In Kolkatta. [BBC]

Maradona meets (wax) Maradona in Kolkatta
img: via BCC

Indians in India have a weird relationship with soccer. As we all know cricket is the more widely played sport and bar a few soccer crazy areas like Kolkatta and Goa, soccer is rarely played on a nationwide basis. But Indians still follow a lot of European and South American club soccer. Case in point, every other college kid’s favorite team is Manchester United (the New York Yankees of soccer) and on a national level, Brazil and/or Argentina.

Speaking of Argentina, most here will remember Diego Maradona for the “Hand of God” and “Goal of the Century” goals. Ever wonder what happened to the soccer (or football as the rest of the world calls it) legend? [BBC]

Maradona was last seen on the big stage when he was booted off the Argentina team in the 1994 World Cup for testing positive for drugs. Then he struggled with cocaine addiction, his weight ballooned and he almost died. Since then apparently he’s turned his life around, had a stomach stapling procedure done to handle his weight problems and hosted a popular TV show in Argentina. He is now head coach of the Argentina national team.

More recently he was in India, the football crazy city of Kolkatta to be precise. Among his schedule, he visited the “Mother House”, ………………

Maradona visited the “Mother House”, headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Nobel Laureate Mother Teresa.
Inside the Mother House, Maradona prayed with the nuns for a while, picked up books on the life of the late Mother Teresa and shook hands with orphans brought up by the Missionaries of Charity.
“I have heard about the great deeds of Mother Teresa,” Maradona told a press conference after his arrival.

displayed his golden foot at a stadium, …………..

Another 20,000 turned up at the grounds of Calcutta’s famous Mohun Bagan Club on Sunday as Maradona shook hands with school footballers and kicked dozens of balls into the stadium.

and spouted communist propaganda.

In a city governed by the left, Maradona made himself more popular by talking of his “intimate relations” with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and by launching an attack on outgoing US President George W Bush.
In the Saturday press conference, Maradona described Mr Bush as “an assassin” but was quick to add that he liked President-elect Barack Obama and had great expectations for him. At one point, he held up a portrait of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevera.

Bush is an assassin and Fidel is a good guy? Me thinks some of this is Maradona’s prolonged exposure to coke speaking. But politics aside, it is good to see a childhood soccer hero back on his feet.

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