DIEGO MARADONA

Oct. 30, 1960- Argentinian soccer player.

The most famous, the most highly paid, and the most controversial soccer player in the world is Diego Maradona, an Argentinian who, like other top international soccer stars, plays both for his country's national team in major tournaments, such as the World Cup, and for a team in a professional league--in his case, Naples of the Italian League. Although he stands only five feet, five inches tall and weighs just 150 pounds, Maradona has the compensatory assets of heavy shoulders, a thick chest, and massive thighs. "Speedy, compact, and strong, with great dribbling skills, he controls play, forcing the game to swirl around him" George Vecsey wrote in his New York Times Magazine (May 27, 1990) profile of Maradona. "Roaming more than half the field, he is a constant threat with or without the ball, capable of escaping box' defenses, racing past defenders, muscling his way into position near the goal mouth....His shots, mostly left-footed, are brutal." A midfielder, Maradona signed his first professional contract when he was just fifteen and, at sixteen, became the youngest player ever to make Argentina's national team. Three years later he signed a six-year, $12 million contract--at that time the most lucrative agreement in sports history--with Barcelona of the Spanish League. Maradona led Argentina to the finals of the World Cup in both 1986 and 1990, each time against West Germany. His team took the crown in 1986 but was dethroned four years later

While Maradona's skills on the soccer field are beyond dispute, his proficiency in the art of interpersonal relations, especially with members of the media, is quite another matter. In his profile of Maradona for Sports Illustrated (May 14, 1990), Rick Telander described the Argentinian as "a petty little slug of a man," an assessment that has been endorsed by countless other sportswriters around the world, who have used such adjectives as "petulant," "stubborn," "boorish," "vulgar," "indiscreet," "spoiled," and "unrepentant" to describe him. "Diego Maradona...is the best soccer player in the world, but he is also among the worst at dealing with the world," Telander commented. "For some veteran observers, Maradona is a symbol of all that has gone wrong with the sport of soccer. He is aloof and mercenary, whereas most great former players were supposedly kind, grateful, and dedicated beyond the limits of monetary reward....At times he appears to have no allegiance to anything except his paychecks." In his own defense, Maradona said, as quoted by Ron Arias and Logan Bentley of People magazine (June 18, 1990), "I have made enemies, but it doesn't matter. They can say what they want about me....Remember, it's the players who bring 90,000 people to the stadium. I am Maradona, who makes goals, who makes mistakes. I can take it all, I have shoulders big enough to fight with everybody."