Adieu, Diego Maradona

Diego Armando Maradona is no more. Great men do not make the world; gifted men do.
The little master was one such gifted man. With his untimely departure, a part of the
throbbing heart of the great game of football has also died. The second law of
thermodynamics must hang its head in shame for taking away the life of a man of such
extraordinary talent and ability as Maradona. It can be said with certainty that he did not
choose to play football; football selected him to be its eternal benefactor!

Inside a football stadium, Maradona was an incredible magician: the lifeless but
mercurial air-filled leather sphere otherwise known as the football either clung to him as
if he were a powerful magnet or danced ecstatically to his glorious tunes. Invariably and
astoundingly, they remained in perfect sync. They were born for each other. Nay, they
were the two sides of the same coin: Maradona was football and football was
Maradona.

Karl Heinz Rummenigge, a West German football legend, once stated that Maradona
was the greatest ever: better even than Pele. It is difficult to dispute this claim. The
IFFHS (International Federation of Football History and Statistics), an organization that
chronicles the history and records of association football, bestowed upon Maradona “the
player of the century” award in Rome at the annual FIFA World gala held in Rome in
December, 2000. As the 20th century came to an end, FIFA decided to have a vote to elect
the player of the century by conducting an online poll: Maradona won it by a huge
margin. He defeated giants like Pele , Gérson de Oliveira Nunes, Johan Cryuff, Waldyr
Pereira Didi, Edvaldo Jizídio Neto Vava and a bunch of other formidable footballers.
Ultimately, FIFA made a weird decision to split the award and announced Pele and
Maradona as the two greatest players of all time. This was understandably resented by
many Maradona fans. His second goal against England at the 1986 FIFA World Cup
held in Mexico has been voted the “FIFA World Cup Goal of the Century” in a poll
hosted on the 2002 FIFA World Cup website.