Diego on Diego

I have just finished reading "El Diego", the autobiography of Diego Maradona. The autobiography is totally about his footballing exploits right from a young age to his last game with other aspects of his life only touched on briefly. My first encounter with Maradona was watching fuzzy images of the 1986 World Cup on SBS and to be perfectly honest as an eight year old I wasn't that impressed. The main reason being was for that World Cup and the following one in 1990 , the team I supported was West Germany. But over time I have come to appreciate the genius of Maradona on the field and tried to ignore his off field exploits. My attitude had changed to the fact that whilst in Buenos Aires last year I had to buy one of those t-shirts that are sold everywhere that detail "that goal" against England in the '86 finals.

The book is a great read as it is full of drama and you learn a lot about the man and his version of events is very colourful as you would expect. It is a football fan's kind of book and it gave gives a great insight into his playing days at Argentinios Juniors, Boca Juniors, Barcelona, Napoli, Sevilla and Newell's of which I had little knowledge . For me, I also would have liked to learn more about other matters in his life such as more about his relationship with his wife, Claudia and his battle with cocaine. These matters are only briefly touched upon and are important to his whole make up as a person and a player. One part of the book that I quite enjoyed was Maradona thoughts on 100 footballers, mostly South American, those who he has either watched, met, admired or played against. For any fan of football, this book is well worth checking out.