ABOUT THE FIELDS—MARADONA “We” could not win the World Cup, since no British team had even qualified for the finals in the USA. So the British media decided to restage the glorious Falklands War instead, with the Argentinian captain Diego Maradona cast in the role of the headLines. Maradona was kicked out of the World Cup after failing a drugs test. He was found to have traces of the banned substance, ephedrine, in his blood stream. He might have taken it to combat a summer virus. He might have taken it to help him lose weight fast before the World Cup finals began. But one thing is for certain, he did not take it to make him lay the kind of football with which he has bewitched the world for a decade. They have not invented a drug that can make you play like Maradona. If they had, even England and Scotland could have qualified for the finals with the aid of a cornershop chemist. But the British media were not interested in any of that. To them Maradona’s expulsion from the tournament proved he was “Dirty-cheat Diego”(the idea is that you say it fast and it sounds like Dirty cheatin’ Dago), and they dragged out every has-been British footballer to kick him when he was down. Gary Lineker said it was a case of “ good riddance “, and Terry Butcher announced that Maradona should never have been allowed to play in the World Cup in the first place ,because his previous drug conviction (for taking cocaine, a drug which definitely does not enhance your ball skills) meant he was setting a terrible example to young fans. Unlike Mr Butcher, who set them such a fine example by head-butting Tunisians on the field while playing for England. Of course, the bile displayed by the likes of Lineker and Butcher came purely from their sense of affronted sportsmanship, and had “nothing” to do with the fact that these players were part of the English team beaten by Maradona in the quarter final of the 1986 World Cup, He humiliated England in that game, not with the Hand of God, but with the second goal, the dazzling run past half of the team that made the Fenwicks and Butchers of the English defence look like the artless shit kickers they were. Linker won the Golden Boot in that World Cup by scoring six goals. But nobody outside his native Leicester remembers any of them. The ones Maradona scored against England and Belgium on the way to winning the tournament will live in the memory forever. The bashing bulldogs of the British press have been waiting for revenge ever since, and they sunk their teeth into Maradona with relish。 Maradona has been playing on drugs for most of his career. He has had to pump himself full of the pain-killer cortisone, to enable him to play on with the countless injuries inflicted by the Butchers he found wherever he played—in Argentina, in Spain, in Italy and in World Cup tournaments. There was never any outcry about that because cortisone is legal. Indeed the rich men who held his contracts insisted he take the drugs, because their bank balances needed him on the pitch, regardless of the damage which cortisone can do to the body in later life. Maradona has always cultivated his relationship with the poor and the oppressed. In Naples he made himself the champion of the backward south of Italy against the rich north (centred in football terms on AC Milan) When Argentina played the Italians in Naples in the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup, Maradona even appealed to Neapolitans to support his team because “What has Italy ever done for you?” Maradona has incurred the wrath of no less a bigot than the Pope, because every time His Holiness makes a speech about helping the poor, Maradona demands that the Vatican should give them its own vast wealth. And he has often fallen foul of the Argentinian oligarchy. When he arrived in the USA for the World Cup, Maradona said that, first, he was glad to be in a country where they played football with their hands as well as their feet, and second that he had a message for Argentina’s president Carlos Menem: “Instead of swanning around here and boasting to everybody that we are going to win the World Cup, he should think of the poor people at home, on the streets and without jobs….” “我們”無法贏得世界盃，因爲英國隊甚至沒有資格進入在美國的決賽。於是乎英國的媒體決定重演福克蘭戰爭的輝煌，隨之阿根廷隊的隊長迪耶果·馬拉多納成了頭版頭條的主角。 馬拉多納在未通過藥檢後被逐出世界盃。在他的血液中發現有違禁物質麻黃素的跡象。他可能服用了此物來抵抗一種夏季的病毒。也可能爲了幫助他在世界盃決賽前儘快減輕體重。可有一點是肯定的，他不會將此藥物用在他那十年來使世人癡迷的足球上面。還沒有人能發明一種能像馬拉多納那樣踢球的藥物。如果有，英格蘭和蘇格蘭或許能靠街頭藥店的幫助而有資格進入決賽了。但英國的媒體對此絲毫不感興趣。對他們來說把馬拉多納逐出錦標賽就能證明他是個“骯髒、騙人的迪耶果”（想想你說得快的話，聽起來就像在說骯髒騙人的拉丁人），並且他們拉出每一個當過英國足球運動員的人，對他落井下石。 加里·萊茵科爾說這是個“甩掉包袱”的事例，而泰裏·布切爾聲稱馬拉多納根本不應允許再參加世界盃，因爲他以前吸毒（因爲服用可卡因，這是種絕對不會提高你球技的毒品）意味着他給年輕的球迷留下了一個可怕的示範。這倒不像布切爾先生，他在代表英格蘭隊踢球時在場上用頭撞擊突尼斯隊隊員，從而給別人樹立了多麼好的榜樣！ 當然，萊茵科爾與布切爾之流所顯露的失態，純粹是出自他們被褻瀆的球風，與1986年世界盃四分之一決賽上被馬拉多納打敗“無關”， 當時他們是英格蘭隊隊員。在那場比賽中，馬拉多納羞辱了英格蘭，不是靠上帝之恩賜，而是靠第二個進球，靠令人眼花繚亂地繞過半數的隊員，使英格蘭的後衛芬威克斯和布切爾看上去像毫無球藝的飯桶。那次世界盃中萊茵科爾因進六球而贏得金靴獎，可除了他的家鄉萊斯特外無人記得其中的任何進球。而馬拉多納在贏得錦標賽的過程中對英格蘭和比利時所進的球卻將永遠留在人閃的腦海中。 自打那時起，英國媒體的這些躍躍試試的猛犬們就在等待復仇的時機，時機一到他們便狠狠地向馬拉多納咬去。馬拉多納足球生涯中大半時間與毒品有染。他必須要靠止痛的可的鬆來使自己精力充沛，使他能頂住到處都會碰到的類似布切爾給他的那種傷害—包括在阿根廷，西班牙，意大利以及世界盃錦標賽。從沒有人對此提出抗議，因爲可的鬆是合法的。實際上與他簽約的富人們執意要他服用這種藥，因爲他們的銀行收支絕對與他的良好競技狀態息息相關，哪管可的鬆會對他的身體將來所產生什麼危害。 馬拉多納一向與窮人保持着良好的關係。在那不勒斯他支持落後的意大利南部地區去對抗富裕的北部（以AC米蘭爲中心的球隊）。當阿根廷在1990年世界盃半決賽中與意大利隊在那不勒斯比賽時，馬拉多那甚至呼籲那不勒斯人去支持他所在的球隊，因爲‘意大利又爲你做過什麼呢？’ 馬拉多納曾經引起教皇對他的憤怒，因爲教皇陛下每次發表關於扶貧的演說時，馬拉多納就主張羅馬教廷應將自己鉅額的財富分給窮人。同時他還時常與阿根廷的寡頭統治相牴觸。當馬拉多納到美國參加世界盃時，他說首先他很高興來到一個手腳並用來玩足球的國家，其次他有一個給阿根廷總統卡洛斯·梅內姆的口信：“不要來這裏到處向大家吹噓我們要贏得世界盃，他應該想想國內的受苦人，流落街頭的失業者 ······”
