You Are Not Maradona, Only Maradona Is Maradona

 

I used to go play football at the sports complex near my house. We’re going all the way back to the mid-2000s here. I wasn’t very good. I mean, I was awful. I wouldn’t be my own first pick if I were made captain. But I loved playing and I would run a lot — I felt like I’d be letting down my coach, Alex Ferguson, if I didn’t finish each game in a crumpled heap. Given that I’m left-footed, if someone noticed it they would address me as “Lefty”. Otherwise my name was “defender” since I played on the left side of defence mostly. For some, my name was “Oye”.

That’s how it works. Most such playgrounds in Delhi are pretty democratic spaces and anyone can join in. The lure of football is impossible for even the most hardened cynic, especially if there’s the prospect of rain in the air. So it was quite normal to see 30 people of all ages and sizes running around headlessly on the hockey field we called the “pitch”. Literally everyone screaming curses at each other, with that one slightly older wet-blanket uncle who would “please request” the others to “mind your language”, so you’d have to grudgingly tone down the F-bombs and the M-bombs and the B-bombs and the C-Bombs.

This also means that no one knows anyone’s name, so people tend to get creative. The goalkeeper is known as “Keeper” if you went to a fancy school, “Goalie” if you didn’t. If you’re truly connected to your roots though, you’ll address him as “Golchi”. Any new kid is thrown in defence, and he’s known forever as “Kid” or “Bachcha”. If you’re tall, bless your soul, you will be known as “Lamboo” until you saw off a few inches in frustration. You will be expected to head every ball, and blamed appropriately. All fat kids, predictably, were known as “Mota”. The guys who ran really fast were “Ghoda”, aka a horse. A friend of mine wore an Italy jersey from the 2004 Euros with Totti’s name on the back once, and for the next many years his name was “Toaty”.

To be clear, this wasn’t some tactically sophisticated match up of contrasting styles and footballing philosophies. It was classic amateur football: kick and run, over and over again. There’s a vague sense of someone keeping score, but it’s ultimately “last goal wins”. So the more agricultural skills were valued more — all strikers were either strong or fast, and they could shoot well. The central defender literally just needed to know how to kick long. The job of the weak players in the team was merely to latch on to a stray ball, and pass it to the striker, known (obviously) as “Striker”, who’d yell if he didn’t get the ball quickly enough. Sure, our level of football may have been primitive, but all strikers everywhere are the same. They live for the glory of goals, and that’s all they care about. The lead singers of football teams, and just as annoying.

Regional ethnicities played as much of a role in the naming ritual of players as identifiable physical attributes did. And with that, of course, comes the possibility of bigotry. All bulky defenders were given a colloquial term that I won’t repeat because I found out much later in life that it’s racist. Sikh kids, regardless of age, were “Paaji” — this wasn’t mean-spirited, and they usually didn’t mind. There was some casual racism toward people from other states. And anyone over the age of 25 was dubbed “Uncle”, a trend I was fully supportive of for the first 24 years of my life, after which I had a rethink.

And then there was “Maradona”. This wasn’t a compliment as you’d reasonably expect. Sure, he may have been arguably the greatest footballer to have ever lived. But on the playground, he had morphed into a whole other concept. He was reduced — or, rather, elevated — to a taunt and an insult. Every few weeks, a new kid would show up. He’d have greater designs on glory. Maybe he used to play in his school or college team, maybe he had some rudimentary understanding of the game thanks to the internet or an overeager older cousin. He’d try stepovers and flicks, backheels and all that stuff. He’d take on his man and dribble past him. The maverick with a bad attitude.

It didn’t matter whether he was any good or not. No one cared if his tricks came off. What he was doing was breaking a code. It was unethical. He was making everyone look like a fool! How dare he? Like, no one resented the striker for scoring constant tap-ins, but this guy got heat just for being stylish. Really, this kid’s problem was that he had ideas above his station. He didn’t know his place. “That shit doesn’t belong here, you son of Maradona.” Or: “Try that again you Maradona, and then I’ll show you. Zyaada hero ban raha hai? Abhi dikhata hoon, saale Maradona.”

It was bizarre. You could slide into people, smack them in the head, elbow them in the throat, thwack at their shins. It was all fine. These were war wounds. But one tiny little stepover and people would lose their shit. Embarrassment was more painful than actual physical pain. You’d disparagingly be called “Maradona” and people would be out to get you. And the thing is, the “Maradona”, like the real thing, would take the piss. He’d enjoy it. He’d keep doing it over and over again, further enraging everyone.

If memory serves, Kaka was arguably the best player in the world at the time. Ronaldinho had had his time in the sun, and Messi was coming up fast. Ronaldo, the Brazilian one, had already done his thing a few years ago. Pele’s presence was forever lurking. But the trickster on the playground was always “Maradona”, never another player.

The underlying idea here was that that kind of stuff was reserved for Maradona and no one else. He is a higher being. That you, little upstart twat, are a pretender and a fraud suffering from arrogance and delusions of grandeur. You can’t pull this crap here, only Maradona can. You are not Maradona, only Maradona is Maradona.