After Fall From Grace, Maradona Starts Over
"Ole, ole, ole, ole, Dieeego, Dieeego," shouted the crowd every time he touched the ball.
"Diego Is Silver," "Thank You, Diego," read the banners at the River Plate stadium, named for the muddy river it sits next to.
Amid raucous chanting, endless confetti, firecrackers and waves of stomping by more than 70,000 fans that shook the the bleachers, Argentina welcomed its prodigal soccer star, Diego Armando Maradona, back to center stage tonight as the Argentine national team played Brazil to a 1-1 tie.
At least for the soccer fans, the arrest of Maradona in 1991 on cocaine-possession charges, the suspension from international play for 15 months for cocaine use, the pictures of him high on drugs, were forgotten.
"The greatest soccer player in the world has come back," said Luis Ibanez, who came hundreds of miles from a northern province to watch Maradona's return.
"As Maradona always says: 'With the face ahead, looking forward, we've got to forget the past. The past is past,' " said Antonio Ramirez.
But Maradona, a little paunchy and seeming to fade in the second half, gave Argentina's fans only some of what they wanted.
It did not seem to matter. What mattered was that Diego was back, and though he was not everything that Argentines remembered, he often dominated play in the first half and the latter half of the second, just missing a tie-breaking goal with a shot that hit a goal post.
To be sure, he has lost steps. Gone are the lightning explosions of speed, the bursting past defenders. He admitted in interviews this week that at 32, he could not keep up with the 21-year-olds. He seemed at times out of the play, drifting across the field.
But then the magic would return, and the precision passes, the flip of the ball off the feet and the fake so deft it seemed as if he didn't move repeatedly brought cheers from the crowd.
Soccer reporters here say there's little doubt the Maradona of the 1986 World Cup, who as captain of the Argentine soccer team led them to victory, is no longer and will not return. His scoring potential is limited. But as a playmaker he made the Argentine team work through much of the game.
One writer who has followed Maradona as he played for Seville since last September noted he had lost a lot of weight, and instead of only being able to run full tilt for about 20 minutes lasted much longer.
That's how Maradona ran into the stadium, with a soccer ball under an arm, raising his other hand to the crowd on one side of the field. Then he ran to the other side and waved to fans there, almost like a little child greeting everyone on the block after a summer at camp.
Some fans wanted more.
"I think he was 70 percent," Fernando Morales said as he left the stadium tonight. "He needs more play. The two-year layoff hurt him, and he needs time to regain his speed and conditioning."
Said one sportswriter: "Neither glory nor a withered brow."
Many see this as the launching of Maradona's chance to lead the country's team into the 1994 World Cup, which will be held in the United States.
It has been a long road back for the soccer superstar, born into poverty, whose touch with the soccer ball brought him near-overnight fame and wealth and who has struggled since to control the excesses of his personal life.
"This return is for the people who hugged me in the street, who kissed me and helped me out when things were going bad," he said at an impromptu press conference on Tuesday when he arrived at Ezeiza International Airport. "I have a new opportunity and I need to take advantage of it because I don't have many years left in soccer."
Though his pinnacle was the 1986 World Cup, April of 1991 was the bottom, when, after being suspended from play for a month after testing positive for cocaine in his urine, he was arrested by Buenos Aire police on cocaine possession charges. Some Stunning Pictures
A country that had honored him as its national sports ambassador was stunned at pictures of a Maradona in a drugged stupor. Argentines were pained for months by his court appearances, by his drug conviction in Italy and by another court ruling that he had to pay support for a child he had fathered by a former girlfriend.
With his image tarnished, the public backed off, focusing more on his emotional outbursts, his growing paunch and troubled personal life than his soccer skills.
Trying to polish the image of the national sports hero that fell from grace, the Argentine Football Association awarded him this week the title of the greatest soccer player in the country's history, and the team coach named him captain for the match.
SOCCER