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When Maradona became my El Dorado

So, a four-hour drive up and down didn’t matter anymore because it was like having a second bite of the apple for the likes of us who had missed a date earlier during his time in Dubai.

I still remember that drive to Fujairah three years ago snaking through the scenic Wadi Shees and mountains of Masafi like yesterday. News of the enigmatic Diego Armando Maradona all set to return to the UAE for yet another stint as a football coach had just tangoed its way to the newsroom. This time for Al Fujairah, a club almost unheard of until then on the country’s East coast, (now a top tier club) plying its trade in the second division of UAE’s football system. A team that didn’t quite have the same pull as a Racing Club or a Deportivo Mandiyu, let alone Argentina or even Dubai’s Al Wasl, Maradona managed before. But it became special in an instant with the news flash because Maradona, of all the names, was now coming to helm it.

So, a four-hour drive up and down didn’t matter anymore because it was like having a second bite of the apple for the likes of us who had missed a date earlier during his time in Dubai. Yet another chance to interview the greatest man to have ever kicked the football, in flesh and blood. And so, we were off, on our way from Dubai, in search and hopes of getting El Diego, the man who had the world at his feet, the man who everyone wanted a piece of.

Like the innumerable times the English, the Germans, the Italians and almost every other team he played against tried to cow him down, we set ourselves up too. My ex-colleague Bernie, who came from Mexico and obviously spoke more than a smattering of Spanish, was the man assigned for the job, or in footballing terms, the one dispensed to mark Maradona. Something no defender in the world can claim to have done with ease or confidence.

But then this wasn’t football, and we felt a sense of relief in that it had been almost 30 years since the man with the golden left foot had hung up boots. And that none of us was English, the folks who he spent his time lampooning on the pitch in between blowing rings off Cuban cigars and raising flags and slogans for a cause including that of Palestine and a string of left leaders—from Venezuela’s Chavez to Bolivia’s Morales to Cuba’s Castro, all with a tattoo of his great compatriot Che Guevera on the right arm for a change. Who knows he might just turn to us and bare his soul like he loved baring himself often in post-match showers. Who knows he might just give us the interview no one’s ever had before?

So, we hung on planning and plotting in what was soon becoming an edgy desperation from a quiet determination as the clock ticked away. Fifteen minutes of wait, we were told at the start of the conference to unveil the new coach, turned into three quarters of an hour and then into another full circle of the hour hand. The ache in our knees soon began hurtling down to our ankles and up our spine as we continued to await the resurrection of Maradona in UAE.

Inside the banquet hall of the five star where the unveiling was scheduled, the stage was set, mics tuned and lights beaming. You could hear the distant din growing in decibels. The mob of journalists, officials, VIPs, dignitaries and random fans who managed to sneak in using names, all sat — united in a palpably zealous wait just as a classroom full of children would for the candyman to turn up with the promised candy.

We stuck around too, plotting and planning, even more. Bernie would lure the king with a bit more than Hola, como estas? as soon as he gets off his car and I would have his back with my camera rolling. Bernie would further coax him to open up on his life and times, on times when he ruled Naples, Argentina and the rest of the world, on the times when he carved open football defences like a can of tuna only to devour it, and on the times when he was down and out with everyone and everything weighing down on him - from the tax collector to the Italian mafia to the illegitimate son to the charmed drug-fuelled life. We were even ready to pin down Maradona, for there was so much he had to say, so much we wanted to know.

And then the moment arrived just like he would in his playing days, catching the opponent’s defence in a moment of stupor. There he was the five-feet-four-something with shiny bright diamond ear studs and characteristic curls and a smidgeon of salt and pepper as a reminder of the times gone by. Bernie broke into Spanish. I rolled the camera while spurting out a line or two of Italian, the only other language he spoke. Maradona looked back at us with a bemused squirm and then off he was gone just as he came, in a flash, in less than 60 seconds before a huge human wall separated us with a sea of eternity. Our interview was over even before it began with a nod back in gesture our prized takeaway. The God of big things had actually looked at us and acknowledged our existence. What he said later at the press conference didn’t matter because we had long left. Our pilgrimage was over.

For the world he may have been “El Pibe de Oro” (“The Golden Boy”) but for me that day it was finding El Dorado (the golden one), the mythical tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. And it came after waiting for Godot!

abhishek@khaleejtimes.com