“Planet Diego: 16 looks at an icon” is a selection of 16 writings by different renowned authors from different regions of the world, united by the same objective: to describe Diego Armando Maradona. His actor, Paul Brescia, He is the first to publish it two years after the death of “El Diez”, developing it with an essay focus, leaving the biographical and anecdotal.
“The proposal is the exploration of Maradona as a planet, as a space body and autonomous world that has its own topography and temporality, and that deserves recognition,” he describes. Paul Bresciaand adds: “What moves us about that someone who was much more than a soccer player, sublime for many, despicable for many, a permanent contradiction for many, terribly human for others?”
The project brings together texts by various authors such as Mexican Pedro Angel Palou, Juan Villoro, Adriana Bernal; the argentines Edgardo Scott, Alicia Dujovne Ortiz, Ariel Scher; the Colombian Paul Brito; and the Spanish Ana Merino.Academics also participated Fernando Segura M. Trejo, Mariano Paz, Yvette Sánchez and Delaram Rahimi, who They gave one more reflective look. And the journalists complete the list Georgina Gonzalez, Marion Reimers, Cesar Ferrero; and the graphic artist Paolo Castaldi.
It is not the first time that Brescia has dabbled in the figure of Maradona. Previously, he published the essay “Out of this world: Diego in ten” (2020) and the tale “Two different times” (2022). His latest work related to the athlete born in Villa Fiorito, in collaboration with the specialist Mariano Pazit was “Diego Maradona: A Sociocultural Study” (2022), which will be released in English on December 1.
NEWS: What does Maradona mean to the world and why does he transcend football?
Paul Brescia: There is a team photo of the Argentine national team, which are all images of Maradona at different stages of his life. I think that marks very well what it means to the world and because it transcends football. Maradona was many things and he represented many things to the people as well. First and foremost a sublime player. But he is also, for many, a kind of hero of the resistance, especially in Argentina and Naples. To others, a cheater and a crybaby, someone who constantly sought out media attention. For example, if you go to England, it would be the interpretation from the 1986 game. It is irrefutable that Maradona symbolized something very strong and, at the same time, transcended the limits of the sport, becoming iconic. All of them with a very large and very complex symbolic value.
NEWS.: From your point of view, is there currently a footballer who could maintain the same connection?
Brescia: The answer is no, for two reasons. First, that Maradona as a player was unrepeatable and as a figure he is unrepeatable. Among so many things that can be said, but I can mention one, I don’t know another athlete who has a policeman guarding his grave 24 hours a day. This is unthinkable in many other parts of the planet. In that sense, there is no other figure that can take his place. The second reason is because the world changed. Maradona is a symbol of the 80s and 90s, in soccer terms, when the impact of soccer changed from being “a game” to being mass consumption entertainment. In the world of social networks, where we are monitored and watched, and where footballers must build an image. Maradona built an image of him and at the same time he cared very little about what they could say to him about that image. If we go to the trite comparison with Messi, not in football terms, but symbolic, the idolatry of Messi is very different from that of Maradona.
NEWS.: Is there greater recognition of Maradona after his death?
Brescia: Those of us who loved him, and many of us who hated him, had been waiting twenty years for Maradona’s death due to the palpable deterioration of his physique. So it was an imminence that was going to happen and that it happened at a very special moment for humanity, during the pandemic. On the other hand, the recognition had already begun to be given, especially when he returned to Argentina and took charge of Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata. In all the stadiums he goes to there is a throne and he is recognized by the fans of the other teams. There was strong recognition, also in society. He was a shadow of what he had been and that deepened that recognition. On the other hand, the expression of popular pain and the circus that is created from the political appropriations of one or the other side around his funeral, which veils him as a state figure, obtained greater recognition and death eternalizes him as a symbol of Argentine culture.
NEWS: Is Maradona’s private life part of the idol’s imaginary construction or is it something apart from the myth?
Brescia: A myth is built by one’s own being, Maradona built himself and his reverberations are totally suspect. So, private life is part of the public. We could ask ourselves, did Maradona have a private life? Maradona had a microphone on him since he was 10 years old. It was a mutual attraction and repulsion. I like the idea of imaginary construction, there is an idea of Diego perpetrated by himself and by everything that arose in his life. This idea of dividing, by Diego and Maradona, is not enough. Maradona was the public and the private. I believe that we have to try to get out of this position of extreme idolatry or extreme moralistic criticism, and take a little distance, which is very difficult due to the emotion that Diego caused. Think about it from a place of reflection and what it means to so many people.
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