Diego Maradona’s Long Shadow

Often, Maradona himself would anoint his successor, though his favor was uncertain, shifting. For a while, it was Javier Saviola, though it pained Maradona to say it, “because he plays for River Plate,” the great rival of Maradona’s beloved Boca Juniors. A few years later, Maradona decreed that D’Alessandro was the “only player who amuses me.” He cast Carlos Tevez as “an Argentine prophet for the 21st century.”

Mostly, the new Maradonas were Argentines, though by no means exclusively. There were Maradonas all over the world, on every continent, in every mountain range. There was a Maradona of the Carpathians (Gheorghe Hagi), a Maradona of the Caucasus (Georgi Kinkladze), a Maradona of the Alps (Andi Herzog) and a Maradona of the Andes (Roberto Merino).

Some were given an entire country: Krishanu Dey was the Indian Maradona, Ali Karimi the Iranian version. Others had to share their territory. There have been, according to some lists, at least four Maradonas of the Balkans.

Some were given a much more precise geographical location. Fabrizio Miccoli was the Maradona of the Salento, the area in the south of Italy from which he hailed. Turkey’s Emre Belozoglu was the Maradona of the Bosporus. At one point, there was even a Maradona of Basingstoke, an unremarkable commuter town southwest of London, though that one, at least, was a knowing joke.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/sports/soccer/diego-maradona-lionel-messi.html