Radio Micropsia - El After Party

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O por internet, entrando por aquí.

No vamos a poner ni a sacar técnicos.
No vamos a discutir offsides.
No vamos a debatir cábalas.
No vamos a enfrentar estilos de juego.

Vamos, sí, a hablar de sensaciones post-mundialistas: experiencias, sentimientos, estados de ánimo, acaso alguna reflexión futbolera, pero lo más probable que viremos para otro lado a la hora de hablar de esto.

Jorge B. dice que todo esto tiene algo de religioso, que es un problema de fe.

Yo creo que se parece más a un fracaso amoroso.

El resto será música: triste y melancólica (nuestro lado masoquista), esperanzadora y liviana (nuestra parte hollywoodense) y algunas cosas, raras, que juro que jamás se volverán a escuchar en la radio.

Nadie dijo que iba a ser fácil...

Las heridas

Desde que terminó el partido de la Selección que estoy tratando de escribir algo coherente acerca del Mundial, de la experiencia, del juego en sí, de las alegrías y de las frustraciones vividas en estos veintipico de días. Pero no lo consigo. Paso de un estado a otro. Quiero ser agradecido y celebrar mucho de lo hecho, pero a la vez hablar de defectos y problemas. Quiero festejar logros impensados y a la vez mencionar cosas que no me gustaron. Quiero hablar de Maradona, pero no sabría cómo hacerlo sin contradecirme. Y también de la prensa, pero tampoco me queda claro para donde apuntar...

No es que no tenga ideas ni que esté envuelto en el miedo o la tibieza a la hora de hablar. Siento que la experiencia mundialista y el análisis del fenómeno encierra tantos factores y abre tantas puertas que uno se siente como teniendo que definir "la argentinidad", el "cómo somos", el "maradonismo", el "anti-maradonismo" y todo lo que circula alrededor. Es que el final desnuda los excesos, deja expuesto el artificio. Cuando la fiesta se acaba, a las 8 de la mañana, y los pocos borrachos que ahí quedaron viéndola pasar miran alrededor, ven el paisaje después de la batalla. Es igual a los que ven películas y salen decepcionados porque el final no les convenció. Nada de lo previo parece tener sentido. Es pura resaca, duele todo.

Quiero pensar en el mundial como una película, pero todo lo que se me ocurre es obvio. Podría decir, como sostengo habitualmente, que si un filme me hace vibrar y motivar durante buena parte de su metraje, un final decepcionante no me quita el placer de haber sido testigo de momentos brillantes o de pequeñas epifanías. Y la participación argentina en el Mundial las tuvo, dentro y fuera de la cancha. Terminó mal, porque la chica se quedó con el otro, ese que nos dio la sensación de que, en cualquier momento, nos podía robar la felicidad en un segundo. Pero valió la pena haberla conocido.

Como toda ruptura amorosa que se precie -o decepción cinematográfica, por decirlo de otra manera-, procesar la caída en el Mundial tomará su tiempo. En este momento algunos están shockeados, decepcionados, con la reacción a flor de piel, calientes, pensando que nada valió la pena, que todo fue una gran error desde el principio, que nunca deberíamos habernos elegido unos con otros. Y están los otros, los que no pueden ver siquiera la posibilidad de haber cometido un error, los que sostienen contra quien venga, que fue la mejor y más fascinante de las experiencias.

Pero quiero creer que el tiempo irá minando esos fastidios, curando esas heridas, permitiendo mirar las cosas en perspectiva. Y acaso descubramos que, tal vez, esa chica no era la que imaginábamos, que desde el principio sabíamos que esto podía pasar (y especialmente en este romance tan volátil) y que estábamos siempre caminando al filo de la cornisa, en ruta casi segura a la decepción. Pero que la elegimos a sabiendas y nos hizo pasar una aventura increíble. ¿O esperábamos otra cosa?

Quedarán los grandes momentos y los dolorosos se irán diluyendo. Hoy, tal vez, queremos tenerla lejos y pensar en nada, en dormir un largo sueño, en olvidarnos de estos encuentros pasionales. Pero todos sabemos que el tiempo hará su trabajo y podremos pensar ese junio de 2010 como "el mes que vivimos en peligro". Esa aventura insólita llena de emociones y miedos, placer y dolor, tensiones y milagros. Y cuando uno mira para atrás, con la distancia abúlica de las rutinas cotidianas que todo lo duermen, aprende a querer sus cicatrices, a celebrar el hecho de que están allí, en el cuerpo, marcas de los abrazos, de las caricias y de las heridas que ahora, todavía, están sangrando.

Fue bueno mientras duró.

Destrabando la pereza...

Sólo para dar algunas consideraciones sobre Argentina-Alemania y porqué creo que no es tan temible como parece:

1.- Alemania sólo ha jugado bien y goleado a los equipos que salieron a atacarlo salvajemente sin cuidarse demasiado atrás.

2.- Alemania ha demostrado rapidez para los contragolpes sólo contra equipos que no ofrecen organización defensiva.

3.- La defensa alemana ha mostrado algunos flancos débiles a lo largo del campeonato: les hicieron dos goles y ellos hicieron nueve. Argentina es claramente superior: 10-2.

4.- Ballack no juega, lesionado por el hermano de un jugador de su propia selección, lo que habla de gran incertidumbre y mala onda en el plantel, algo evidente en la fría manera en la que festejan los goles.

5.- El técnico alemán se saca los mocos y se los come (ver video).

6.- Argentina ha demostrado gran potencial contra un equipo europeo, Grecia.

7.- Demichelis está acostumbrado a jugar contra todos los que tendrá enfrente el sábado. Habla alemán fluidamente.

8.- Tuvieron un penal y lo tiraron afuera.

9.- Perdieron con Serbia.

10.- Zafaron de que se les complique el partido con Inglaterra por un gol inglés anulado. Y sólo en la confusión inglesa pudieron convertir dos más.

10+.- Ozil, parece, tiene pasaporte trucho alemán, aunque nació en Alemania. ¿Y Boateng? ¿Puede jugar para dos equipos a la vez? ¿No estará agotado?

Si con esto no los convenzo que vamos directo a una victoria holgada, entonces piensen lo que quieran. No le tienen confianza a Diego, evidentemente. Y pronto, todos ustedes, vendepatrias, LTA como Toti Passman. He dicho!

Radio Micropsia: Episodio mundialista

Hoy, desde las 20, por FM 93.7 Radio Nacional, edición especial mundialista de Micropsia, en la que -con suerte- alcancermos a colar algún comentario sobre la magnífica Toy Story 3 para luego dejarlos -literalmente, porque nos vamos a ver Girls al Samsung Studio- con música de Scissor Sisters, LCD Soundsystem, Supreme NTM, We Are Scientists, Avi Buffalo, Harper Simon, Tracey Thorn y el toque africano con Konono N°1, originarios de Kinshasa, Congo (foto), entre otros...

Mundial 2010: Día Uno

El primer partido del Mundial fue el primero que vi en HD en toda mi vida (al menos en mi casa, en condiciones normales, con una tele 32' en el living), por lo cual creo que si voy a hablar de lo fascinante que fue la experiencia de la primera jornada tiene que ver más con eso que con los partidos en sí: malo pero entretenido el primero; mediocre y aburrido el segundo.

Hay una cantidad de detalles que el HD permite observar que no se puede ni comparar con la transmisión convencional. De hecho, si uno tiene una tele normal, clásica, recomendaria no pasar de las 21' para no caer en el pixelado. Y una tele LCD/plasma en widescreen, sin HD, es lo menos: como una película mal proyectada, filmada en 4:3 (1,33) y exhibida en 16:9 (1,8).

El problema tiene más que ver con las personas que relatan y comentan los partidos. El primero pudo verse, al menos en Cablevisión HD, por las dos señales: la de Telefé en el 620 y la de Canal 7 en el 621. Hay mínimas diferencias de calidad de imagen y tal vez medio segundo de diferencia (ya me extiendo sobre ese tema), pero están las dos muy bien.

El tema es que en Telefé hay que tolerar las burradas de Niembro que, infumable, no logra decir algo interesante en 90 minutos. Uno entiende que haya bloopers y errores con tanto tiempo al aire en vivo, pero los problemas de Niembro son conceptuales: hoy me quedé pensando que ni siquiera entiende bien la regla del offside. Vignolo me molesta menos: de lo que hay es lo más tolerable. Igual, vi Telefé. ¿Motivos? Por Vignolo que, como dije, me parece digno, y que a Niembro es divertido seguirlo para ver qué mocos se manda.

No puedo con la TV Pública. En realidad, no puedo ni nunca podré con este chabón Gustavo Kuffner que relata con voz de vendedor de chucherías en el bondi, gritando, impostando, como si estuviera conduciendo el concurso Miss Primavera de una Sociedad de Fomento. Me taladra los oídos, me fastidia. Juro que no es tanto lo que dice, ya escuchar su tono de voz me obliga a cambiar de canal. Y me pierdo a Latorre y Francescoli, que me parecen más sensatos que Niembro, pero no puedo evitarlo.

Un último comentario técnico. El HD puede ser un problema para ver los partidos de Argentina ya que la transmisión llega unos tres segundos más tarde y, salvo que te pongas auriculares o tapones en los oídos, es muy probable que escuches los gritos de gol por anticipado. Aclaro, vivo por Acoyte y Rivadavia, barrio hiperpoblado si los hay, y durante los partidos no creo que haya autos suficientes que tapen esos ruídos. Bah, y si los hay seguro que un bocinazo te advierte del asunto. Asi que mañana veré como funciona ese tema.

Respecto a los partidos propiamente dichos, imagino que irán a lugares más calificados que éste para leer análisis de los partidos. Puedo apenas comentar que, en general, todos los equipos me decepcionaron, salvo Uruguay. Sudáfrica le regaló el primer tiempo a un México incapaz de enhebrar una jugada coherente, perdiéndose goles hechos. De a poco, los Bafana Bafana se agrandaron y México dejó en claro que no le sobra nada.

Francia decepciona, aunque es una decepción que no sorprende del todo, porque tiene un gran nivel de jugadores y mucha displicencia y poquísimas ideas de cómo imponerse ante un equipo que plantea una defensa cerrada, dura y pareja. Con poco, apenas un par de contraataques, Forlan casi termina embocándola y, con un esquema táctico a lo Mourinho, Uruguay podía haber ganado el partido. Con el esquema le alcanzó para lo que se proponía: sacarle un punto a Francia. Tendrán que cambiar el chip (aunque no descuidarse) para ganarle a Sudáfrica.

Más allá de eso, abandoné todos los comentarios, análisis y cotorreo de las 24 x 5 de los canales de cable. Vi la conferencia de prensa de Maradona y muy poco más. Prefiero mantenerme lejos del opinómetro. Creo que las palabras bastan. Todos saben qué es lo que hay que hacer mañana. Es cuestión de que salga. O que más o menos salga. Con eso debería alcanzar. Lo demás, "es cháchara".

Tres apuntes extra:

1.- La ceremonia de apertura fue low-tech, colorida, musical, simpática. Y sé que todo lo que acabo de escribir suena tremendamente "condescendiente". Por lo que puedo decir también que fue una berretada onda kermesse de escuela secundaria y ahí sentir que sueno "políticamente incorrecto". No me decido...

2.- Acerté los dos resultados, exactos (1-1 y 0-0) en un Prode del Mundial en el que participo con otras 86 personas. Sólo seis los acertamos. Eso habla más de mi pesimismo respecto al juego que a mi conocimiento del tema.

3.- Las redes sociales. Twitter me resulta apasionante para este tipo de seguimientos/coberturas. Se que nada muy complejo ni analítico puede salir de allí (prefiero guardarme el análisis para mi en esos casos), pero a la vez creo que el humor y la inmediatez, la espontaneidad y los nervios se descargan allí de la mejor manera. Llamativamente, todos los enviados al Mundial que se la pasaron "twitteando" toda la semana, desaparecieron durante los partidos. Se ve que estaban al pedo desde que llegaron a Sudáfrica. Y se ve, también, que si no hay un mango nadie te escribe una coma.

Mundial 2010: Día Cero

Como verán, para arrancar con la cobertura oficial del evento, voló la imagen del Mundial. Hay tal sobresaturación de información televisiva y radial y escrita que todo lo que pueda aportar me resulta deja-vu, agregar a giros sobre la nada misma. Podría hacer un intento de cubrir las coberturas, o analizarlas, pero la tarea me resulta insoportable. Apenas si tolero a los periodistas deportivos que tolero, que bancarme a los demás solo para poder criticarlos desde aquí me parece un trabajo sucio y no tengo ganas de hacerlo.

Sólo agregaría, por ahora, que estoy ansioso porque empiece "a rodar el balón" (frase hecha, parte 1). Todo el circo previo para llenar la programación de 24 horas de varios canales de TV que tienen que justificar el gasto/envío de equipos, periodistas, etc etc, me agotó: los rumores, las peleas, hasta el tema barrabravas me parece que está sobredimensionado para cubrir baches, o bien, para operar políticamente a partir de él. No digo que no sea preocupante, digo que la misma gente que parece escandalizada por el tema, no le dedica tanto tiempo todos los domingos en el fútbol local.

Saqué la imagen porque seguiré escribiendo sobre otras cosas, porque de golpe me pareció que el Mundial no puede definir por completo el contenido del blog y, nada, porque sí. Seguirán saliendo notas y links a notas sobre el tema, junto a los habituales posts que suelen salir aquí. De cualquier manera, calculo que el Mundial será un "compás de espera" (las frases hechas son tan útiles a veces) para un rediseño/relanzamiento de Micropsia luego del fútbol.

Eso. Y vean "Treeless Mountain" (o, ejem, "Los senderos de la vida"), está muy buena. Y de mientras se van preparando para el partido contra Corea.

The Guardian World Cup 2010 Guide

Link

Why is there no great Hollywood soccer movie (Los Angeles Times)

By John Horn, Los Angeles Times

June 6, 2010

Graham King has worked with countless A-listers: Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Jack Nicholson, Cameron Diaz and Daniel-Day Lewis, to name just a few. But ask the Oscar-winning producer of "The Departed" which celebrities made him giddy like a star-struck teen, and he won't mention any actor, saying instead it was the players from the Chelsea FC soccer team.

The day the English-born filmmaker won the best picture Academy Award for "The Departed," King awoke before dawn to watch his beloved soccer squad defeat Arsenal in the Carling Cup final (one friend says it was a sweeter victory for King than his Oscar triumph over "Little Miss Sunshine"). King has hurried off the American set of several of his films on a Friday, flown to England to see a Chelsea match, and been back in the States before cameras rolled Monday morning. King interrupted his 2008 Cannes Film Festival stay to share a private jet to Moscow for the Champions League Final between Chelsea and Manchester United (Chelsea, King's team since age 4, lost in a shootout).

King's passion for the beautiful game is shared by many inside Hollywood — directors, studio executives, actors and other producers. But for all of the industry's most devoted soccer supporters, the movie business has yet to make what anybody considers a definitive mainstream movie about the sport, an especially glaring omission on the eve of the World Cup, opening Friday in South Africa.

Boxing might have "Raging Bull" and "Rocky," baseball "Bull Durham" and "Field of Dreams," football "North Dallas Forty" and "The Longest Yard," basketball " Hoosiers," ice hockey has "Miracle" and "Slap Shot," and even billiards has "The Hustler" and "The Color of Money."

When it comes to soccer, though, the sport's most memorable Hollywood movie probably has been Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Pelé's cheesy 1981 World War II drama "Victory" — only a marginally better treatment of the sport, in some detractors' view, than "Happy Gilmore" was for golf.

Movie critics (and some art-house film patrons) have embraced several independent movies with strong soccer settings, including "Bend It Like Beckham," "The Damned United" and the recent "Looking for Eric." Documentary filmmakers have delivered a few acclaimed soccer films, including "Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos" and the new "After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United."

It's not so much that the big studios don't make good soccer movies, it's that they don't really make them at all. When 20th Century Fox adapted Nick Hornby's book "Fever Pitch," the subject sport was changed from soccer (the Arsenal Football Club) to baseball (the Boston Red Sox). Universal Pictures is developing "The Fugees," a movie about refugee kids who play soccer in Atlanta, but that's a rare exception to the rule.

It's not as though a lot of people don't love the game, particularly around the World Cup, the every-four-years global soccer championship.

The television audience for all soccer matches in the last World Cup exceeded 26 billion, with nearly 12% of the globe's population watching the final game between Italy and France (Italy won the match on penalty kicks). There are more than 50,000 American Youth Soccer Organization teams in the United States, representing more than 650,000 AYSO players.

But soccer interest pretty much vanishes when the nation's studios decide which features they want to greenlight. It took shoe maker Adidas to finance the three-film "Goal! The Dream Begins" soccer movie series, none of which were box-office hits. When the big studios make a soccer film, it's often a goofy comedy like "Kicking & Screaming."

Soccer's most fervent fans in and around Hollywood, many of whom are British and insist on calling the game football, offer a variety of explanations for the shutout: It's not an indigenous sport, and the World Cup has none of the domestic cultural relevance of the Super Bowl or the World Series. The game is distinguished by split-second athleticism that can't easily be re-created on screen. Scoring can be low or even nonexistent. Football, baseball and basketball are episodic sports with countless pauses to discuss strategy and set plays, but soccer is an uninterrupted 90-minute slog. Actors can't effectively fake playing the game. Moviegoers would rather watch the real thing.

Studio executives "think soccer is for some suburban mom with a 4-year-old," says Joe Roth, who ran Disney, Fox and Revolution Studios and is also the majority owner of the Seattle Sounders, a new (and so far incredibly popular) Major League Soccer team. He believes Hollywood's anti-soccer bias is rooted in a fear (and ignorance) of what's foreign. "We're basically a xenophobic country and don't look at what's going on in the rest of the world as closely as we should," Roth says.

Roth, who is consulting on a biographical film in early development based on the Brazilian soccer great Pelé, says that the sport is well-suited to filmmaking. "It's a hard sport to show on television, but a much easier sport to stage on film," he says.

Not everybody agrees.

"I don't think the two go together," Ken Loach, the director of "Looking for Eric," says of the soccer-movie combination. His film stars former Manchester United goal-scoring legend Eric Cantona in a story about how a soccer-obsessed, down-on-his-luck British postal carrier's life is restarted when he is visited by Cantona, who plays himself. "A film has its own narrative — they have different rhythms," Loach says.

If you've noticed that Kevin Costner doesn't display a perfect golf swing in "Tin Cup" or that Tommy Lee Jones can't really swing a bat in "Cobb," you know how easy it is to spot actors trying to be athletes. When Gavin O'Connor cast "Miracle," a drama about the gold-medal-winning U.S. ice hockey team in the 1980 Olympics, he cast real hockey players who could act, rather than actors who might vaguely know how to skate and shoot a puck. More often than not — in a business driven by star casting — it's the other way around.

"But you can't replicate that level of skill," says Stephen Frears, the British director of "The Queen" and "Dangerous Liaisons" and a supporter of Arsenal. "There's so much coverage of the game now that trying to fake it is very difficult. It's daunting. You are never going to make a soccer film as good as the real thing."

David Anspaugh, the American director of the classic sports films "Hoosiers" and "Rudy," also made 2005's "The Game of Their Lives," a drama about how the American squad upset England in 1950's World Cup in Brazil. Though some say it's among the better soccer movies around, Anspaugh says money woes kept him from making the film he set out to direct. "A lot of the good parts of the film we had to cut out," he says.

But Anspaugh says he was determined to make the soccer match look as authentic as possible, auditioning about 6,000 people for the film and populating his cast with legitimate players, including actors Jimmy Jean-Louis and Richard Jenik, and brought in former U.S. pros Eric Wynalda and John Harkes as soccer consultants. "Will someone make a great movie in the future with soccer as a canvas? Absolutely," Anspaugh says. "And it won't be that long from now."

Some remain skeptical, particularly because soccer is often subtle in its action and its play is defined by individual brilliance as well as intangible team chemistry.

"In soccer, things happen on the spur of the moment, the blink of the eye," says Daniel Battsek, the former head of Miramax Films (which distributed the documentary "Once in a Lifetime") and who is the new president of National Geographic Films. The British-born studio executive says that American football, with more set plays and team maneuvers, is far easier to capture cinematically.

A lifetime Chelsea fan, Battsek says director Gurinder Chada's "Bend it Like Beckham" accurately depicted what it means to be a soccer fanatic. "It captured the spirit of the game — it helped make Americans understand how all-encompassing football is, that it's the greatest game on the planet," he says.

Chada, who was born in Kenya but grew up in England amid fans of Tottenham Hotspur, spent three years trying to get financing for her movie about Jess, an Indian teenage girl smitten with soccer and then-Manchester United star David Beckham. Spurning her conservative family's wishes, Jess (Parminder Nagra) secretly starts playing on a women's soccer team with Jules ( Keira Knightley). Neither Nagra nor Knightley were accomplished players ("But do people really think Harrison Ford can jump out of a helicopter?" Chada asks); she surrounded them with passionate young female athletes so that the film's matches not only looked authentic but were.

But Chada said that focusing too narrowly on the sport itself is to lose sight of the objective. "Sometimes, the problem with sports movies is that you get too caught up with the sport and forget that sport is a metaphor," she says. Like other affecting sports movies, "Bend It Like Beckham" is ultimately less about soccer than it is about the people playing it: a character story, not a sports film.

"One of the greatest boxing movies was 'Raging Bull' and yet it wasn't really about boxing. It was about this amazing character," says British actor Ray Winstone, who is so committed to soccer (he's a supporter of West Ham United) that he will spend most of June in South Africa with several dozen friends on a World Cup bender.

That raises an almost existential question: Are great sports movies really about the sport itself? Isn't "Field of Dreams" ultimately a father-son story? Is "Hoosiers" a study of an underdog Indiana high school basketball team, or a redemption tale about a coach and the town drunk? At its center, isn't "Bend It Like Beckham" a tale of girl power?

"Looking for Eric" director Loach (a supporter of the second-tier Bath City Football Club) says one of the central ideas in his film is that we are much stronger as a collective than we are individually, that we can turn to other people to help our "becoming the people we want to be."

There might be a fantastically talented soccer star at the center of Loach's film, but when Cantona is asked to describe the greatest moment in his playing career, he replies that it wasn't a goal but a pass to a teammate.

john.horn@latimes.com

The 10 best World Cup characters (The Observer)

Link

Nota de The Observer sobre los Diez Personajes del Mundial que incluye a Maradona y a Messi.

Judgment day approaches for Diego Maradona (Los Angeles Times)

By Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times
June 6, 2010

To the soccer faithful, Argentina should be a lock to win the 2010 World Cup. After all, it has god on its side.

God, as Argentines are wont to point out, is their coach, Diego Maradona, the greatest soccer player of his generation and, arguably, of all time.

To understand the gargantuan shadow Maradona casts over his soccer-mad homeland, one has to conjure up the athleticism of Michael Jordan, the power of Babe Ruth — and the human fallibility of Mike Tyson.

Lump them together in a single barrel-chested man with shaggy black hair and you have El Diego, idol to the millions who call him D10S, a mashup of his playing number and the Spanish word for god.

His divinity is about to be tested.

This week in South Africa, he will lead one of the globe's most gifted teams — one blessed with stars such as Lionel Messi, the reigning world player of the year, and Gonzalo Higuain, whose 27 goals for Real Madrid came behind only Messi in the Spanish league this season. Last month, England's manager singled out the Argentina side as the "most talented" in the 32-nation tournament.

Despite all the firepower, oddsmakers don't like Argentina's chances — not because of its players, but because of its coach. The book on Maradona, 49, is that he's too inexperienced, too volatile, too unsophisticated and too arrogant to capture the trophy for Argentina. That's made Spain and Brazil the favorites in the quadrennial tourney, which kicks off Friday.

The question now is whether Maradona can once again bring glory to Argentina, a feat that would cement his immortality in the world pantheon of sports.

Or will Maradona — as he so often has — succumb to his seemingly insatiable lust for protagonismo, the desire to be the hero at the center of attention, and in the process spoil his team's chances?

Failure could well mark the final fall for soccer's troubled deity.

"The years go by and Maradona continues to be the most popular athlete in the world, the most loved and also the most hated," said Eduardo Galeano, an Uruguayan intellectual and author of the seminal "Soccer in Sun and Shadow."

"Maradona is a very popular god because he is the most human of the deities, a dirty, arrogant, overbearing, deceitful, swaggering, vicious god, and all this serves only to multiply his prestige. The problem with Maradona is that the gods don't retire," Galeano said. "It's very difficult to return to anonymity after being adored in the highest altars."

Rise of a star

Born desperately poor into one of Buenos Aires' worst neighborhoods, he rose to stardom at just 15 years of age and, at 20, won a club championship with Boca Juniors, Argentina's most popular professional team. He went on to Europe, becoming the highest-paid athlete in the world playing for Barcelona and later Naples, where he still draws throngs whenever he visits.

He is best remembered for the two goals he scored on England — a rivalry sharpened by bitter feelings in the wake of the Falklands War between the two nations — en route to capturing the 1986 World Cup.

The first was infamously scored with his left hand, which is illegal, but somehow escaped the referee's notice. (Maradona attributed it to the "hand of God.") The other, in which he dribbled with his left foot past five English players and the goalkeeper to score, is widely considered the greatest goal of all time. It left the television commentator sobbing in joy, and apologizing for his outburst.

Maradona's world transcends soccer. Argentina's Pibe de Oro, or Golden Boy, is close friends with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, with whom he appeared at a rally protesting then-President George W. Bush. Maradona dedicated his biography to Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan, among others. In 2005 he even hosted his own television talk show in Argentina, "Night With No. 10."
But his failings have been as monumental as his accomplishments. En route to a laundry list of soccer laurels strewn across three continents and as many decades, Maradona managed to get himself thrown out of the 1994 World Cup for using ephedrine, was busted twice for cocaine and convicted of shooting an air rifle at journalists. Divorced from his high school sweetheart, he pays child support to several illegitimate children and owes the Italian government more than 30 million euros in unpaid taxes.

"It's a terrible way to represent the country," said Yoni Grassi, who repairs speakers in Santa Fe, 300 miles north of Buenos Aires. "The only thing the whole world knows about Argentina is Diego, and this is how he behaves."

Only 5-foot-5, Maradona ballooned to nearly 300 pounds after hanging up his cleats in 1997 and was hospitalized several times before slimming down after having his stomach stapled. He spent months in Cuba to kick his cocaine habit, hosted by Castro himself.

He now bears a Castro tattoo on his left leg, the face of Che Guevara on his right shoulder and the names of his daughters, Dalma and Giannina, on his forearms.

His fans never wavered. At least three dozen songs have been written about him, and his most fervent fans 12 years ago founded the Maradonian Church, which today claims to have more than 100,000 members worldwide. If he were to run for president, some Argentine polls have shown, he'd stand a good chance of winning.

New challenges

Scowling behind a table in a room beneath Uruguay's Centenario Stadium in October, El Diego didn't look like a coach who had just qualified for the world's premier sporting event.

Four days earlier, his team had dodged elimination from the World Cup by beating Peru with a last-minute goal by aging striker Martin Palermo. Maradona celebrated by belly-flopping in the mud.

That set up a 1-0 victory over Uruguay that guaranteed a bid, saving Argentina from missing its first World Cup since 1970.

Rather than celebrate, Maradona used a post-match news conference to accuse the media of treating him "like garbage." He mocked the reporters and TV crews, suggesting that they perform an act unprintable in a family newspaper.

The outburst was only the latest in a series dating back to the startling selection of Maradona as the team's coach a year earlier.

Maradona's entire managerial experience consisted of coaching less than a full season's worth of games for two mediocre Argentine club teams in the 1990s.

Almost immediately after taking the job, Maradona seemed to be making his detractors' case. His team struggled in World Cup qualifying matches, falling to Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and bitter rival Brazil. Most humiliating of all was a 6-1 drubbing by Bolivia, which has never won a World Cup match.

By getting the team to South Africa, Maradona earned a chance at redemption — and another chance to be in the spotlight.

Butting heads

Soccer's greatest debate still rages: Who was better, Maradona or Pele?

Pele, the sport's most prolific scorer with more than 750 club and international goals, tops most lists. Maradona scored just under 350 goals, but adherents point out that most were netted in tough European leagues, whereas Pele played his entire career in Brazil and for the short-lived Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. The Brazilian's three World Cup titles overshadow Maradona's sole championship, but Pele was injured for one of those and barely played.

The two played in different eras, with different teammates and with different styles; a true comparison is as impossible as pitting Johnny Unitas against Peyton Manning.

Maradona acts as though there is only one soccer god. Accounts of the episode vary, but three months ago, he kept Pele cooling his heels in a Madrid bar for well over four hours before a photo shoot for Louis Vuitton by Annie Leibovitz.

The fashion brand insisted that the two spent time together that day, but pictures of the event tell a different tale: Pele and French soccer icon Zinedine Zidane together, laughing; separately, Maradona, alone before the camera.

The anecdote hints at what could be the greatest risk for Argentina: that Maradona's jealous ego could trip up players like Messi, who scored 47 goals in Europe this season on the way to FIFA's world player of the year award. Under Maradona, Messi scored only one goal in World Cup qualifiers.

"Maradona doesn't play soccer anymore, he coaches it," said Mario Kempes, star forward for the Argentine team that captured the World Cup in 1978. "He needs to remember that."

For some, however, there are hints that there's method in the madness.

"What he lacks in experience, he brings in courage to the team," said Guillermo Barros Schelotto, a midfielder for the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer, who played alongside Maradona on Boca Juniors for about six months in the 1990s. "Nobody has more passion than he does."

In addition, some say, the media circus surrounding Maradona may shield his stars so they can focus on soccer. He has gone to great lengths to make his players comfortable, flying them to South Africa early to have time to adjust to the altitude (five of the nine Cup venues are at 4,000 feet or higher) and ensuring that they have plenty of beef in their training meals, a key for any red-blooded Argentine.

Messi, who is often compared to Maradona, said his coach was getting better. Maradona "was a little imposing" at first, he said in an interview on CNN International last month. But now he "gives me a lot more confidence than he did before."

What's at stake

Coaching a national team is trying. Handling delicate superstars, playing a grueling schedule and risking constant second-guessing and scorn has a way of grinding down even the most committed managers.

For a man like Maradona, with money, a brilliant legacy and unparalleled adoration from a nation that considers him a living national treasure, it would certainly have been easier to stay away from the fray.

But a championship, against all expectations, would be something truly sweet, a chance to answer lingering questions about greatness, a chance to secure his reputation as D10S for all time.

"It would be safer to stay home and accept the adoration and love of a soccer-loving public," Maradona says in a television commercial currently airing in Argentina. "It would be safer to sit atop all my glory. But that wouldn't be me."

In recent weeks, Maradona's antics have continued. He ran over the leg of a TV cameraman with his Mini Cooper, then called the victim an idiot. He promised (some may say threatened) to run naked around Buenos Aires' 220-foot-tall Obelisk landmark should Argentina win the World Cup. And he made it known that his players would be allowed to have sex with their wives or girlfriends in South Africa, but that they should keep nighttime consumption of champagne or Cuban cigars to a minimum.

"If he didn't say such things, he wouldn't be Maradona," said Diego "El Chavo" Fucks, a soccer commentator and columnist in Buenos Aires who has covered six World Cups.

Now, with Maradona's team in Pretoria, South Africa, preparing to face Nigeria on Saturday, soccer's fallen archangel once again is at the center of it all.

Can he on the sideline do what he did on the field, joining Germany's Franz Beckenbauer as the only man to win the World Cup as a player and a coach?

And if he does, will his glory overshadow that of his 23 players?

"Today's football has overvalued the role of managers, who apply complicated scientific formulas to direct their teams," said Galeano, the Uruguayan writer.

"The best I ever met was named Coppola. He was the barber in the Uruguayan town Nico Pérez, and he was coach of the town's team. His tactical and strategic plan was limited to saying to the players: 'Good luck, boys.' "

ken.bensinger@latimes.com

Times staff writer Grahame L. Jones contributed to this report.

La hora del Mundial

Lo admito: durante todo junio mi interés por el cine (salvo alguna excepción, tipo "Toy Story 3" y no mucho más) será casi nulo. Como muchos, voy a meterme de lleno en la vida mundialista. Y supongo que me será más divertido, además de la ocasional información y algunas críticas de cine, dedicarle un mes del blog al fútbol.

Les aviso, para que no se asusten. Pero desde el lunes esto se transformará en algo así como Micropsia Mundial 2010, y la idea es postear diariamente sobre eso. Puede ser un partido, algún hecho aislado, una curiosidad, analizar la cobertura de los medios. Lo cierto es que mi cabeza pasa por ahí en estos momentos y me tienta muy poco la temporada de "tanques" cinematográficos que se vienen.

Eso. Están avisados.

For Argentines, a Coach Is a Legend and a Letdown (The New York Times)

By CHARLES NEWBERY and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

BUENOS AIRES — Argentines woke up Thursday feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from their collective shoulders. After a 1-0 victory over Uruguay, Argentina’s soccer team qualified for the World Cup in South Africa next summer, despite growing doubts that Coach Diego Maradona could lead it there.

But Argentines also awoke to the realization that the team would still be coached by Mr. Maradona, the soccer idol known worldwide simply as Maradona, whose brilliant playing career made him a national hero but whose erratic tenure as coach has become a source of national dread. Argentines fear that in one downward swoop, they could lose two symbols of national pride: the glorious legend of Maradona as well as the nation’s standing as a global soccer power.

“The Argentines that believed that Maradona could infect the players with the winning magic that’s rooted in his luminous past don’t believe that now, after having built up excessive expectations,” said Roberto Di Giano, a sociologist at the University of Buenos Aires.

“What could lift the country now,” he said, “would be if he could win the World Cup” and “feed our delusions of grandeur.”

That is a lot of national aspiration riding on Mr. Maradona’s shoulders. Argentina has not had much in the way of grandeur lately.

This decade, Argentina has suffered through its worst financial crisis in a century, and more recently it has been plagued by incessant strikes by farm groups. The government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has scared away foreign investors with untrustworthy economic figures and heavy subsidies for food and fuel, and it has moved to exercise more control over the media. Then there is the nagging sense that neighboring Brazil, which has discovered vast oil deposits and won the 2016 Summer Olympics, is becoming an ever more important global player while Argentina is lagging behind, political analysts and sociologists said.

But soccer has long been sacred and Argentina’s spot in the world’s most important competitions always assured. Mr. Maradona, 48, who grew up in a Buenos Aires shantytown, is among the greatest players ever in the game. Since he led the national team to a World Cup championship in 1986, he has been treated as a demigod, and many Argentines firmly believe that his playing genius was the result of divine inspiration.

His early years and international career from 1979 to 1994, much of it in Spain and Italy, gave Argentines a rousing distraction from a brutal dictatorship and a failed war with Britain, the rebirth of democracy and periodic financial crises. It was also a time when soccer went global, and Mr. Maradona’s transfer to Barcelona FC in 1982, when he was 21, cost a record $7.3 million.

“In this context, Maradona was the perfect hero in cultural terms,” said Pablo Alabarces, an Argentine sociologist and author of books on soccer and popular culture. And despite the Argentine media’s almost obsessive search for Mr. Maradona’s heir, “it isn’t something that is repeatable today.”

Still, he is a flawed character, a substance abuser who struggled with the trappings of stardom and bristled at criticism. Aside from persistent problems with cocaine, Mr. Maradona tested positive for the stimulant ephedrine during the 1994 World Cup and was banned from the tournament.

Nonetheless, when Argentina’s national coach resigned last fall, Julio Grondona, the autocratic president of the Argentine Football Association, appointed Mr. Maradona. As much as they loved him as a player, most Argentines thought he was spectacularly ill suited to coach, as he had virtually no coaching experience.

Since he took over the team, it has won four World Cup qualifying matches and lost four, despite having standout international stars like Lionel Messi and Carlos Tévez. The team became a revolving door for Mr. Maradona’s indecision and experimentation; only one player, Mr. Messi, played in all eight of the matches that Mr. Maradona coached.

After losses to Paraguay and Brazil in September, with his team in seeming chaos, Mr. Maradona shocked the nation by flying to Italy for 11 days to go to a weight-loss spa. His doctor said the treatment had been planned ahead of time.

Mr. Maradona’s star sank even further, and a malaise swept the country. His failure as a coach not only was tarnishing his status as national icon, but also was on the verge of depriving Argentina of the right to play in the World Cup for the first time in 40 years.

Then in a remarkable game on Oct. 10, a bit of the old luster returned. In a match against a scrappy Peruvian team, amid a blinding rain and ball-tossing wind, Martín Palermo chipped in the winning goal for Argentina in the final minute. Mr. Maradona promptly did a belly flop on the drenched field in Buenos Aires before burying his head in Mr. Palermo’s chest, sobbing and hugging him for several minutes. Mr. Maradona later said that “St. Martin” had saved the day.

On Wednesday, the team edged past Uruguay, and Mr. Maradona gloated at a postmatch news conference, refusing to take any responsibility for the team’s struggles and lashing out at the journalists “who treated me like garbage.”

He taunted his critics with sexual vulgarities, adding, “All those that said anything against me, keep eating your words.”

On Friday, Joseph Blatter, the president of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, said it would investigate Mr. Maradona’s statements for possible disciplinary action, according to press reports.

Mr. Maradona did not back off, saying Friday on Radio Continental, “I don’t have to ask forgiveness of anybody.”

Gustavo Sorange, 47, a carpenter from Gen. Juan Madariaga, southeast of Buenos Aires, said some of his friends were so disillusioned with Mr. Maradona that they rooted for Uruguay.

“They didn’t want Argentina to win because of Maradona,” he said, stunned at the betrayal. “That’s the way things are here in Argentina. You win well, you play beautifully. And if you don’t, then you’re not good for anything.”

Charles Newbery reported from Buenos Aires, and Alexei Barrionuevo from Salvador, Brazil.

Today’s top gossip (NME)

Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez has offered to give the club's two most famous fans – Oasis' Noel and Liam Gallagher – Latin dancing lessons. The Argentinean, who has had chart success in his homeland with his band Piola Vago, also says he wants to play some music with the band.

"I would definitely jam with them sometime if they were up for it. When they are back in Manchester they can come and watch a City game, then we can go for a jam," he said, adding that he wants the Gallagher brothers to teach him how to play 'Wonderwall'. "I am open to lessons and in return I will teach [them] some Latin style and maybe even some Latin dancing to go with it".

Huracán ganó el clásico, es escolta y depende de sí mismo para ser campeón

En la Bombonera venció a San Lorenzo 1-0, con gol de Goltz. Con dos partidos por jugar, el equipo de Cappa quedó a un punto del líder Vélez, al que enfrentará en la última fecha.

Hasta ahora vine evitando hablar de estos temas en el blog, pero después de lo de hoy ya no puedo. Estamos ahí!!!

Sí, Messi es un ser humano...

Dios, el pedo que se agarró Messi... Para los que dicen que no tiene sangre en las venas aquí está la prueba (a los 38 segundos de este video, pero lo pasan por tele todo el tiempo) de que en realidad tiene una buena cantidad de alcohol!!! Please, no le hagan control de alcoholemia!