Tag: Diego Maradona

52. Lessons from 2020

52. Lessons from 2020

by scruffyrube ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A year ago, I stared this blog with the thought of how I could share life lessons and understandings that can show us what matters. An added perk of this is that, much like your uncles and I started keeping a list of lectures your grandpa was going to give us, now you have a list of my 52 lectures in 2020.

Dear Boys,

1. All our teams and how out of many, we are one

2 Legon Cities FC and appreciating new beginnings.

3 Grenoble Foot 38 and the importance of giving a fork about what you do, not over how it is received.

4 Transfer Rumors and John Fowles’ three types of people

5 Ross County, Rabbie Burns and how we want to do hard things because they are hard to do.

6 SC Freiburg and why “why” is one of the best questions you can ask.

7 Impeachment, Jersey Swaps and how gracious living is easy to do if you practice when it’s hard.

8 Minnesota United, Luis Amarilla and why, While it’s easy to fixate on the best, don’t let it distract you from the very good right in front of you.

9 Ross County and the value of playing to the whistle

10 Manchester City, Mike Bloomberg and why you ought to use your power thoughtfully, with truth and talent.

11 You can’t avoid burnout, but you can acknowledge it and select the most vital and most life giving tasks to focus on.

12 Covid Closures and why even if we’d be okay, we need to do what’s best for the others around us.

13 Rosenborg BK and how you are both a hope surpassed and a history alive

14 FK Vozdovac and why none of us are ideals

15 Diego Maradona, Macho Man Randy Savage and how to make believe safely

16 Ross County and why what you are loyal to is just as important as the loyalty itself

17 SC Freiburg and why you should keep curiosity in your mind and change in your heart.

18 Why debating all time greats is fun, but also pointless.

19 University of Montana Grizzlies and why I hope you have a fire in your heart, and a light in your eyes

20 Minnesota United and how we are stronger together than we could ever be alone.

21 Japanese Art, Freiburg and why you should appreciate what a thing is

22 Screw you systemic racism

23 Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe and why you should look inside yourselves and ask “how can I help?” as often as possible.

24 ignore those who urge you or anyone to “stick to sports”

25 Freiburg, Vozdovac, and why you should extend yourself and others a little grace.

26 Protests, FK Vozdovac Hooligans, Freiburg’s Vincenzo Grifo and why you should never confuse a crowd’s approval with your virtue.

27 Star Wars, Freiburg, Rosenborg, Donald Trump and why leadership without accountability is just authority.

28 Rosenborg BK and why you can’t prepare for the future by trying to recreate the past

29 Rosenborg’s Women, Ross County, Racialized Debates and why context is king.

30 American Soccer, American society and how a team of competing individuals can lose, but competitive individuals together on a team cannot.

31 Emelec and why you should leave more than you take

32 Ross County and why owning your struggles, your instabilities, your pain is the most healthy way to handle it.

33Minnesota United and why you should keep your goals within your control

34 Grenoble Foot 38 and how you are never alone in the world if you have people you can rely on.

35. Black Lives Matter

36 Julie Blakstad, Marit Clausen, and why you can absolutely do things alone, but helping someone else succeed often helps you too.

37 Pedro Martinez, the Great Falls Dodgers, Freiburg, Minnesota United and why you shouldn’t begrudge players leaving our teams behind, appreciate what they brought while they were here.

38 Alebrijes de Oaxaca and why you should enjoy what your style is.

39 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the University of Montana, Women’s soccer and how contributions of women lead to growth

40 The Minnesota Twins, Alebrijes de Oaxaca and how learning loyalty is rewarded with loyalty of its own.

41 My least favorite coaches and why what goes around comes around.

42 Professional athletes, teachers and how everyone benefits from a break.

43 Freiburg’s Men, Rosenborg’s Kvinner, Joe Biden and why when you’re worried it will all go wrong, just try to do what you know to do.

44 Franco Arizala, Alebrijes de Oaxaca and why nothing is worth letting the whole world burn.

45 Asamoah Gyan and how we are marked by our pain, both in scars and in strength.

46 Donald Trump, Minnesota United, FK Vozdovac and why you don’t fight the fights you can win, you fight the fights that need fighting

47 Legon Cities and why when you have to face the future, you should approach it as an opportunity to seize not a challenge to be feared.

48 Diego Maradona and why it’s best to love the good in all people

49. Ross County, Rosenborg’s Kvinner and why there’s something to enjoy in both expected and the unexpected events.

50. Minnesota United & why you don’t need to worry about losing, especially when you can just enjoy living.

51. Punjab FC & how what we build, is built with others

52. So…what does all this mean for you boys, for what I think matters and what I think is important. This challenge to write over fifty posts with an eye to you boys and to what matters most.

There are plenty of overlapping themes, but the things that stand out most are simply these two: live in community with others and appreciating both the good and the bad.

And in case there needs to be one more individual lesson it’s this: know how to fold them. I love you boys. I love soccer. I can’t keep writing two posts a week. I’ll keep this site, I’ll post updates and results. But I’m going to scale back my lectures, both for my sake, and for yours.

48. Diego’s Divinity

48. Diego’s Divinity

by scruffyrube ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Back in April I wrote about Diego Armando Maradona: a Legendary talent with a talent for living like a legend.

I used Maradona to make the point that too much make believe can hurt you. Maradona’s make believe cost him his health, his career, his family, even–it seemed–his grip on reality. Yesterday, it cost him the ultimate price, his life.

Dear Boys,

In a matter of hours the world filled with paeans to his talent, his skill, his style, his sweetness. A world with a shortage of global icons mourned together.

Diego in 1986
(Wikimedia Commons)

As I wrote in April, Maradona was always more of a myth to me. The tall tale legend of Maradona captured dominating opponents, running roughshod over rivals on the field, and shocking supporters outside and inside the stadium. Diego bought into the invulnerable Maradona persona but at the cost of the very human body of Diego.

But what I wrote then isn’t the end of the story. While make believe “Maradona” did burn out Diego’s candle, it lit a spark for the world.

Diego in 2020 (Aljazeera)

The outpouring of tributes this week isn’t made up. The effect Maradona had is real. The tears shed for him are shed, not in ignorance of how he suffered, but with appreciation of a flawed man’s complexity.

Love the good in all people. It’s easy to do with idols and heroes. We can forgive Maradona’s shortcomings because of how he inspired the world. It’s harder to do with every day people, but no less important. The spate of infuriated protestors across the street are difficult to deal with, but I strive to love them for advocating their beliefs just as I love Diego for struggling with his demons.

I hope you boys learn that, while not every person is admirable, everyone deserves your affection. We love others not because they earn it on the field or by their allegiances, but because we all struggle to be our best selves. You, me, the masked and maskless and Maradona.

15. On Maradona, Macho Man, and Making Believe

15. On Maradona, Macho Man, and Making Believe

by scruffyrube ♥ 1 Comment

Dear Boys,

Without matches to pass the time, I’ve been looking at the wide range of documentaries about soccer history and histrionics. After all, just because there aren’t any games being played right now, doesn’t mean that we don’t have any games or players to talk about.

One of the most discussed documentaries of late is a found footage film about the adoration and damnation of Diego Maradona in Napoli. A documentary that reminds us: make believe can be dangerous if you aren’t using it wisely.

Diego Maradona’s talent was tremendous, but so were his demons.

Maradona was a genius with a ball at his feet, but the real story (according to those who know him and the documentary) is that Maradona was only one part of the person.

Maradona played on the field. Maradona answered media questions and dealt with fans. Maradona fueled his life with attention, and pleasure, and all the drugs and people who made it possible. Meanwhile, Diego waited to live the regular life. Diego played with his kids and called his family back home so often it cost more than I make in a year. Diego felt joy while playing just for the sake of playing and remained a charming genuine person. As his trainer summarized it, “with Diego I would go to the ends of the earth, but with Maradona, I wouldn’t take a step.”

Ultimately, Maradona consumed Diego. I came to know about him near the end of his career when he and his friends brought the world’s game to the United States for the 1994 World Cup and I was immediately hooked. Maradona was the man in the middle, the star of the show, the greatest in the game (this despite him only recently returning from a 15 month suspension and debilitating drug problems).

But when he scored against Greece, it didn’t seem too miraculous. I thought it was a good goal, but his response immediately overshadowed the shot.

That look. Those crazed eyes. That primal scream and intense response. It was a little much for me. So to me, with my innocence and appreciation of kinder, gentler figures: Maradona became not an icon, but a caution. I’m sure I’d like Diego, but I can’t see him with Maradona in the way.

One of your dads other favorite entertainments around 1994 was pro-wrestling. With larger than life characters, epic battles between good and evil, and fluid, artful, athletic feats to inspire a clumsy 11 year old, I was an easy mark.

Decades later I can see that many of the characters I followed faithfully left a wake of destruction outside the ring.

Take Randy Poffo, or as the world knew him then, Macho Man Randy Savage. His intensity, ferocity, and frequent fits of jealous rage made him an unpredictable persona. Watching him perform was like watching the inside of a volcano roil and rumble before eruption.

While that persona served Randy Poffo well in pro wrestling, it pushed him past many limits in his personal life as well. The gregarious, goofy athlete Randy Poffo who learned both wrestling and poetry from his dad, changed bit by bit to the paranoid, jealous, live wire called Randy Savage.

Former wrestler Dutch Mantel said it best in an Obituary from The Post and Courier

“When you talked to Macho, you wouldn’t be talking to Randy, and you would know that because Randy was hidden behind all those layers of Macho. And sometimes you’d have to ask yourself if there ever was a Randy there. Even his voice changed.”

Dutch Mantel, quoted in “Macho Man was a True Original”, by Mike Mooneyham. Charleston Post and Courier. May 11 2011

Both Diego and Randy used an alter ego to help their lives. Think of it like playing make-believe so well it really comes true. They could escape reality so long as they had Maradona and Macho Man.

Macho Man v. Randy Poffo
The superstar and the minor league after thought

Neither of them made believe on their own. They lived in places that fed their imaginations fuel like spicy tacos in a dragon. Napoli, Italy made Diego an idol, something like a god, and Maradona could handle that in a way Diego couldn’t. To reach the top of Wrestling you had to make believe your character was who you were, all day, every day. People in the stands, the streets, the malls, they wanted Macho Man, not Randy.

They both used drugs to change their points of view (cocaine for Diego, steroids for Randy). But the drugs were another way to escape. More extreme and clearly more dangerous than making believe, but an escape nonetheless.

That’s the line to remember. It isn’t bad to make believe; it’s one of the best things humans can do. But make believe because you want to, not because other people make you, or because you have to in order to escape your regular world.

I love making believe. I love to see you learn how to do it too. Remember: however much fun it is for me to be Papa Tiger or you to be Vacuum Boys, Papa and Alex and Owen are even better.