The Loose Vuvuzela: Roger Cohen on Maradona

Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared in The International Herald Tribune

By Roger Cohen
JOHANNESBURG — They’re calling him the World Cup’s “loose vuvuzela.” They’re swooning as he spreads the love, jumping into his players’ arms like some cuddly bear with diamond earrings and no neck.
They can’t get enough of his deadpan quotes, as when he responds to a question about his kiss-and-hug management style by saying he still prefers women, specifically his girlfriend “Veronica who is blonde and 31.”
At 49, Diego Armando Maradona is neither blonde nor 31. But he is Mr. Unscripted in the age of spin, the Hugo Chávez of global soccer. As coach of an outrageously talented Argentine team, one thrown together in the image of his own extravagant skills, Maradona is having a good World Cup.
To genius much is permitted. And so it should be.
The contrast with some of Maradona’s more pinched rivals, including the French coach Raymond Domenech and the England manager Fabio Capello, could not be more extreme. Domenech wears the expression of a man who’d rather be reading Foucault as “Les Bleus” implode and then take to the barricades in open mutiny.
As for Capello, he’s imposed a regimen so strict that his players, deprived of their WAGs (wives and girlfriends), look vaguely unhinged. Many European prisons allow conjugal visits; not Capello. Wayne Rooney has gone on a walkabout. The body language of the English players suggests dead men walking.
England right now is to football what the vuvuzela is to music: one note going nowhere.
I’ve had my doubts about Capello since he stripped John Terry of the English captaincy earlier this year because he had an affair. For an Italian, that seemed a little rich. Discipline is all very well, but Terry’s a leader and would have led. England doesn’t do the barricades, but insurrection is close.
So here we are, 10 days into the first African World Cup, a power-shift event. And it’s proving a nice illustration of the effectiveness of asymmetrical warfare.
Traditional powers with the big guns are struggling: Italy, France, England — even Germany and Spain. The insurgents — Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovenia, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico — are pulling off deadly ambushes (and for once the gutsy Americans are not targets.) Switzerland, in its 1-0 defeat of Spain, proved unpredictable for the first time in history. The cuckoos lost their clocks.
Even North Korea, with zero fans — Kim Jung-Il would not allow them out of his police state — showed surprising tenacity until their Portuguese debacle. They’ve been using a public gym (“Virgin Active” in Eco Park) to train because they could not afford a facility.
Sorry, they do have 100 “fans,” a platoon of Chinese nationals hired by Pyongyang and not available for interview. In the realm of the bizarre, this outfit runs Maradona close.
But the Argentine coach — who tried more than 100 players during the qualifying rounds — wins. He’s already told Pelé to “go back to the museum.” He’s dismissed the UEFA president, Michel Platini, as a know-all (before mumbling an apology).
In shiny suit and shiny brogues, he prowls the demarcated pitch-side area during matches, kicking imaginary balls, looking every inch the caged coach. When it’s over he plants a kiss on each player. No Foucault for him, no training manual, no teleprompter, no quote masseur. He’ll go with the wisdom of the Buenos Aires shanties.
I said genius. Maradona had it. His “goal of the century” in the 1986 quarter-final against England, when he weaved past six players, lives in memory, as does his “Hand of God” effort in the same game. Both were outrageous. His battles against drugs and obesity since retirement have been as public as they were painful. Like his country, which has every gift but often squandered them as it meandered through the 20th century, he’s veered this way and that.
But passion never left him. Maradona knows there’s no ballet without a prima ballerina.
In the age of the smothering midfield — using not one but two defensive midfield players is the new, new thing here — Maradona is having none of it. He’s playing a winger of silky skills, Angel Di María, the rampaging Carlos Tévez, and that clinical poacher, Gonzalo Higuaín. Above all, in his own No. 10 shirt, he has a fellow genius, and fellow little guy (at all of 5-foot-7), the 22-year-old Lionel Messi.
Messi’s destruction of South Korea in Argentina’s 4-1 victory did not include a goal of his own (Higuaín got three) but included everything else in a footballer’s repertoire: dinked passes of breathtaking subtlety, mazy dribbles, swerving crosses, staggering ball control at speed, and 360-degree vision of the pitch. Maradona has rightly told Messi to play wherever he likes.
The beautiful game has traditionally been Brazil’s preserve. But Dunga, the Brazilian coach, is one of those two-holding-midfielder guys. He’s Mr. Dour to Argentina’s Mr. Drama. Still, Brazil must samba and in Robinho and the awakening Kaká, there have been flashes. An epic battle looms. Brazil may have the discipline Argentina lacks in the breach.
For now, however, the loose vuvuzela approach has trumped WAG control. Score one for the little guys and for unscripted living.

June 25, 1983: When India conquered the world (when even wives of the Devils did not keep faith in their husbands)

By John Cheeran
How was the World Cup won by India in 1983?
It seems incredible today to think that a rag tag band of men, with little noteworthy performance in the two previous World Cups, won the supreme championship.
A similar feat was achieved only once in Indian history, and that was in 1947, when Mahatma Gandhi humbled the British Empire through his non-violent methods. Who could have imagined then that Gandhi’s soul force and ahimsa would culminate in freedom for India?
When one thinks of Kapil Dev’s World Cup triumph 25 years since June 25, 1983, Albert Einstein’s words on Gandhi come to mind. Einstein said: "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth".
The same words could be said about Kapil Dev and his followers in 1983. It was an otherworldly performance, incredible to fathom, how it all came about. If Gandhi had brought sunset finally to the British Empire, Kapil and boys marked the beginning of the end for the West Indian dominance in world cricket through their soul force, and uninhibited cricket.
In the tumult of celebrations of the silver jubilee of India’s World Cup coronation in 1983, we should not forget the fact that since that day in Lord’s the West Indies have not won another World Cup. They have not even reached the finals since then.
And, now to the main question.
How did Kapil and boys conquer the world?
May be it was simply destiny, as Kapil himself likes to put it.
India’s and world’s leading batsman Sunil Gavaskar’s batting average for the 1983 World Cup was 9.83. May be that was a blessing in disguise for the 23-year-old Indian captain Kapil because Gavaskar, in the inaugural World Cup in 1975, had the dodgy distinction of batting through the 60 overs to remain not out on 36.
Kapil was bold in his decision-making and that can be gauged from the fact that the usurper of the throne of Indian captaincy dropped Gavaskar from two group matches. India promptly lost those matches, and may be as a lucky mascot, Kapil decided to pick the Mumbai stalwart for the remaining encounters.
India went into 1983 World Cup as underdogs. But they had given enough indication that they carried the firepower to shock the best in the business as they upset the prevailing world champions West Indies by 27 runs in a one-day international played a few months ago at Berbice, Guyana. Gavaskar top scored for India with 90 and Kapil, with a blazing 72 off 38 balls, had given India a winning total of 282 from 47 overs, a massive score by the 80’s benchmarks.
Not just that.
India again shocked the West Indies in their first group match and the victory in the final was truly a just reward for their grit and nous.
May be the strongest squad in the whole competition was England and the convincing win in the semi-final should have dispelled the notion that India’s show was a mere flash in the pan.
And to consider that India won the World Cup in a truly Gandhian way!
No lap top, no sport psychologist, no coach, no endorsements, no cheer girls.
In fact during the final at Lord’s when the West Indians began to gallop towards the winning target of 183, thanks to Viv Richards' murderous attack on Madan Lal, Romi Dev, Kapil’s wife, left the ground inconsolably to the sanctuary of the hotel room. Madan’s wife soon joined Romi. And Romi would have the courage to confess to Kapil that she missed that emotional moment when her husband lifted the Prudential trophy only after 12 years. A miss of a lifetime!
So, even Kapil’s Devils’ wives had little faith in them. Forget about the nation!
Kapil’s Devils had none of the modern-day accoutrements that are now deemed necessary for a tournament campaign.
Their biggest weapon might have been an uncluttered mind. There was no unbearable burden of expectation on the shoulders of Kapil. Had they lost in the group stage itself, life would have still remained the same for those cricketers.
But India’s World Cup triumph in 1983 shook not just Indian cricket; it began to alter the contours of world cricket. World Cup was taken out of the hallowed territory of imperial England. Word Cup came home to India in 1987.
New winners emerged. Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
New concepts followed and culminated in Twenty 20.
And only the blind would fail to spot the footmarks of Lalit Modi and the Indian Premier League, leading up to that of Kapil’s Devils victory strides.
Raise a toast to the Class of 1983.

Bob Woolmer dies after World Cup defeat

KINGSTON, Jamaica
Celebrated cricket coach Bob Woolmer, who was handling the Pakistan team, died aged 58 on Sunday after being found unconscious in his hotel room the morning after his side's shock World Cup exit, the Pakistan team management announced.
"Robert Andrew Woolmer has passed away today and the entire Pakistan team and management are shocked and saddened by his passing," Pakistan team spokesman Pervez Mir said reading a statement.
Woolmer had seen his team crash out of the World Cup on Saturday after a shock Group D defeat by debutants Ireland at Sabina Park.
"We've been speaking to the doctors and they think it is either stress or a heart attack," Woolmer's son, Russell, told South African radio station 702 from Cape Town.
"There was a lot of stress in his job and it may have been stress that caused it.
"We're all very shocked and we don't know what to do. I've lost an amazing man to me."
It has yet to be confirmed if the India-born (in Kanpur) coach died in hospital or his hotel room, where Mir said staff discovered Woolmer on the floor at 1030 (1530 GMT).
Mir added Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was 'totally shocked and bewildered' with the news.
The former England batsman was made coach of Pakistan in June 2004. The job of coaching the national team of the cricket-crazy country is considered one of the most pressurised in the sport.
Woolmer, who had a distinguished career as a coach, appeared to take the defeat by Ireland in his stride following the match.
His contract with the Pakistan Cricket Board was due to finish on June 30 but it was widely expected he would part company with them after the World Cup which is scheduled to finish on April 28.
"I would like to sleep on my future as a coach," Woolmer said in Saturday's post-match news conference.
"It's what I do best, what I try to do best. Therefore I'm not going to throw away coaching just like that.
"However, internationally I will give it some thought. Travelling and being involved non-stop in hotels and so on takes its toll."
Mir confirmed that Woolmer had been 'perfectly fine after the game'.
"I had a very good chat with him and he was thinking about doing a number of things for Pakistan cricket. He had a lot of plans and wanted to go back and speak to the chairman."
Before turning to coaching, Woolmer played 19 Tests and six one-dayers for England during the 1970s.