A Soccer Illiterate’s Guide to Diego Maradona

Diego Maradona, aged 60, legend of Argentine soccer, fiend to fans of English soccer, and generally very interesting guy passed into the ‘Hand of God’ on Wednesday, 11/25.

I am a soccer illiterate. An ignoramus. I’m not anti-soccer at all. Maybe a little agnostic. But I’m trying.

Here’s everything I know about Diego Maradona.

1. I watched him play for about 10 minutes in the 1990 World Cup Final, which they lost to Germany. I think he got a yellow card.

2. I gather that Maradona was a villain for that unique breed of American soccer fan who cheers for England’s Three Lions instead of the sad-sack USMNT.

3. Maradona is one of my go-to answers about soccer in bar trivia. My team usually gets about a 3 and gets a question right about Pele or David Beckham or the Rodney Dangerfield movie Ladybugs.

4. Maradona may or may not have been involved with the Falkland War. He may or may not have passed out drunk in Margaret Thatcher’s arms.

5. There is another soccer player from Argentina named Messi, who may or may not be better than Maradona, depending on whom I’m sitting next to at the bar in town that shows all the Premier League games.

Friends, fill me on the rest of the details in the comments.