Sideline Cut:One of the more troubling sporting headlines of the week reported that Diego Maradona had been rushed to hospital in his home city of Buenos Aires. Of the many champions who have fallen from grace down the years, the deterioration of Maradona - who replaced his genius for football with the kind of lifestyle preferred by Tony Montana and his chums in Scarface - was particularly poignant. Every so often, photographs would appear of the footballer padding along in loafers and shorts and so bloated that only his face was recognisable.
Looking at them, it was hard to believe this small, fat man ever had the speed, grace and power to more or less take over a World Cup tournament, to render the other leading football professionals on the planet just support players in Mexico. In fact, it is often forgotten that Maradona was still around as recently as the US '94 World Cup. It proved to be his swan song on the grand stage, the abiding image being his celebration after his first-round goal against Greece, when he ran to the corner flag and half-screamed, half-sneered at the television camera. Gone was the weepy, patriotic ecstasy that had driven him in 1986, replaced by a man addled by the pointlessness of his successes and already weakened by his fondness for the fast life. A few days later, he was booted out of the tournament for testing positive for ephedrine.
In the following years, there were several 11th-hour health scares, and although he became a parody of the stocky, wonderfully elusive individualist, he was never less than a folk hero in Argentina. Buenos Aires is a vivid and beautiful city which had virtually made a brand of its own peculiar sadness, from the melodramatic story of Eva Peron, or the poignant sight of the mothers and grandmothers of the thousands of young people who disappeared during the military junta of the 1970s, to the spectacular economic crash that took hold in the last decade. Maradona was the exception to Argentina's unfulfilled potential.
Whereas the 1978 World Cup triumph was achieved in Buenos Aires under the sinister watch of the generals and with whispered allegations of match-fixing, Argentina's 1986 triumph was the stuff of pure South American brilliance. And if Maradona's first goal against England was the product of cunning sleight of hand, well, then it was some small measure of revenge for the Falklands War four years earlier. And the illegal cheek of that first goal made his second, bound to become his sporting epitaph, all the more resoundingly brilliant. It offered proof that he could beat England any way he pleased.
Argentina loved their burly little magician for bringing the light of the world upon them, and even in his seediest misadventures his name was unimpeachable in his home city. On a GAA All Stars tour to the city some years back, conversation often turned to the impact Maradona had had on his city. Someone mentioned that he had become so troubled and paranoid that he had taken to firing a shotgun at people gathered outside the gates of his mansion.
"Yeah, but they weren't real people," corrected the Tipperary hurling virtuoso Nicky English. "They were only journalists."
Against the odds, Maradona managed to escape the clutches of boredom and hedonism that gobble up so many sporting greats and turned his life around, taking drastic measures to reduce his weight and reinventing himself as a television pundit. One of the most heartening sights of last year's extravaganza in Germany was that of Maradona in the stands to enjoy the plush brilliance of the contemporary Argentinian side. During the unforgettable 6-0 performance against Serbia & Montenegro, his face was frequently flashed up on the screen in the stadium and he seemed as enthralled and delighted as the rest of us by the exhibition, utterly content to be a fan.
Now, curiously coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Falklands, comes the news that Diego's health problems have re-emerged.
In England, they have long been waiting in vain for a supreme artist to take the fortunes of the international team by the scruff of the neck so that they might escape the perpetual cycle of under-achievement. Many seasoned football people, from the doyens of the press box to the acerbic Arsene Wenger, were quick to pronounce Wayne Rooney the real thing when he broke into the Everton first team with scandalous ease at the age of 16. At the 2004 European Championship, he showed glimpses of the audacity and creativity that called to mind Maradona's feats, and who knows what he might have achieved if injury hadn't blighted his and England's tournament in last year's World Cup finals.
But that tournament promised the beginning of a sensational talent. Now, many of Rooney's most ardent admirers are beginning to wonder if it was, in fact, the high point of his career.
As England flounder from one hapless performance to the next, the sullen, ineffective presence of Wayne Rooney has come to serve as a metaphor for a national team in crisis. A downright petulant performer when wearing the Three Lions on his chest, Rooney has been a mixed bag with Manchester United, mixing forgettable afternoons with bursts of inspiration, such as his nonchalant, wonderfully disguised distance chip over the 6ft 4in Portsmouth goalkeeper David James.
But overall, Rooney is drifting through what were meant to be his years to thrill as if he could take or leave the game, and nobody can quite understand the reason.
One hint may lie in the little sidebar of football gossip that Rooney had paid 150 "clicks" (as the Premiership stars like to call £1,000 notes) for an evening out with Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, the king of Ghetto Fabulous and self-promotion. It should be noted that this was for a charity auction and the meeting may never happen.
But the photographs, which show Rooney looking at Puff with bashful awe that might be better directed at someone like Bobby Charlton, suggest it most probably will. Whether that will mean a night with the brothers in Manhattan or whether Wayne intends to bring Puffy on a nostalgic tour of Liverpool's best knocking shops remains to be seen.
But the point is that Puffy or P Diddy is the kind of figure on whom the young princes of the Premiership seem to model themselves. Although David Beckham was regarded as the chief cheerleader of fabricated celebrity, he was always grounded enough to work hard on the field and axing him from the national squad has not improved them one bit. Rooney has been thrown into an obscene environment, mocked and nicknamed Shrek because he lacked the pretty-boy features of a Ronaldo or a Beckham and signed up to an insane salary which simply demands a hell of a lot of shopping.
Rooney is a working class kid who grew up just wanting football, football, football. The pleasure of his early brilliance was that he played the game as though he was still on the green near his estate instead of in Goodison or Old Trafford. As the years have passed, maybe he has been sharp enough to admit to himself that the big time is not what he imagined it to be. Maybe he is smart enough to loathe the bullshit celebrity world in which he moves.
Of course, there is still time for him to turn it around. But one thing is certain. What Rooney needs now is not a night chomping a Cuban in P Diddy's limo. What would do Wayne Rooney the world of good is half an hour in the company of Diego Maradona.
