Pope Francis has hailed fellow Argentine Diego Maradona as a “poet” on the pitch, but also acknowledged his frailty away from the sport.
In a wide-ranging interview with Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport published Saturday, Francis recalled his own days playing football as a child with a ball made of rags and laid bare his scorn for doping cheats.
Francis is a big football fan and met Maradona, who died in November, several times after becoming pope in 2013.
Maradona played for Napoli from 1984 to 1991 winning two Serie A titles and the Uefa Cup.
In 1986, he captained the Argentine team to victory in the World Cup.
Argentina’s Diego Maradona, one of the world’s greatest ever football players, was buried Thursday amid a global outpouring of grief from the streets of Buenos Aires to Naples in Italy.
Posted by Sports Tribune on Friday, 27 November 2020
Despite his love for the game, Francis said he was living in Germany at the time and was not able to see the final played in Mexico against West Germany.
He only discovered the result the next day when a student wrote “Viva Argentina” on the blackboard during a language class.
Francis said he himself had no talent for the sport and was forced by his companions to play in goal.
Being poor, he recalled how he and his friends could not afford a proper ball, so had to improvise.
While extolling the virtues of sport, Francis took aim at athletes who took performance enhancing drugs.