Diego Maradona R.I.P

sodacat11

I heard an Argentinian football fan yesterday say that he felt like his father had died. Maradona was three years younger than me so I can't say the same but certainly a member of my extended "family" is gone. There are not many left now, Rory Gallagher, George Best, Frank Sinatra, Elvis have all passed too. Maradona, Gallagher and Best were inducted into the family by myself whereas I kind of inherited Elvis and Sinatra. I had two uncles who were brothers, one was ten years older than me and the other about fifteen, the elder, Frank, was a Frank Sinatra fanatic and had the third biggest collection in the world of his music, he met Sinatra two or three times and the great man said that he had heard of my uncle and his collection. My other uncle had a similar passion for Elvis and was so devastated when he died that he and his wife went over to the funeral. Growing up it always felt to me that both Elvis and Sinatra were family members somehow.
Gallagher and Best were my idols growing up and whether I was giving a concert in my bedroom on my electric guitar to 20,000 people or scoring cup final winning goals against the door of our coal shed these were the two that I wanted to emulate.
I first saw Maradona play on t.v when he was 15 years old and even then his brilliance was very evident, he immediately became my favourite player and remained so throughout his career. To me Maradona was a footballing God and I could identify with what he did for Naples and the south of Italy because that is where my father was from.
All my heroes were flawed in some way and all succumbed to one temptation or other but I guess that was part of their charm, it is easier to identify with guys like that than with the likes of Kasparov who seems to have spent most of his life being chaperoned by his mother.
I did lament the death of Fischer at the time but more because of the passing of an era than through any great love for the man himself. I have never been a fan of the U.S.A or anything American so his victory against Russia, a country with a far greater culture and heritage, gave me no pleasure. On top of that Spassky is my all time favourite chess player and I did not like Fischer's obsession with money.
I find Carlsen hard to warm to. Undoubtedly he is a great talent but he lacks personality and probably isn't "flawed" enough for me. I remember when he was ten years old he played a ten board blind simul against players of something like 2100 ratings and he beat them all, amazing and all as such a feat is I regarded it as a bit "freaky", the result of some part of his brain just being different to normal people. Ian Thorpe, the Aussie swimmer was another, he had feet almost as big as flippers so it was no big deal that he could beat normal swimmers. Sonia O'Sullivan had such a long stride that she could move her legs slower than other athletes but still cover more distance in a faster time. The androgynous Semenya is another example, it is hard to laud what is almost a man beating female runners.
My "heroes" were not manufactured in any way nor the result of some physical abnormality, their greatness came from their passion, not just for their professions but for life itself . To paraphrase old Blue Eyes they did it "Their way". I will miss Diego, a man I have loved and admired for most of my life. R.I.P my friend.

Inquitus

sodacat11 wrote: »

I did lament the death of Fischer at the time but more because of the passing of an era than through any great love for the man himself. I have never been a fan of the U.S.A or anything American so his victory against Russia, a country with a far greater culture and heritage, gave me no pleasure. On top of that Spassky is my all time favourite chess player and I did not like Fischer's obsession with money.

Fischers relationship with money is an interesting one, after winning the WCC in 1972 he spurned multi-million dollar sponsorship deals and effectively made nothing from his greatest success. Obv, later in his life that changed and he had the rematch with Spassky primarily to line his pockets.

sodacat11

Inquitus wrote: »

Fischers relationship with money is an interesting one, after winning the WCC in 1972 he spurned multi-million dollar sponsorship deals and effectively made nothing from his greatest success. Obv, later in his life that changed and he had the rematch with Spassky primarily to line his pockets.

Yes, but before he won he seemed to be obsessed with money although it could be argued that he was just trying to improve the lot of chess players. I think because he represented(or was depicted as representing) U.S Capitalism v socialism that I always associate him with it. I also think that his greatness was lessened in my eyes because he defected as champion in the same way I don't like how Kasparov and Carlsen have commercialised chess so much or how Kasparov undermined the world title by breaking away and forming his own championship.

Inquitus

sodacat11 wrote: »

I find Carlsen hard to warm to. Undoubtedly he is a great talent but he lacks personality and probably isn't "flawed" enough for me. I remember when he was ten years old he played a ten board blind simul against players of something like 2100 ratings and he beat them all, amazing and all as such a feat is I regarded it as a bit "freaky", the result of some part of his brain just being different to normal people.

I like Magnus, but I agree with your comments, he is hard to warm to, he's not particularly charming. I think Anish Giri and Hikaru seem to have more personality about them, Caruana is Magnus's closest challenger in standard, although he is also hard to a warm to, and Vachier-Lagrave seems to the the likely winner of the candidates tournament, as it stands, to play Magnus in next years World Chess Championship.

The 2 main tournaments at the moment are both quite good, The World Speed Chess Championship and The Skilling Open, the opening leg of the Champions Chess Tour.

We have the first round of the SFs tonight with 4 x 15"+15s games in the first legs of the SF's kick off before closing out tomorrow with the Final scheduled for Sunday and Monday, no rest for the wicked!

Chess24: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0RtHJAxAA&ab_channel=chess24 (Studio Style aimed at lower ranked viewers)
Chess 24 (Peter Leko and Tania Sachdev): Find it at 16:50pm Irish, the best commentary imho

Joedryan

Saw him play in Lansdowne Road in the Ireland Argentina friendly when he came on as young lad in the second half and completely blew everybody away, after a pretty dreary first half tbf.

sodacat11

Joedryan wrote: »

Saw him play in Lansdowne Road in the Ireland Argentina friendly when he came on as young lad in the second half and completely blew everybody away, after a pretty dreary first half tbf.

You are lucky to have seen him live. There are a couple of excellent two hour documentaries about his life, amazing stuff.

Joedryan

sodacat11 wrote: »

You are lucky to have seen him live. There are a couple of excellent two hour documentaries about his life, amazing stuff.

I was only a very youngun at the time, it was all standing those days, was there with my Dad and my brother, but the buzz was mad when he came on. First half was a write off, but second half everybody around us and us too was "hold on who is this young lad", he was taking the ball and running through everybody like they were not there.

RIP Diego, footballing genius.