Tag Archives: #Maradona

In Memory of the simpatico Terry  Venables

Posted on November 26, 2023 in the Blog, Football category

  The former England, Barcelona and Tottenham manager has died aged 80.   I owe to the personable Terry Venables some memorable times together during which his  colourful  insights  provided me with the material for two books of mine that came to be enjoyed by fans  around the world-The Hand of God and Barca. It was Venables that told me how he resigned himself to losing Diego Maradona from his squad soon after taking over the management of FC Barcelona in May 1984. While there had been speculation that  Maradona …

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Pele & Maradona: Contrasting Greatness

Posted on December 30, 2022 in the Blog category

by Jimmy Burns Among the claims to football greatness, those of Pele and Maradona,   who died within just over  two years of each other,  will endure as a contrast in character and iconography,  defining between them the developing story of modern football. Pele’s  emerged  on the international scene as  a skinny seventeen-year-old in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. He went on to straddle the transition of football from a game to a serious business venture, breaking cultural  and racial boundaries , his true potential barely registered by the  grey …

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Messi is the greatest, so was Maradona

Posted on December 19, 2022 in the Blog, Football category

For fear or being  accused of being a party popper, and in deference to my many Argentine friends who ,  as I write , are having the most joyous and extended  party of their lives, let me first offer my  heart-felt ‘felicidades’. Argentina has  not only won two world cups as a democratic country, but each have  been achieved thanks by the best player of his time,  with a distinct personality and unique set of skills. No need to relegate the memory of the late Maradona to make way for …

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Maradona’s World Cup

Posted on November 17, 2022 in the Blog, Football category

Maradona’s World Cup Story By Jimmy Burns   With the World Cup in Qatar fast approaching this winter in the Northern hemisphere, one football legend will be missed, and notable by his absence , even  for ever  remembered,  Diego Maradona who died two years ago on the 25th of November 2020. During his tempestuous life and career, Maradona played for top clubs in South America and Europe-including Boca Juniors, FC Barcelona and most notably Napoli where he became an adored hero and adopted son.  He was the Player of the …

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The shame of Argentine Football

Posted on November 26, 2018 in the Misc category

In the Paraguayan Capital of Asuncion , hardly an icon of historic accountability, a group of South American football executives will meet tomorrow (Tuesday)  to decide when and how, if at all,  the second leg of the continent’s club championship Copa Libertadores final  between River Plate and Boca Juniors of Argentina  will be played. This is no routine meeting. It comes after the match initially scheduled for last Saturday was cancelled twice over the weekend as a result of a violent attack in Buenos Aires on the Boca team bus …

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