Sport in the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics: Maradona
Friday, November 3, 2017 at 1:00 PM
Argentina’s Diego Maradona is considered, along with Brazil’s Pele, to be the greatest soccer player of the 20th century. Short, stocky, part devil, part angel but all too human, Maradona was blessed with extraordinary vision, unparalleled dribbling skills and an operatic sense of the dramatic. Maradona is an athlete that transcended sport. His career was a rags-to-riches rise-and-fall and a symbol of nationalism in Argentina and even in Italy where his professional team in Naples became synonymous with regional southern Italian pride. And, in the space of one World Cup game, Argentina’s quarter-final against England, in 1986 , he scored two of the most iconic goals in the history of soccer – they both were “epic,” for different reasons – we’ll discuss why in today’s show. You don’t have to be a soccer fan or even sports fan to appreciate the Odyssey and grand narrative of Maradona. Sam Blair’s ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary, Maradona ’86 is one of many about Maradona. Eduardo Galeano’s Soccer in Sun and Shadow is a beautifully written book about the world of soccer in its many dimensions and perspectives.