This is Diego Armando Maradona speaking, the man who scored two goals against England and one of the few Argentines who knows how much the World Cup actually weighs.
I don’t know why, but last Christmas, the first one the whole family spent together at the old house in Villa Devoto, in Buenos Aires—everyone except for doña Tota and don Diego, my beloved mom and dad, that is—that phrase came to me. It’s not the first time a line has come to me like that. The same thing happened when I said, “The ball doesn’t stain,” on the day of the tribute match at the Bombonera, the Boca Juniors club’s home stadium. Many still believe that someone writes those phrases for me. But that’s not true. They come straight up from the heart to my head. That Christmas Eve, I looked up at the sky and thanked my folks for everything they had given me in life—which was a lot, much more than I have given them. They gave me everything, absolutely everything, they had. And they were always at my side, in good times and in bad. And, let me tell you, there have been some bad times . . .
That Christmas Eve, someone—I can’t remember who—gave me a replica of the World Cup. And when I held the golden trophy in my hands again, when I rocked it in my arms like a baby, I realized that almost thirty years had gone by since that day in Mexico when I had held the real cup. And I also realized that the joy my folks felt on that day so many years ago must have been one of the best gifts I ever gave them. The best one. It was a gift for them and for all Argentines. The ones who were behind us . . . and the ones who weren’t. Because, in the end, the people—all of them—took to the streets to celebrate.
And I also realized that the more time goes by, the heavier the cup gets. Three decades later, those ten-odd pounds feel like a ton. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am in no way pleased that no other Argentine player has lifted the cup since 1986. If I were, I’d be a traitor. Just as I’d be a traitor if I didn’t share every last thing we went through back then, tell it the way it comes out, the way I lived it. Because that’s the way I talk—that’s the way Maradona talks. As I’ll say again and again in the coming pages, my body took plenty of blows over the years, but my memory is intact.
I admit it: there are some things I see differently thirty years later. I think I have a right to that. I’ve changed a lot, it’s true, and many speak of my inner contradictions. But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, one point where I’ve never contradicted myself: when I take on a cause, I do so wholeheartedly. That’s why I can say today—so many years later—that I would have liked Bilardo to do for me what I did for him when push came to shove. That’s all. For him to have gone out on a limb for me the way I did for him. Because he knows better than anyone how I put myself out there for him when the Menotti and Bilardo camps were at war. I fought for a cause that should have been everyone’s. I put the Argentine jersey above my personal preferences, and even though I had a special place in my heart for Menotti, I never admitted that in public.
The rest is history. You remember it the best you can; you remember it how you feel it. That’s why I say that this is my truth. Everyone has his own.
The one thing I would shout for all to hear and write for all to read—something that I myself can’t forget—is that everyone acted like I was crazy when I said we were going to win it. I wasn’t so crazy after all, now was I? In the end, we did win, we won it all.
And on these pages, I’m going to tell how we did it.
Many ask me about that celebrated thing I said when, still just a Cebollita (I played for the Argentinos Juniors team), a group of us caught the attention of Francis Cornejo, the coach. You know the tape—it’s been on TV so many times. I was on television in black and white—more black than white, in my case—saying, “My greatest dream is to play in the World Cup. My second greatest is to win.” I hadn’t finished yet, but someone cut me off there and everyone thought I was talking about winning the World Cup. What I was really talking about, though, was winning the minor-league tournament with my teammates, my friends! The video came out in its entirety not long ago. For me, the minor league was like the national all-star team. But there was no way I was going to be talking about winning the World Cup. I didn’t even have a television set back them. That must have been before the ’74 World Cup. I was totally clueless . . . But that’s how it goes.
How could I possibly have imagined that I would end up somewhere like Dubai, describing what we did in Mexico thirty years ago? In Dubai! From Villa Fiorito to Dubai, that’s where my life has taken me. And I am so grateful to these people, who took me in when my own country turned its back on me. They have given me a job, love, and even money. But, mostly, I have gotten used to them and not the other way around. They gave me peace of mind when I needed it most, because I was tormented by what had happened in 2010 after the World Cup in South Africa.
I like sitting here in front of one of the many television sets I have in my house in Palm Jumeirah and watching games played everywhere on earth, from Italy to England. I watch everything. And now I sit down to watch the matches from the ’86 World Cup in Mexico once again.
Believe it or not, I hadn’t ever actually seen them.
Of course I had watched the goals against England thousands of times (they are on TV all the time). But I hadn’t seen the other games until now. And when I watch them play-by-play, so many years later, I go through it all again: I feel the pain of the South Koreans’ kicks and the suspense of the duel with the Italians; I am once again annoyed by the Bulgarians and captivated by the magic spell I cast on the Uruguayans; I see how I took flight in the match against the Belgians and celebrated when we beat the Germans. As I watch it all again, a flood of memories pours over me.
My memories. Everyone remembers it the way they want to. This is how I remember it. I remember getting ready to take flight. And that’s exactly what I did. I played fair even though they played dirty. Drugs made me a worse player, not a better one. Do you have any idea the player I would have been if it weren’t for the drugs? I would have been that player you saw in Mexico, for years on end. That was the happiest I have ever been on the soccer field.
There, in Mexico, my hunger to win the World Cup took precedence over anything and everything else. I put aside my spot in Napoli and my own personal preferences as a player; I let my family know that this was my chance. I spoke to my teammates for hours on end so that we were all on the same wavelength. That is the message I want to convey to Messi, and to all the Messis who—I hope—will follow.
When they asked me what we were there for, once we were all focused and had started training the way I wanted us to, I said, “To be the world champions.” And when they asked me what I was there for, I said, “To prove that I’m the best in the world.” I wasn’t being a big shot, not at all. I was just confident and I wanted to convey that to the rest of the team. Didn’t they believe in us? Didn’t they believe in me? Look out, because we did believe. I did believe. Crazy Maradona believed.
When they asked Platini the same question, he said, “I don’t know—there’s the altitude issue.” When they asked Zico, he said, “I’m not sure—my knee is injured and the team has to come together.” Same thing when they asked Rummenigge. Those were our rivals, my rivals.
People may say a lot of things about me, but one thing’s for sure: when I set my mind to something, I get it. And with my eye on the ball, I was always sure I would be able to get whatever I set my mind to. Valdano used to say to me that when I touched the ball, it was like I was making love to it. And there was something to that . . .
Was I scared? Of course I was! When there are a lot of people waiting to see if you can make a dream come true, you’re scared. How could you not be?
At those moments—and there were a few of them in the World Cup that year, before the final—I would think of Tota, my mom. And I would say—and I mean say out loud, not to myself—“I’m scared shitless, Tota. Come help me, please.” But there was no way Tota was going to come, because she was in Buenos Aires. I had asked them all to stay behind, except for my dad, because I wanted to stay 100 percent focused on the game. On playing and winning. That was what made me happy.
I was just a kid. And I still am. I remember that I dedicated that World Cup to all the kids around the world. I did—you can look it up. It was the first thing I said at the press conference at Azteca stadium when they asked me who it was for. “It’s for all the kids around the world,” I said, and I blew them a kiss.
Before that, before celebrating with the rest of the team, I had gotten together with Carmando, Salvatore Carmando, a masseuse from Naples, whom I had taken to Mexico with me. He gave me a kiss on the forehead and said, “Diego, you’re the champion of the world, the greatest . . . Do you have any idea what that means?” “No,” I said. “All I know is that I am the happiest man in the world.”
Many, many years later—thirty, in fact—I finally understood that being happy means making others happy. And I think that Argentines were happy about what we did in Mexico. I may have screwed up plenty in my day—I did: there’s no doubt about it—but nobody anywhere is ever going to forget those two goals I scored against the English, with the wound of the Malvinas still open. I lifted up that World Cup—something no other Argentine has done since.
Nobody is ever going to forget that. Least of all me.
But, just in case, I’m going to tell it again. I’ll tell it my way, which will certainly be different from the way others have told it. And that is why I say and write again and again: this is Diego Armando Maradona speaking, the man who scored two goals against the English—and one of the few Argentines who knows how much the World Cup weighs.