ABOUT THE FIELDS—MARADONA

“We” could not win the World Cup, since no British team had even qualified for the finals in the USA. So the British media decided to restage the glorious Falklands War instead, with the Argentinian captain Diego Maradona cast in the role of the headlines.

Maradona was kicked out of the World Cup after failing a drugs test. He was found to have traces of the banned substance, ephedrine, in his blood stream. He might have taken it to combat a summer virus. He might have taken it to help him lose weight fast before the World Cup finals began. But one thing is for certain, he did not take it to make him lay the kind of football with which he has bewitched the world for a decade. They have not invented a drug that can make you play like Maradona. If they had, even England and Scotland could have qualified for the finals with the aid of a cornershop chemist. But the British media were not interested in any of that. To them Maradona’s expulsion from the tournament proved he was “Dirty-cheat Diego”(the idea is that you say it fast and it sounds like Dirty cheatin’ Dago), and they dragged out every has-been British footballer to kick him when he was down.

Gary Lineker said it was a case of “ good riddance “, and Terry Butcher announced that Maradona should never have been allowed to play in the World Cup in the first place ,because his previous drug conviction (for taking cocaine, a drug which definitely does not enhance your ball skills) meant he was setting a terrible example to young fans. Unlike Mr Butcher, who set them such a fine example by head-butting Tunisians on the field while playing for England.

Of course, the bile displayed by the likes of Lineker and Butcher came purely from their sense of affronted sportsmanship, and had “nothing” to do with the fact that these players were part of the English team beaten by Maradona in the quarter final of the 1986 World Cup, He humiliated England in that game, not with the Hand of God, but with the second goal, the dazzling run past half of the team that made the Fenwicks and Butchers of the English defence look like the artless shit kickers they were. Linker won the Golden Boot in that World Cup by scoring six goals. But nobody outside his native Leicester remembers any of them. The ones Maradona scored against England and Belgium on the way to winning the tournament will live in the memory forever.

The bashing bulldogs of the British press have been waiting for revenge ever since, and they sunk their teeth into Maradona with relish。 Maradona has been playing on drugs for most of his career. He has had to pump himself full of the pain-killer cortisone, to enable him to play on with the countless injuries inflicted by the Butchers he found wherever he played—in Argentina, in Spain, in Italy and in World Cup tournaments. There was never any outcry about that because cortisone is legal. Indeed the rich men who held his contracts insisted he take the drugs, because their bank balances needed him on the pitch, regardless of the damage which cortisone can do to the body in later life.

 Maradona has always cultivated his relationship with the poor and the oppressed. In Naples he made himself the champion of the backward south of Italy against the rich north (centred in football terms on AC Milan) When Argentina played the Italians in Naples in the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup, Maradona even appealed to Neapolitans to support his team because “What has Italy ever done for you?”

Maradona has incurred the wrath of no less a bigot than the Pope, because every time His Holiness makes a speech about helping the poor, Maradona demands that the Vatican should give them its own vast wealth. And he has often fallen foul of the Argentinian oligarchy. When he arrived in the USA for the World Cup, Maradona said that, first, he was glad to be in a country where they played football with their hands as well as their feet, and second that he had a message for Argentina’s president Carlos Menem: “Instead of swanning around here and boasting to everybody that we are going to win the World Cup, he should think of the poor people at home, on the streets and without jobs….”

“我们”无法赢得世界杯，因为英国队甚至没有资格进入在美国的决赛。于是乎英国的媒体决定重演福克兰战争的辉煌，随之阿根廷队的队长迪耶果·马拉多纳成了头版头条的主角。

马拉多纳在未通过药检后被逐出世界杯。在他的血液中发现有违禁物质麻黄素的迹象。他可能服用了此物来抵抗一种夏季的病毒。也可能为了帮助他在世界杯决赛前尽快减轻体重。可有一点是肯定的，他不会将此药物用在他那十年来使世人痴迷的足球上面。还没有人能发明一种能像马拉多纳那样踢球的药物。如果有，英格兰和苏格兰或许能靠街头药店的帮助而有资格进入决赛了。但英国的媒体对此丝毫不感兴趣。对他们来说把马拉多纳逐出锦标赛就能证明他是个“肮脏、骗人的迪耶果”（想想你说得快的话，听起来就像在说肮脏骗人的拉丁人），并且他们拉出每一个当过英国足球运动员的人，对他落井下石。

加里·莱茵科尔说这是个“甩掉包袱”的事例，而泰里·布切尔声称马拉多纳根本不应允许再参加世界杯，因为他以前吸毒（因为服用可卡因，这是种绝对不会提高你球技的毒品）意味着他给年轻的球迷留下了一个可怕的示范。这倒不像布切尔先生，他在代表英格兰队踢球时在场上用头撞击突尼斯队队员，从而给别人树立了多么好的榜样！

当然，莱茵科尔与布切尔之流所显露的失态，纯粹是出自他们被亵渎的球风，与1986年世界杯四分之一决赛上被马拉多纳打败“无关”， 当时他们是英格兰队队员。在那场比赛中，马拉多纳羞辱了英格兰，不是靠上帝之恩赐，而是靠第二个进球，靠令人眼花缭乱地绕过半数的队员，使英格兰的后卫芬威克斯和布切尔看上去像毫无球艺的饭桶。那次世界杯中莱茵科尔因进六球而赢得金靴奖，可除了他的家乡莱斯特外无人记得其中的任何进球。而马拉多纳在赢得锦标赛的过程中对英格兰和比利时所进的球却将永远留在人闪的脑海中。

自打那时起，英国媒体的这些跃跃试试的猛犬们就在等待复仇的时机，时机一到他们便狠狠地向马拉多纳咬去。马拉多纳足球生涯中大半时间与毒品有染。他必须要靠止痛的可的松来使自己精力充沛，使他能顶住到处都会碰到的类似布切尔给他的那种伤害—包括在阿根廷，西班牙，意大利以及世界杯锦标赛。从没有人对此提出抗议，因为可的松是合法的。实际上与他签约的富人们执意要他服用这种药，因为他们的银行收支绝对与他的良好竞技状态息息相关，哪管可的松会对他的身体将来所产生什么危害。

马拉多纳一向与穷人保持着良好的关系。在那不勒斯他支持落后的意大利南部地区去对抗富裕的北部（以AC米兰为中心的球队）。当阿根廷在1990年世界杯半决赛中与意大利队在那不勒斯比赛时，马拉多那甚至呼吁那不勒斯人去支持他所在的球队，因为‘意大利又为你做过什么呢？’

马拉多纳曾经引起教皇对他的愤怒，因为教皇陛下每次发表关于扶贫的演说时，马拉多纳就主张罗马教廷应将自己巨额的财富分给穷人。同时他还时常与阿根廷的寡头统治相抵触。当马拉多纳到美国参加世界杯时，他说首先他很高兴来到一个手脚并用来玩足球的国家，其次他有一个给阿根廷总统卡洛斯·梅内姆的口信：“不要来这里到处向大家吹嘘我们要赢得世界杯，他应该想想国内的受苦人，流落街头的失业者 ······”