CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Is Maradona Soccer’s G.O.A.T.?

Illustration by Paola Bilancieri.

For years, medical appointments and work obligations sent me into hundreds of New York City taxi rides. In a city where most cabdrivers trace their roots to soccer-loving nations, one detail about my background reliably sparks delight. The moment they learn I am from Argentina, many break into a grin and exclaim, “Maradona!”—a spontaneous homage to a player whose name still carries the force of revelation.

Few athletes have delivered joy on the scale Diego Armando Maradona once did. I owe him a debt myself. Years ago, while leaving Bangladesh—a country where soccer devotion runs deep—a customs officer berated me for lacking a required form. His anger rose, and so did my fear of spending the night in a Dhaka jail. Then he asked where I was from. “Argentina,” I whispered. His expression softened instantly. “Maradona’s country,” he said, waving me through. Maradona’s story began far from the global spotlight.

Born in 1960 in Lanús, outside Buenos Aires, and raised in a shantytown, he joined Los Cebollitas at age 8 and helped the youth team compile an astonishing 141-match unbeaten streak. He later starred for Argentinos Juniors and then Boca Juniors, where he delivered a league title. His precocity was such that the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano once observed, “By night he........

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