God is the only being who,
in order to reign,
doesn't even need to exist.
- Charles Baudelaire
Ladies and gentlemen!
On the guitar,
senor Diego Armando Maradona
from the world of cinema!
Buenos Aires!
How are you?
This is the song from
the movie called UNDERGROUND!
Jorge Luis Borges once wrote that
Argentinos remind him of
boats moored in harbours.
However, the brilliant writer hadn't
counted on Diego Armando Maradona.
El Diego was moored to
his mother
only until he was born.
After that, he resembled a boat
without a single rope on its deck.
Diego could easily be the hero
from my first film
DO YOU REMEMBER DOLLY BELL?
and the Sarajevan suburb of Gorica
could easily become
Fiorito of Buenos Aires.
It wouldn't be hard to imagine Diego
in WHEN FATHER WAS
AWAY ON BUSINESS,
playing the father,
who atones for his adultery in prison
during politically turbulent times.
And nothing would be
easier than to see
the footballing magician
acting in BLACK CAT, WHITE CA as the man
who is his own worst enemy,
doing everything to his own detriment.
This chapel is a creation of the members
of the Church of Maradona.
It reflects, it symbolizes
the image of Diego among his own.
This ball represents
Diego's sacrifice for football.
We'd like to ask everyone to please
take their seats, to get into place,
because when
Diego Armando Maradona arrives,
we'll start the press
conference and give you
all the details concerning
the big march in Mar del Plata.
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I am very proud, as an Argentine,
to be riding on this train
and to repudiate that piece of
human garbage, George Bush.
So I want the people
of Argentina to understand
that we are going for dignity,
not for violence,
but to defend what is ours,
what is Argentina's, that's all.
It was miraculous that the planet Earth
wasn't knocked off its axis
when more than a billion people
all leapt up at the same time.
That was the moment
when we celebrated Maradona's goal
against England
at the World Cup in Mexico.
The Earth continued its undisturbed
journey around the Sun
because it was a leap for justice.
Even God himself
got involved in this case
the first goal against the English
was scored with the player's hand
even though it was
a football championship.
It was one of those rare moments
when a country heavily
in debt to the IMF triumphed
over one of the rulers of the world.
For Argentina! Goal!
By Diego Armando Maradona!
A most poetic goal!
Symbolic! Unforgettable!
To be treasured forever!
Diego Armando Maradona! The best
football player in the World Cup!
'WHO is that man? '
I asked myself.
Who is that footballing magician?
The Sex Pistols of
the international football scene.
The cocaine victim, who,
having given up drugs,
looked first like a Falstaff
and then like
an advert for spaghetti.
If Andy Warhol were alive,
I'm sure he'd put Maradona in
his sepia alongside
Marilyn Monroe and Mao Tse-tung.
If he'd been able to spend his
whole life on the football pitch,
he'd have been a happy man.
As it was, as soon as the referee blew
for the end of the match,
and El Diego,
the greatest footballer of all time,
had walked past the corner flag,
heading for the changing rooms,
all his troubles began.
What do we say?
It's me Bizoo.
Yes?
It's... it's Emir with the...
with the crew.
Hi, how are you?
Thank you.
- My daughter, Dunja.
- Nice to meet you.
I am very happy to see you.
Same here.
I cried twice because of him:
when we lost
and when he beat England.
When we talk about
the match against England...
we talk about it like this.
Bilardo was very intelligent.
We were representing our dead
who were sent to die
by their own country.
It wasn't like England pushed
a button and killed everyone.
So we had to go out onto
the pitch and play football.
Thinking about football,
but knowing that
a lot depended
on our beating England.
It was like a war,
winning a football war.
That's what spurred us on.
After the hand goal
against England,
everyone said: "That was great,
what you did to the English!",
while the others threw mud at me.
I was so thrilled with that goal,
it was as if I'd stolen
an Englishman's wallet,
it felt like getting away
with a prank!
This good-natured roly-poly looked
more like a character from a film
about the Mexican revolution
than the best footballer of all time.
It was as if he had
stepped out of a Sergio Leone
or Sam Peckinpah's film.
As if he had just said goodbye
to some ladies of ill repute
and stepped into a room,
bringing the smell of
revolutionary gunpowder with him.
I was sure of one thing -
if he hadn't been a footballer,
he would have
become a revolutionary.
Maradona wouldn't need an incentive
to send him off into the woods.
He was a revolutionary at heart.
While everyone is defending
the U.S., I defend Cuba.
I don't care if it pleases people.
It would be much easier to say:
"Leave the U.S. alone."
But I say the Americans
let the Yugoslavs kill each other
because there was no oil.
Otherwise, they'd have moved in.
They were behind
the killings in Afghanistan.
That really disturbs me.
We watch them
killing people on TV
and the only ones
making money are CNN, Fox...
But Fidel is great.
I have a tatoo of him.
And you have Che Guevara.
Che Guevara, si.
See you tommorrow.
- I see you...
- See you. Ciao, ciao.
We could make
a nice movie out it.
Nice?
Yes. You sit here.
I won't be seen anyway.
There's nothing harder than when
you want to peer into someone's life
and yet at the same time understand
why he or she won't let you in.
It's like a never-ending game
where the doors are opening and closing.
When you yourself have been
persecuted by some journalists,
you begin to hate them.
Not only when they lie,
but also when they are trying to
ferret out the secrets of your life.
And now I'm intending to
present a portrait of
one of the most famous people
on the planet
and suddenly I am taking
on the role of
those very people
I have never liked.
I feel like a paparazzo
waiting for a star to wake up
and to step in front of
my camera lens,
so I can sell
the photos to the tabloids.
- They go somewhere else.
- Really?
They're sitting in the car.
This barbed wire crown
represents the pitch,
the field, the grounds.
The Goal of the Century
...naked aristocracy...
He's awesome!
My best friend, a great brother,
he does everything for us.
You play for Argentino Juniors?
- Yes.
- What position?
Nine.
Will you be like Diego?
No, I've never thought that.
No?
My brother's a Martian.
No question about that.
Travelling through Fiorito to
Maradona's house
looked to me like the journey to
the setting of my first feature film
DO YOU REMEMBER DOLLY BELL?
While I was looking at
the shanties of poor,
it seemed to me that I knew every face
that was hiding behind the scenes.
While making DOLLY BELL,
I discovered the most wonderful
characteristics of city poor
the aristocratic spirit that had
vanished from the houses of the rich
and had moved to
the homes of the impoverished.
The wonderful morality
within the family
where rules are respected
and sacrifices made.
Since then, I have always found
it easy to recognize
that aristocratic spirit,
knowing that in the west,
poverty was an embarrassment,
but here and in Balcans
it's an expression of suffering.
When he was choosing
between River Plate,
who were offering him
more money,
and Boca Juniors,
Diego chose Boca
precisely for
these aristocratic reasons.
Boca were paying less money,
but by joining them,
he was fulfilling a dream
dating back to the time
he was walking past the
Bombonera stadium with his father
and promised that one day
Diego arrived at Boca's stadium
carrying a torch, whose weak flame
shyly lit the road of return from
the underworld of drug addiction,
back to being among his football fans.
Once a god, always a god.
That evening he reminded me
of the Mesopotamian god, Gilgamesh.
The way in which Diego was
accepted only went to prove
that for gods all is forgiven.
My dad was the only one
who worked.
He had nine mouths to feed,
my mother and eight kids.
We always had food on the table.
Not much, sometimes more,
sometimes less,
but we always had food.
This is my house.
But that's what unites a family.
I'd share my food with my sister,
or she'd give me some of hers
when she'd eaten enough.
When was the last time
you've been here?
Over 15 years ago.
We made paper balls
and we'd throw them out there.
This was the goal. We'd throw
the ball like this, and head it.
The patio was my stadium...
I have two dreams:
to play in the World Cup
and to be a champion.
I realized later,
when I was much older,
that my mother,
whenever she'd see
there wasn't enough food,
would get a stomach ache.
But it wasn't true,
it was because
she wanted us to have more.
At the table, my dad
didn't need to say: "Be quiet."
The look in his eyes,
the exhaustion from his work,
commanded respect.
I remember when my dad
came home from work
my mom would put
the old suction cups on his back.
It was a ritual, my mom
cupping and us all around.
It was like a massage.
Exactly,
because my dad carried sacks.
I think the people around here
have greater dignity
than all the people
who may live in other areas.
In my country,
politicians get rich,
but give nothing to the people.
I've often been asked
to go into politics,
and I say: "No, I don't want to
rob the people."
I've met with politicians
and they never want to
meet with me again.
Because I say what I feel.
The gap between rich and poor
has grown much bigger in my lifetime.
Not only here in Argentina,
you can see it in Brazil,
or Venezuela or Cuba,
with the embargo.
The Americans are trampling
all over those countries,
they won't let them
get back on their feet.
If they give them a loan,
they demand ten times more in return.
When was that
sense of justice born?
It comes from seeing the world,
and then from reading
a lot of Che Guevara,
and from studying. And from Cuba.
Gabriel Garcia Marques told me:
if no Castro in the history
of Latin America,
Yankees would have been
in Patagonia already
and all of you would have
spoken English already.
I think we're part of the U.S.
So, what does he think
the whole world will be
American colony?
- Obviously.
- China?
No, not China.
I met Fidel in 1987.
The Americans gave me
an award
and the Cubans
were giving me an award.
I said to the Americans...
"Keep your award,
I'm getting one in Cuba."
Fidel and I spent
five hours talking about Che,
about Argentina, about Cuba,
and I fell in love with Fidel.
He seemed like a beast
defending his territory.
He's the only politician
- if we can call him that -
who cannot be
accused of stealing,
though the Americans have tried.
He's the only politician
who can say:
"I risked my life for my country,
my land."
He's a revolutionary.
The politicians of the world
use money to win elections.
He won by taking up arms.
Because he's got balls!
I love Cuba!
Fidel!
It might seem scandalous,
but Fidel, I'd die for you!
Listen!
The more I see
how people are in Europe,
how people are in South America,
the more I love Cuba!
I think he didn't come to
Fiorito for last 14 years
because he prefered to
have idealistic image
or the picture of the poor people.
It's better to keep them
in the mind, you know?
To keep them as an idea
that he has to fight for,
somehow, promote or be behind them.
The good part of them will
vanish inmediately thinking about
his money,
how to get money straight from him,
do you have hundred,
do you have two hundred,
and then they're not any more
as good as the idea about
good people is. You know?
How do you feel coming back here
and remembering the worst and
the most difficult part of your life.
Did you ever regret that you
left ever these beautiful fields.
This is the 'goalary'.
The 34 little balls
and the shoe represent
the 35 goals Diego scored
as a member of the Argentine team.
The Goal of the Century
One day they wanted
to introduce me to Charles of...
of England.
No.
I would never shake his hand.
Not with all that blood on it.
Never.
He wanted to meet me.
I didn't want to meet him.
After what happened
in the Falklands...
I didn't.
Stop Bush
War Criminal
He's a murderer.
I don't think he can just decide,
the way he decides for all of us,
for the whole world.
Having the most destructive bomb
doesn't mean having power.
Power doesn't mean
having a bomb
and killing five thousand people.
In my opinion,
he's a cold-blooded murderer.
If you want,
we can talk about Bush.
He blames the Colombians
for cocaine.
But in fact, it's the Americans
who use cocaine.
Right?
Yes!
What about the americanos?
They control all the drugs?
Obviously!
- Obviously.
- Obvious.
In the train that was
heading to Mar del Plata
there was something naive
but appealing about the idea that
nowadays you can influence
the world and your own destiny
without money or
atomic bomb in your pocket.
It was a world where apparently
only at football matches
could the small nations triumph
epically over the larger powers
and take sweet revenge.
It was as if that
unavoidable shudder which
trains produced in me
and the inexplicable excitement
were slowly turning into the belief
that this train wasn't only heading
for Mar del Plata but beyond,
to better times for
Latin America.
Our Bible,
the one we cherish,
the one we carry
in our hearts, everywhere.
Brother, after your conversion
to the Hand of God goal,
the Church of Maradona
welcomes you as a new disciple.
...Messiah back in Naples...
"Anyone who
doesn't jump is Ferlaino."
The Neapolitans know
that I was the one
who enabled Naples to win.
When Ferlaino paid me, of course.
There was a feeling...
The feeling was that
the south couldn't beat the north.
They couldn't beat the north.
We went and played against
Juve in Turin
and scored six goals!
Can you imagine
a southern team scoring six
against Agnelli "The Lawyer"?
Argentina eliminated Italy
from the World Cup.
That was the biggest blow
in history for them.
Because Matarrese,
another Mafioso,
the president of the Italian league,
had already arranged the finals...
Germany and Italy.
And that's when everything
that happened, happened.
They got me out on doping.
Then they got Caniggia on doping.
But after that,
no one else.
In Italian football, with the exception
of Maradona and Caniggia,
nobody even took an aspirin.
Belgrade, Serbia
Stribor!
So you gonna meet Maradona.
You met him already?
No, never.
Not many people can
the opportunity to meet God.
IN the flesh.
So, it's special opportunity.
This is the first time I put the shirt
on because I'm meeting the God.
Come here, Stribor.
Your little kid!
When Diego came,
Belgrade was grappling
with the perplexing historical
lesson of how to love
the West once again after it
had bombed the town
and destroyed it out of
fondness for the country.
Diego looked at the ruined
Ministry of Internal Affairs building
and asked me who had done it.
I didn't want to apportion collective
blame and say "the west",
NATO, international community
or United States.
Having been raised
in the educational spirit of the west,
in my eyes culpability lies
in the actions of an individual.
"Havier Solana", I said,
and Diego just
ironically nodded his head:
"Si, sosialista espagnol"
(Yes, the Spanish socialist).
Senka, Maradona wants to
talk to you.
Hi, Senka. We love you!
A big kiss!
It was no coincidence that
Diego was the last of my friends
to speak to my mother.
The day after his visit,
my mother died
and she took all her memories
with her to the afterlife,
including the joy
felt after Maradona's voice
had cheered her up
for a moment at least.
Red Star, Belgrade Stadium
The press room...
The pitch is better
than on the day we played.
It was raining that day.
I'd swear it was this goal.
- This is the place.
- Qual?
- Aca.
- Yeah.
This is where I take it...
I make an inside cut, a feint,
and take it again.
A feint, and take it again.
It's up ahead.
When I do this,
the goalie is here,
almost outside the penalty area.
I feint, to kick hard, put my foot
under the ball to kick it over.
It was complicated,
the goalie was tall,
plus his hands over his head.
But I was able to
get under it and kick it.
Exactly. Like this...
Like this...
And the ball went like this...
I remember the goalie's face.
"Ciao!"
Did you see how
I play with this shoes?
If I had the shoes...
It could be goal.
Hi, I'm Diego.
How are you? Good afternoon!
How's the family?
What's up, maestro?
Hey there, crazy guy!
See how they know me?
I'm in the neighborhood!
How are you? What's up?
Go, Boca, go!
- Three times.
- Three time, yes.
Look who's here! Who's that man?
My grandson.
A good leg, a footballer's leg!
When we were kids
we played football
and we never wanted to stop,
we wanted to keep playing.
We played at night
and could hardly see the ball.
You know?
So what happened?
Playing in the dark
and then in the daytime made
it seem as if you played better.
You see?
The night was here in our heads.
And then,
imagining things the next day,
we felt like we played
faster and better.
It's like a foggy day,
not being able to see the
entire goal, or half of the pitch,
or the ball going out...
It's like playing
with closed eyes.
When you open them, you have
a much better idea of the pitch,
of the goal, of your opponent.
The Goal of the Century
...if cocaine is a drug,
I am a drug addict...
As we informed you yesterday,
his hospitalization
in intensive care
is due to acute hypertension
and cardiac arrhythmia.
Mr. Diego Maradona
is in a stable condition.
Black Cat, White Cat
I was dead.
But I didn't die because...
the Man up there
didn't want me to.
But I was dead.
It was like
all these black blood clots
prevented me from
opening my eyes.
It was terrible. I couldn't get out.
I remember feeling that
I wanted to
get out of there, but couldn't.
Do you understand? There
were all these black blood clots
and I couldn't get them
back into their pigeonholes
in order to wake up.
Later, Dalma told me
that Giannina kept saying:
"Daddy, you can't die, damn it!
You have to live,
to stay with me."
I didn't hear my daughter.
I was in a coma. I was dead.
Black Cat, White Cat
What happened was
the Man up there said:
"Not yet. Not yet."
"You have to keep on fighting."
"Keep on fighting."
My journeys to Buenos Aires
turned to be in vain,
and the thin line between life
and death along
which Diego moved had
become his only route.
That year he collapsed
and in life he did everything
to his own detriment.
Just as his footballing skills
were at one extreme,
with him being far
better than anyone else,
his life was at the other extreme,
being a disintegration of everything
that provides the basis
for normality in life.
I think this was why
they worshipped him no matter what.
For normality is no longer
what people crave.
It is simply too little,
and today everyone
wants much, much more.
Normality is not a precondition
for love and adoration,
and when someone
is reconciled to death
and when he or she speaks
from the heart as Diego does,
the path to sainthood is nearby.
The only problem was that
it wasn't the time for sainthood,
and that's why I think
he became a drug addict.
- Good, but no tango?
- No.
- Do I look like tango?
- Yeah.
Yes, tango.
I watched people congregating outside
cafes at dawn in Buenos Aires,
listening to the tango
and crying together.
The tango originated in 1883
in a bordello somewhere
and Jorge Luis Borges calls it
dance of grieving husbands.
The tango introduced
the idea of utter solemnity
as the dancers move backwards
and forwards.
The tango is the dance which
most obviously suggests the union
between Thanatos and Eros.
It is in this
ram-tam-tam-tam movement,
as elegant as death,
as powerful as birth,
that the basic elements of
life are united,
and changes in form are
the best indicators of
how time corrects thoughts
and how we all risk speaking nonsense
whenever we open our mouths.
The fact that the tango originated
in the bordello of yesteryear
gives it an innocence that could
never be found
in the bordello of today.
I became a sponsor
of the Church of Maradona
mainly to support
and stay in touch with
everything having to
do with Diego.
I own the Cocodrilo
in Buenos Aires.
I got involved with the kids
in the Church of Maradona
a couple of years ago
because of the wonderful things
they were doing
for my friend Diego.
The Cocodrilo has
an international reputation.
It's a nightclub
but we've gone further,
left the old-time nightclub behind.
In the Cocodrilo you have
girls dancing on the bar.
They do shows,
they dance all night long.
As you can see, these girls
aren't strippers, they're dancers.
After a visit to
the Cocodrillo club,
the fundamental principles
of psychiatry were shaken.
Jung's theory is that the
survival instinct leads a man to food,
and Freud claims that eros
is the basic impulse which,
through sexual activity,
ensures species reproduction.
In choosing Maradona's goals
as more tempting
than Omar's ballerinas
and the sumptuous feast,
I realised that Borges was right
when he claimed
that the tango originated in bordellos;
whether it is called rock 'n' roll or
the tango is today of no consequence.
The most important thing
is the realisation
that a new psychiatric influence
must be added to Jung's
survival instinct
and Freud's ideas on
species reproduction
the influence of Maradona's game
as the third of the important feelings
that drive mankind.
Emir! You're like everyone else!
The girls always complain!
When Diego arrives
or we show videos of his goals
all the men are like this,
ignoring the girls, who say:
"Please Omar, turn off the TV!"
And it's the same with Emir.
When you can see Maradona...
Well, let's enjoy the meal!
Uruguayan...
Hi, how are you?
Good?
How are you?
My mother...
My father...
Hey, are you deaf?
To Puebla!
Look at that goal. What a goal!
I would have been happy,
so happy to just
spend time with Dalma
when she'd come to wake me up,
and not be afraid of her.
Dalma would come
wake me up: "Dad..."
Why? Because I was drugged out.
Giannina would slap me
and I wouldn't feel anything,
I was on drugs.
That's what
would have made me happy,
seeing my daughters grow up,
like her.
I envy Claudia.
I'm better-looking than she is,
but...
The difference is
that Claudia
shared those precious moments
with Dalma and Giannina.
You see?
Now when I watch them
in the videos
that Claudia sometimes
shows me,
I say: "Look what I missed."
"What an asshole I was
to have missed all that!"
Because you can't go back.
I spoiled what's most valuable,
the sentimental value...
The guilt I feel inside,
that's what I feel today,
the fact that I never spent an
ordinary birthday with Giannina
or an ordinary birthday
with Dalma. Why not?
Because when the party began
I'd go and get high.
And what did I feel? Nothing.
I felt they were my daughters,
but I didn't feel them next to me,
that we could hug each other.
I felt that my daughters
could tell I was on drugs.
Dalma,
when I'd go to kiss her,
would go like this.
The other one, no.
The chubby one, the little one,
with her character,
would come over, would give me
would lie down with me.
But not the other one.
When Diego
entered difficult times,
his wife Claudia turned into
his guardian angel,
into a woman who
held the keys to his family fortress.
Without returning to that fortress,
Diego would certainly
not have survived.
Although as my films prove,
I can't pretend to know women well,
in the case of Maradona's
it was easy for me to see that
saying that behind every
successful man stands a woman,
is an empty phrase.
Once I asked Claudia
how Diego had
managed to survive,
she replied no one asked me
how I have survived.
This only conform how limited
my knowledge of women is.
However I realized
that Claudia's battle for Diego
was not only driven by love,
but also by
an unusual religiousness.
In a slum I was born,
It was God's will
That I grow up and survive
This humble example to
face adversity
Eager to succeed in life
With each step I took
On the playground
I forged an immortal left hand
With experience
A burning ambition to make it
As a young buck,
I dreamed of the World Cup
And rising to the top in Primera
Perhaps by playing
I could help my family
From the very outset
The Doce cheered...
My dream contained a star
Full of goals and dodges
And all the people sang
The "Hand of God" was born
Sowed joy in the people
Brought glory to this land
Bearing a cross on my shoulders
for being the best
For not selling out
I confronted the powerful
Curious weakness
If Jesus stumbled
Why shouldn't I too?
Fame introduced me to
a white woman
Of mysterious taste
And forbidden pleasure
Who addicted me to
the desire to use her again
Taking my whole life
And this is a match that someday
I am going to win
From the very outset
The Doce cheered...
My dream contained a star
Full of goals and dodges
And all the people sang
The "Hand of God" was born
Sowed joy in the people
Brought glory to this land
I love you all!
- You don't want to go?
- No.
Cocaine,
instead of doing me good,
making me feel better,
shut me up inside of myself.
And any questions I had,
when I wanted to ask Claudia,
I kept them inside
and didn't know the answers.
Loneliness, you're filled
with bitterness, loneliness,
nostalgia,
that's what it gives you.
It was all inside me,
inside this body.
That was my biggest burden.
A thousand times,
the old lady tried to get me to stop,
tried to talk to me.
She wanted to ask me things
and when she did
I'd even lie to her,
because of the coke.
In the name of La Tota,
Don Diego,
and the fruit of their love,
Diego.
We are gathered together
in this Maradonian Temple
to reaffirm the commitment and love,
through the Church of Maradona,
of our brother and sister,
Gabriel Diego Chepenecas
and Alejandra Diego Troilo.
They both vow, before this altar
and cradle of Diego himself,
to keep Maradonian faithfulness
and to declare
that Diego was, is and will be
the god of football.
Our Diego who art on the pitch,
Hallowed be thy left hand.
Thy magic come,
Thy goals remembered
on earth as they are in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily joy
and forgive those journalists,
As we forgive the Neapolitan Mafia.
Lead us not into temptation,
Deliver us from Joao Havelange.
Diego.
For 20 years,
during Havelange's presidency,
Brazil did not win the championship.
You know why?
The Man up there is just.
The Old Man loves justice!
lf, for 20 years,
a Mafioso was unable to
win the World Cup,
kind of tough, isn't it?
I'm going to tell you the story.
Argentina was eliminated
from the World Cup.
We went to play against Australia.
It was a tie, 1-1.
We came back here
and we qualified, 1-0.
There was no doping case.
No drugs.
Not over there, not over here.
There was no ephedrine
over there or over here.
No cocaine over there or over here.
During the World Cup
after we beat Nigeria, 2-1,
they said:
"They're screwing us up."
I'd say Havelange
is the arms dealer,
and Blatter sells the bullets.
Alejandra,
do you swear eternal love to
your partner Gabriel,
faithfulness to
the Maradonian Church's principles,
declaring that Diego,
our god of football was,
is and will be
the best player of all time?
Yes, I swear.
Gabriel Diego,
do you swear eternal love to
your partner Alejandra Diego,
and faithfulness to
our Church's principles?
Yes, I swear.
The Church of Maradona
declares you man and wife.
You may kiss the bride.
Remember,
the ball doesn't get dirty.
Goal!
The Goal of the Century
...when God became showman...
I'm an actor.
I live life the way
I want to live it.
Actors are given a text
and they read it.
I don't read it. I live it.
That's my performance.
I live my life.
Is there any actor in the history
of cinema that you wanted to be?
De Niro.
- Raging bull?
- Yes.
I see him...
breaking everything!
In fact, I identify
with a lot of things.
With what the guy thinks.
With his desire to
destroy everything in his way.
I identify with all that.
It's just that he's a boxer
and I'm a football player.
That's the difference.
He wants to break everything,
I want to score goals.
- How are you, Emir?
- Good, good.
This is for you.
Thank you very much, Emir.
When did you arrive?
Two days ago. On your birthday.
I came to finish the movie with him.
Y he has to work?
Yes, little bit.
Oh, no!
Little bit to make
a best movie of him all the time.
We have to go to Mar del Plata...
Have you been with Fidel?
- NO, I go... I go next week.
- Ah, si?
- But you've been with Fidel? No?
- Yes!
We'll be happy to know
you're over there.
Let me tell you, just between us
and no one else...
No one but the 8 million people
watching us.
If I were the honorable president of
the United States, I wouldn't go!
I am following Diego's charisma
in this movie also.
In certain period before
we spoke about that
people need somebody to lead them
becuse the leaders of the world today
they are not good enough.
But one moment he asked me:
But who is the leader?
This time I think
he is the leader.
We set off on these journeys
with high hopes
that as small nations
our trains would end up
on the main line.
I remember as boys,
we jumped onto the trains
heading from the suburbs
to the centre.
As we were growing up,
we remembered
the sleepless nights
for the shadows of
the train compartments,
which flickered on
the ceilings of our pitiful flats.
They were the same games
of light and darkness,
noise and quiet,
as those of the trains on
which people were transported
by the fascist regimes to
their places of execution,
and by the Bolsheviks to
serve their hefty sentences.
When Father Was Away
on Businesss
They were long,
meandering trains,
whose light momentarily lit up
the faces of the girls
who taught us to kiss,
and while the shadows
flashed across naked bodies,
those trains took us
back to the arms of our wives,
of the children we
hadn't seen for a long time,
to warm embraces,
whether we be political prisoners
or non-believers.
When Father Was Away
on Businesss
...a force of God...
Son of a bitch!
You suck!
What a racket!
Long live the peoples of
Latin America and the Caribbean!
Long live Argentina!
The rain is going away.
I was told by our friend
Blanca Chancoso
that if you blow 3 times
the rain will go away.
We have to blow upwards 3 times...
and the rain will go away.
And we will remain,
the peoples of America!
In the ALBA Express came
the driver, Diego Armando Maradona.
He came here
in the ALBA Express train.
Come on up, Diego!
Say something to these people,
Diego!
I love you!
Thank you for being here.
Argentina has great dignity.
Let's kick out Bush!
Long live Diego!
Long live Maradona!
Long live the people!
It's stopped raining.
Just in case,
we'll blow one more time.
Evo, a big welcome!
Come on up, brother!
Say something to the people!
Thank you, comandante!
Revolutionary greetings to all
the anti-imperialists of Latin America.
Good luck! Keep on fighting
to free Latin America! Thank you.
We've come here today
to do many things.
And we have all brought
a shovel with us.
A gravedigger's shovel!
Because here in Mar del Plata
we are digging
the grave of the FTAA!
The grave of the FTAA!
The Argentine victory
over the English
in 1986 in Mexico brought
Diego his first world title.
Justice triumphed and
at that time it was a justice
that was only attainable
through football.
Mar del Plata was not just
an emotional reaction
by the Latin Americans,
against whom the CIA organised
coups d'etat and military juntas,
and filled stadiums with civilians,
who would later be executed.
It was not only because of
the Nazi war criminals
who went unpunished
after the Second World War
and were smuggled to
North America
and later dispersed
throughout Latin America,
becoming advisors to dictators,
organising dissidents,
and killing socialist leaders.
In Mar del Plata, Latin America
refused to sign the ALCA agreement,
the foundation for which being the
liberalisation of imports and exports,
but which was
actually a cover for
the economic subjugation
of Latin America.
As was the agreement Mexico
signed in 1983.
That agreement was
called the NAFTA
and it was a marriage
between North America, and Mexico.
The USA and Canada
invested money
and thousands of jobs were
opened up for the Mexicans.
Everything would have been alright
if the profits had stayed in Mexico
and hadn't gone to the north,
leaving only the workers' salaries
in Mexico.
The Goal of the Century
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
So, two years later...
in march 2005
we started this movie
and at the hotel we were wondering
if we are going to
have access to Maradona.
We were dreaming
who Maradona is
and we are still at the same place.
What happened?
Nobody knows...
The decompensation was
mainly the result of disorders
related to eating, which
includes alcohol consumption.
Alcohol is a drug.
It's a case of decompensation.
No other dangerous drugs.
Really! It was fantastic!
I felt good on the pitch
because I felt important,
as if I really helped the team.
I don't want to be dramatic,
but they cut off my legs.
If someone makes a mistake,
football shouldn't pay for it.
I made a mistake and I paid.
But the ball doesn't get dirty.
Scoring a goal
in front of 100,000 people,
like I did with the English,
for example,
was for me a normal thing.
It was my game, my life.
You understand?
When I came down,
I was like everyone,
like all of you.
And I could talk to you.
What messed me up
was cocaine.
But I was just like you.
However,
when you let the tiger out,
when I went onto the pitch,
I was in command.
The Goal of the Century
Emir,
do you know what a player
I'd have been if I hadn't taken coke?
What a player we lost!
It's like a bad aftertaste.
I could have been
much more than I am.
Yes, really, it's true.
I was born into football.
I knew who I was going to be.
But I didn't know I'd take coke.
I knew I was going to buy
a house for my mother,
to get married
and have my family,
to see the world,
that Argentina would win the Cup.
I said that when I was this big.
It's on tape!
I knew all of that.
But what happened afterwards...
There are still so many things
that today
I feel terribly guilty about inside.
Because...
people might say that I'm fine,
or I'm better,
or better than before.
But they're not inside me.
I know the things I did wrong.
And I can't right them.
If I were Maradona
I would live just like him
If I were Maradona
in front of any goal
If I were Maradona
I would never
make a mistake
If I were Maradona
lost in any place
Life is a lottery
by night and by day
Life is a lottery
keep going and going...
If I were Maradona,
I would live just like him
A thousand fireworks,
a thousand friends
And whatever happens
at 1000 percent
If I were Maradona
I'd go on Mondiovision
To shout at the FIFA
that they're the real thieves!
Life is a lottery
by night and by day
Life is a lottery
keep going and going...
If I were Maradona
I would live just like him
Because the world is a ball
lived raw under the skin
If I were Maradona
with a game to win
If I were Maradona
with a divine hand...