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The memoirs of Maradona and Di Stéfano Dribbles wich light up pupils Jesús Castañón Rodríguez THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE HERO In this review along the path which dreams promised his yearnings, it is emphasized the human focus of the myth which meets extraordinary people, it worries about the own image with somebody else’s opinions and it sticks out its cultural hobbies. An appointment with the history The importance of the footballers leads them to know unimaginable people and they tell the impressions of their matches with popes, kings, presidents from countries and mayors. It’s the case of the emotion in the presence of Pío XII or the disappointment with Juan Pablo II, the king Juan Carlos I’s affection, the admiration for the politics based on the help to the working class of Perón, the happiness for the nomination as sporting and roving ambassador from Argentine carried out by Menem, the affable behavior from Fidel Castro -who was right wing when he was young- and the nomination as Ciudadano Ilustre from Buenos Aires in charge of Julio Saguier. To this will be joined the falling in love by other important people: Ché Guevara for Maradona and Martín Fierro for Di Stéfano, who applies to his life as footballer teachings as the loyal friend’s friendship based on an honest behavior, the desires for overcoming adversity and the principles based on not to hinder nor having envy when anyone saw that the others were winning. But the appointment with the history is not only with politics, but also with the social history which leads to friendship and recognition of singers such as Ricky Martin, of professionals from hotel trade, for example Chicote and of course of other journalists, for instance the prize-fighter Ray Sugar Leonard or Carlos Monzón and the driver Ayrton Senna. The opinions about the experienced sport The sporting affections are organized in groups of friends and enemies. Maradona divides his team-mates into good friends, for example Valdano or Di Stéfano, into people who deserve praises and criticisms, for instance Bilardo and Menotti and into rivals such as Ramón Díaz, Ruggeri, Passarella, the president of the FIFA Joâo Havelange and Brazil. On the other hand, Di Stéfano makes the kind words and nice memories endure in Marsal, Héctor Rial, Puskas o Kubala. And, always, these remarks are in other opinions about different players, that in the case of Yo soy el Diego de la gente has an specific chapter where it offers us a review about a hundred of footballers belonging to each period from Pelé to Beckham. The personal view is complemented with appendices which describe the main titles, prizes and successes, with chronologies from the period, with a selection of the best articles of press about their play or poems. And in the history based on the best two Argentine footballers never seen is important to mention the honor of Maestro Inspirador de Quienes Yodavía Sueñan, conferred on Maradona by the Oxford University as a proposal from the Argentine student Esteban Cichello Hübner. Cinema and music Yo soy el Diego de la gente and ¡Gracias, vieja! attract our attention because of the desire for cinema and music. The sporting protagonists jump to the pith of the great screen with a certain sensation of cinema as a lie, after the three movies filmed by Di Stéfano in Buenos Aires -Con los mismos colores- and in Spain - La Saeta Rubia and La batalla del domingo- and the project of El día que Maradona conoció a Gardel, where El Pelusa would interpret "El día que me quieras" with El Zorcal thanks to a reconstruction of images by means of the computer. In their social dimension, myths tell us a lot of things about their musical preferences. Maradona admires the tango and the rock music with a list formed by artists who talk about the reality without making up it: Julio Sosa, Fito Páez, Andrés Calamaro, Chahrly García, Los Piojos, Attaque 77 and Los Redonditos de Ricota. Di Stéfano shows us his preferences based on the orchestras: Alfredo De Angelli, Honradio Salgaru, D’Arienzo, Di Biaggi. He is also interested in singers such as Ángel Vargas, Alberto del Castillo, Podestá and Marino, and also it is important his friendship with Lola Flores. And also, they narrate how their moves have been used as inspiration for compositions from the Argentine Andrés Calamaro and Los Piojos, from the French band Mano Negra and from the Uruguayan singer Julio Lacarra. Maradona states that his favorite is the one which is composed by Rodrigo entitled "Diego", which presents him as an special human being chosen by God and with charisma to touch his people. But no doubt, the sensitivity of the myths is focused on the tango and in a exposition of facts by means of the letters of the songs, because soccer and tango are dribbles to the destiny which light pupils, they form subtle moves which are carried out with their legs to disconnect the accidental enemy. Diego states that he loves listening and singing this kind of music. He remembers the welcome in Naples to the sounds of "El Choclo", the Enrique Santos Discépolo and Carlos Marambio Catán’s composition: "Con este tango que es burlón y compadrito,/se ató dos alas la emoción de mi suburbio./Con este tango nació el tango y como un grito/salió del sórdido barrial buscando el cielo./Conjuro extraño de un amor hecho cadencia/que abrió caminos sin más ley que su esperanza,/mezcla de rabia, de dolor, de fe, de ausencia,/llorando en la inocencia de un ritmo juguetón. (…) Al evocarte…/tango querido…/siento que tiemblan las baldosas de un bailongo/cuando tu canto nace al son de un bandoneón". A bottled emotion which led him to cry, to the trembling of his legs and to the enormous embrace directed to his wife Claudia. And also it evokes his interpretation of "El sueño del pibe" in the spectacle. La verdad de la milanesa by Antonio Gasalla. This Reinaldo Yiso’s tango was sung for the first time by Osvaldo Plugiese’s orchestra with the Roberto Chanel’s voice and it has references to Emilio Baldonedo (Huracán’s player), Rinaldo Mrtino (San Lorenzo and white-blue National Team’s coach), Mario Boyé (Boca Juniors’ wing) and Bernabé Ferreyra (River Plate’s forward): "Golpearon la puerta en la humilde casa,/la voz del cartero muy clara se oyó,/y el pibe corriendo con todas sus ansias/al perrito blanco sin querer pisó./"Mamita, mamita" se acercó gritando;/la madre extrañada dejó el piletón/y el pibe le dijo riendo y llorando:/"El club me ha mandado hoy la citación"./Mamita querida,/ganaré dinero,/seré un Baldonedo/un Martino,/un Boyé./Dicen los muchachos/de Oeste Argentino/que tengo más tiro/que el gran Bernabé./Vas a ver qué lindo/cuando allá en la cancha/mis goles aplaudan;/seré un triunfador./Jugaré en la quinta,/después en primera,/yo sé que me espera/la consagración./Dormía el muchacho y tuvo esa noche/el sueño más lindo que pudo tener:/el estadio lleno, glorioso domingo/por fin en primera lo iban a ver./Faltando un minuto están cero a cero;/tomó la pelota sereno en su acción,/gambeteando a todos enfrentó al arquero/y con fuerte tiro quebró el marcador". Perhaps the most unusual of his hobby is his feeling based on the myth, the Diego’s conscience to take part of the history, with the project based on the filming of a movie in honor of El Zorzal, El día que Maradona conoció a Gardel, where they would play a duet "El día que me quieras", as soon as with the peculiar fitting which he likes to do for "El sueño del pibe" substituting the footballers such as Baldonedo and Martino for the symbols of the two triumphs in the World Cup in 1978 and 1986: Mario Kempes and Diego Armando Maradona. On the other hand, Di Stéfano states that he has a great admiration for Carlos Gardel and eventually this admiration is increasing, but in his memoirs he only talks about him to bring to mind the figure of José Samitier, the person who wanted him to go to Spain and the one who liked to narrate the moves of the life with lyrics from tangos. Samitier was a Carlos Gardel’s good friend, and he together with the poet Rafaael Alberti were to celebrate the triumph in the final of the Cup in 1928, match which occasioned one of the most important literary compositions based on football: Oda a Platko. Di Stéfano remembers how Samitier gave him several photos of Gardel with his mother and Ricardo Zamora in the Montjuïch Stadium. Samitier gave him these photos before he was dead. But his most important contribution is the narration based on the first defeat of the Real Madrid in quarterfinals of the European Cup, against Barcelona, with lyrics of tango, and also his narration based on the complex negotiations between Barcelona and Real Madrid in order to get his signing. Samitier named him Percanta because of the Pascual Contursi’s composition, "Mi noche triste", que fue el primer tango grabado por el uruguayo Carlos Gardel: "Percanta que me amuraste/en lo mejor de mi vida/dejándome el alma herida/y espinas en el corazón,/sabiendo que te quería,/que vos eras mi alegría/y mi sueño abrasador;/para mí ya no hay consuelo/y por eso me encurdelo pa’ olvidarme de tu amor". STYLE The technique of these books deserve an apart remark. They are written by two footballers who haaate the intellectuals who think footballers are ignorant people, they have in common the fact that they have been corrected by journalists in order to improve their expression and also they have helped them to put in order their experiences. They are written volumes made with a team where journalists carry out a previous work, during three or four months, based on recordings with the footballer and after this process it follows the narrated events with an order, a first text which is given to the footballer in order to touch up it, elaborate it, redo it and add all stellar moments taken from his life he wants. Diego has enjoyed due to the assistance of Ernesto Cherquis (Titular Teacher from the Argentine Catholic University with a trajectory linked to Clarín, El Gráfico Telefé and Radio Rivadavia) and Daniel Arcucci (journalist linked to Tiempo Argentino, El Gráfico and La Nación); while Alfredo receives the help from the journalists Enrique Ortego (El Imparcial, Diario 16, Marca, Claro, ABC and Cadena Ser) and Alfredo Relaño (Marca, El País, Cadena Ser, Canal Plus, As). Along the report appear several linguistic curiosities. First, the explanation based on the atorrante’s origin, related to those immigrants which hadn’t any money, family and home and for this reason they asked for some money and job in the streets and they lived in the pipes from the mark A. Torrant which were bound for the waters collector in Buenos Aires. Secondly, the designation of Mangriñán applied to the severe jealous wife from the aforementioned footballer’s marking to cancel out Alfredo Di Stéfano. And thirdly, the fine which received La Saeta Rubia for asking a referee qué cobraba instead of qué pitaba, with a confusion of the word in its Spanish from America sense and its interpretation as a bribe in peninsular Spanish. But the expression based on actions by means of onomatopoeias and colloquial turns of phrases are very important as well. The whole list of the first ones, with the possible meaning, is formed by: je (to affirm something with pride), pic (feint), pic, pac (to throw the ball against the wall striking with both legs), pim (a shove), pin (like a joker used for something which occurs suddenly), pin, pan (to touch the ball), ¡psssssiiiii! (trajectory of a ball which is in the air),¡pum! (unexpected events or throws of the ball which unexpectedly become a goal), tac (a fast free oneself or stamping of the ball), tac, tac, tac (to throw the ball), track (a break of the ankle) y ¡zum! (play based on a whirlwind). And as far as the colloquial expressions are concerned we have some of them which are important because of its colouring and humor sense, se le escapó la tortuga (to get crazy), a llorar a la iglesia, cabeza de termo (silly) o El Barba (God) also the unusual comparisons estar más solos que Adán el día de la Madre, ganar una plata que no le daban a Frank Sinatra ni cantando desnudo en la cancha de River. EPILOGUE To sum up, Gracias, vieja and Yo soy el Diego de la gente show us the stilistic differences and the differences of the two start’s period, the Maradona’s technical superiority and the wonderful Di Stéfano’s movility in the pitch. But they start from the same sensitivity at bottom, because the boy Diego admired Alfredo since he transformed Boca Juniors into a champion in 1969 and he kept a poster with his face in his humble room in Villa Fiorito. They have in common the fact that they base their success on a meeting with the past pervades with feelings and virtues of Buenos Aires: friendship, work, responsability and instinct. In both works, the protagonists come back with the withered forehead, the flickering of Buenos Aired so loved to rediscover the lived reality: the house of their childhood, the neighborhood, the eradication, the experience of the pibe who smiles and cries because he can see that his dreams has become true, the robbed dreams, the depraved adversities which tried to collapsed their life… In both memoirs appear a run along the sporting life between thorns or difficulties, they try to look for a path fulled with hopes which becomes true by means of a great effort. At the end of this uncertain path, the two travellers are exhausted, they stop to avoid the family’s sufferings and they send a final message to state that after all there are only left the relatives and friend’s fundamental affections. And they stick to the nice memory based on the magic madness which with the shape of a ball, allows as to help the family, to share their lives with wonderful people and to meet people never dreamt. Bibliographical references BESA
i CAMPRUBÍ, Ramón: Maradona, historia de un desencuentro.
Barcelona, Barcanova, 1998. The dates based no the number of editions, copies which have been sold, type of buyer and the main country for sales have been supplied by Editorial Planeta (Buenos Aires) and by the Grupo Santillana de Ediciones (Madrid). Introduction and The peace of the ball Trajectory as footballer, coach and journalist Traducción: María Elena Martín Pérez
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