Barasat (WB): Football legend Diego Maradona gave the ‘Diego versus Dada’ unity football match leaving the former Indian cricket team captain Sourav Ganguly, hugely disappointed, but kept schoolchildren here mesmerised with his football skills during a promotional event here Tuesday.
A poorly-organised show meant that the 57-year-old became tired on an unusually sultry December afternoon and left after just kicking off the match and exchanging pleasantries with Ganguly and his team. Ganguly thus missed out on a chance to play against his childhood icon.
“It would have been great to have played with him but he could not play,” Ganguly said. “Age has caught up with him but he’s too good a player. I’m a huge, huge fan of his, I have seen him win the World Cup in 1986. It was a treat to see him from close quarters.”
Prior to his departure, however, the Argentine icon showed glimpses of his famous dribbling skills, his deft left-footed touches and even crooned Spanish songs as he mesmerised a bunch of kids.
On an unusual muggy winter afternoon, the workshop with about 60 school children, including girls, at a private sports academy here, 35km from Kolkata turned out to be an elaborate one.
Maradona, who turned up in shorts, enjoyed every bit of it and the gruelling session literally drained him as he was seen drenched in sweat. But the ‘God of football’ had no complaints and obliged the kids with photographs and did not mind sitting on the pitch for that perfect frame.
The Argentine football legend was seen shouting and making the ‘young guns’ form two queues as he played passes for them to shoot from the spot. Sporting Maradona’s No. 10 jersey, the boys and girls came one by one and tried out their skills. Maradona was visibly ecstatic and could not control his emotions and tried out his left-footers, enthralling about 7000-odd crowd and also took a few shots.
A host of former footballers including the likes of Shyam Thapa, Prasun Banerjee, Sishir Ghosh, Debjit Ghosh, Biswajit Bhattacharya, Hemanta Dora, Dipendu Biswas, Alvito d’Cunha and Abhijit Mondal were also present on the occasion.
Press Trust of India