Maradona is dead, long live Maradona. But he was the man you loved to hate

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This piece is inspired by a true story. A story of love and death. The good guys say that one is a mirror of the other. I don’t have a precise thought on the subject, but maybe love and death are in some sense related, like life and hatred. Let’s start with love: it is May 10, 1987, Naples for the first time champion of Italy is at the feet of its king – who is called Diego Armando Maradona – and even Salerno there is a whole carousel of blue cars. Halfway between Naples and Salerno, practically in Pompeii, on the roof of a car I see a boy playing the drum, wrapped in a huge blue scarf. I recognize him: his name is Antonio, he comes to school with me and he is a passionate Juventus player.

Maradona, love story

I can’t believe what my eyes see: “that Antonio” is celebrating the Napoli Scudetto. The next day I meet him in the stalls and ask him about this curious conversion in the Cesarini area. He gets away with a bit of philosophy: “Let’s say you’re telling Nicola a joke,” he tells me. “I happen to pass behind you and hear it. Will I be the master of laughter too, even if the joke wasn’t directed at me? So it was with the Scudetto. I’m a Juventus player but I saw the party, I liked it and I also celebrated it. At first I was tempted to tell him that with some difficulty I would be willing to laugh at a joke if that joke made fun of me, but I make the best of a bad situation. It’s the power of love: Napoli are champions, I think, the feeling is in the air and it’s okay for everyone to take a deep breath. Juventini included.

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Maradona, tale of death

Now let’s talk about death. Diego Armando Maradona comes out of this valley of tears and, after a few minutes, everyone takes off their hats. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. The football rivals of all time, to begin with. In Argentina, River Plate on Twitter dedicates a “Goodbye” to him. The English team defines it as “unforgettable” and shows it to us in that famous Mexican 1-2 of the “Hand of God”. Belgium shares an equally famous shot from the 1986 world semifinal in which six poor red devils try to score him and he taunts himself: “It was an honor to compete with you.” Here, Juventus shares the sublime punishment that Pecci returned to them at that Napoli-Juve in 1985. When even in Villar Perosa there is self-irony, it means that the moment is truly momentous. On social media and in the newspapers even those who, until the day before yesterday, criticized, challenged, made fun of Maradona, those who questioned his primacy as the strongest player of all time, seem to have suddenly changed their minds. How can this be explained? It is the power of death: detachment is an incorruptible testimony of the greatness of what we lose. And unite all who remain. Even if, in times of peace, they thought differently.

Maradona, the man you loved to hate

I also want to change my perspective: I have always been a Maradona but, after Maradona’s death, the point of view of yesterday’s antimaradonians seems more interesting to me than that of those who live in Naples, where at this time the television crews they roam in search of folklore. Because Maradona, in life, did nothing to be loved by those who were “on the other side.” On the contrary: he was the man you loved to hate, a divisive genius, always partisan in his own way, an antagonistic hero who, in the Brechtian way, had chosen to sit on the wrong side, “since all other places were taken.” I remember, yes, I remember when he arrived in Italy and became Masaniello, tribune of a commoner always on the hunt for new saints and often a victim of the rhetoric of those who tell him. A mob that in that number ten, more than a saint, found a god. Before that Napoli-Milan in which the Scudetto had to cede to Sacchi, Diego harangued his people, pointing out the scourge of territorial discrimination: “I don’t want to see even a Rossoneri flag.” Ahead of the infamous 1990 World Cup semi-final, in which Italy and Argentina met their Napoli, he did more: “Italians remember Napoli once a year,” he said.

“Strip Diego that Naples embraces you”

The Gospel of Matthew is almost disturbing: «Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword ». That match ended as we know and in the final, at the Olimpico, Italy paid an exceptional tribute to the greatest player of all time, whistling the national anthem. Diego responded in his own way, with a “sons of bitches” in favor of the camera, while his companions sang the hymn. In the following season, so suddenly, we came to discover that Maradona was a drug addict, we attended his nightly escape, as the worst of rogues, we read moralizing articles, we even listened to songs that were ironic: Diego strip that Naples embraces you. Look at the coincidences: who knows how many years the circus lasted, but after Italia 90 Maradona is a drug addict. Now Serie A dedicates a minute of silence to him.