maradona.
There are ups and downs in my life too. At that time, in the middle-class society of Dhaka, doing well in a good school, the opportunity to give scholarship exams, being able to get admission to a cadet university was the measure of success. I was not out of the flow, either. Even if the license plate number is a bit revealing, you may not want to remember getting through high school. Still, I have continued my studies, they have dragged me into life. This story of ups and downs is not just mine, a whole generation I know has spent the day like this. It may have been a source of inspiration: Maradona.
So much waste may be the price of stardom for Maradona. However, he did not give up. Once again he appeared on the world football stage in the role of the coach of Argentina, the soul of the team, another superstar Lionel Messi. Failure again, ban! The tragic defeat against Bolivia, the qualification for the World Cup in Argentina in Tenetún, the expulsion of all kinds of football for two months for insulting a journalist: that’s what Maradona is all about! In July 2010, Messi and Maradona beat Argentina 4-0 in the quarterfinals in South Africa. Maradona was fired as a coach that month.
Argentina fans are disappointed again. However, most lives did not stop there. Maradona did not stop. Impossibly possible colorful, diverse, contested-criticized, controversial and yet he is the inspiration. For me, for my generation, Maradona is not just a star footballer, he is named after the frustration of the emotions and expectations associated with him.
It has shown how much the measure of success in a person’s life can be increased and how much the shame of defeat can sink in. The more they abuse Maradona, the more he wants to be adopted, that’s life. A goal was scored with the ‘Hand of God’ wrapped in a soccer ball, the world screamed: Goal! Whatever the purpose of life, the story of victory and defeat is inevitable for everyone, and the veil of an example of that inevitability! So again I say the name of the inspiration: Maradona.
ChristianSand, November 25, 2020
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