When Gary met Diego - Uncut

In April 2006, almost two decades after they last shared air time together at Mexico 86, Gary Lineker flew to Buenos Aires to interview Diego Maradona for the BBC documentary When Gary Met Diego.

After being given the runaround by Diego’s ‘people’, Lineker finally got through the front door of Maradona’s parents’ house, where the fallen idol now resides. Over lunch, the two talked drugs, obesity and overdosing on pizza – plus that goal he knocked in with his hand. FourFourTwo got our hands on the full, unedited transcript.

You look in good shape...
I’m having a great time. After losing 54 kilos and having detoxed, I feel well. Perhaps before I was well on the outside – today I’m well on the inside.

You’re living with your parents again. It must take you back to your childhood.
Yes, yes. Every time my mum comes to wake me up, it’s like going back in time. But it’s really beautiful, when you come home and you see how your father is, how your mother is, how your brothers are. When you’re in another country, or in the state I was in, I didn’t enjoy my family. Today I enjoy them.

You grew up in a very poor area. Did that make you determined to escape that life?
There were eight children and my father worked such a lot to support us. But that made everyone strong. Thank God the one who could reach the heights was me. And now, just as my parents made sacrifices when we were children, we are able to give them a good life in return.

At what point did you realise you had a special talent?
I don’t think you ever truly realise. You want to reach the highest level possible, but I think you play, you have fun and you look for things in life. I wanted to play in the First Division, I wanted to have fun, I wanted my parents to be proud of me and that’s what prompted me to keep wanting more. The talent, I believe, becomes evident, but you just can’t imagine everything that you can do.

After you made your Argentina debut at just 17, you continued to improve very, very quickly. How disappointed were you not to make it into the World Cup squad on home soil in 1978?
I cried. It was very hard, very hard to take. Coach [Cesar Luis] Menotti told me that I had a lot of time ahead, but he didn’t convince me. That World Cup was my time, my place. I was in very good shape for ’78 and even though I was only 17, I would have played with a lot of energy. Instead I was captain of the junior team that won the Japan tournament, but...

As a result Spain 82 was your first World Cup. Was that a steep learning curve?
Yes, it was a bad World Cup for everyone involved. I got an injury before the tournament and reached the game against Belgium in a bad state. I wasn’t well. We had a great team with names – Passarella, Fillol, Kempes, Bertoni, Valdano – but we didn’t do what we were promising.

And for you the tournament ended with a red card against Brazil...
Of course. It was a bad World Cup. We had the names but we didn’t find the right team and it was hard. So we lost against Italy and we lost against Brazil.

Against Italy, Claudio Gentile kicked you throughout the game. Do you envy the protection players are given these days?
Nowadays they are more protected. In ’82, Gentile could have been thrown out, but he would have been thrown out today. It was always said that we had to look after the players who wanted to entertain, but there was very little fair play on the field, even if they talked about it a lot. In 1990 also, they gave us so many kicks, especially against Cameroon, but nobody said anything.

In 1982 you joined Barcelona. How did it feel to have to leave Argentina and move away from your family?
It’s very difficult to leave the people you are attached to, to leave your customs and move to another country and another football, but it also gives you the same sensations. I was prepared for Barcelona and for big football, but my thoughts went further than that. Later, with the World Cup team, I did a couple of interesting things...

Hosting 'Links' at his mum's house

It didn’t really happen for you in Barcelona. Why was that?
I couldn’t play a whole championship because I had hepatitis for two years, and it didn’t help that Andoni Goikoetxea broke my ankle – oof! But Barcelona is an incredible club, it’s beautiful and any player would like to play for them, or for Real Madrid. I lived well there, but we won just one Copa del Rey during my time.

It was during your time at Barcelona that you became involved with drugs...
Yes, the drugs started in Barcelona. It began as entertainment and ended very badly. You get used to the drug and you become an addict. It was something that I shouldn’t have done and I totally regret it, particularly as I have daughters.

From there you went to Napoli and had a fantastic time, achieving so much...
In Napoli every Sunday, there were 100,000 people and we were in seventh heaven. They used to say let’s win, let’s beat Juventus, Milan, Inter, but then they started to want more. They wanted the Championship, they wanted the UEFA Cup, then they wanted the European Cup. We won two Scudetti, we won the Coppa Italia, we won the UEFA Cup and we spoilt them. For a team like Napoli to win two championships in Italy is amazing. It’s a really big deal because if it isn’t Juventus, it’s Milan, and if it isn’t Milan it’s Inter or Roma.At Mexico 86 you got through to the quarter-finals, where you played us, England. There was a lot of build up to that game because of the Falklands conflict. Both sides said at the time that wasn’t important – was that true for you?
It seems to me that everyone was talking about the Falklands but we just wanted to play a football game. You’re not going to resolve anything by thinking about anything other than winning... winning that game against England.

And was it your hand or the Hand of God?
It was my hand. I don’t mean any disrespect to English fans but this is something that happens. We used to do this, I’d scored goals before in Argentina with my hand. Shilton was already there so I couldn’t reach higher and head it, so I did that [gesticulates by putting his fist upwards]. Then I put my head back and I started running. When I started to run at first Shilton didn’t realise. The one who told him was the sweeper [Terry Fenwick], he saw my hand go up. When I saw the linesman running back to the centre circle, I was shouting “Goal”, then I looked behind to see whether the referee had taken the bait. He had, so that was it.

Did your team-mates know it was a handball?
Yes they did, which is why they didn’t come over to celebrate with me. I was saying, “Come on, come on, hug me let’s do it properly, let’s go the whole way so the goal is allowed.” Thank God it was.

In England it would be regarded as cheating. How do you see it?
I don’t think it’s cheating, it’s cunning. Is it cheating to handle the ball? Oh no, no, no. It’s not cheating. It’s a craftiness. Maybe we have a lot more of it in South America than in Europe, but it’s not cheating.

Why did you say it was the Hand of God?
Because God gives us the hand. And because it’s very difficult for it not to be seen by two people, the referee and the linesman, so that’s why I said it was the Hand of God.

Struck by divine inspiration...

Your second goal is probably the only time in my career that I felt like applauding an opponent scoring a goal. Is it your best?
It’s the dream goal. Us footballers always dream of scoring the best goal in history, we dream it and we have it in our heads. The truth is to score that goal, for me, was fantastic, and in the World Cup, incredible.

Was it better because it was England?
When you talk about playing against Italy or, for example, Uruguay or Brazil it is much more complicated to score that kind of goal, because the English player is a lot more noble and honest on the pitch.

I think they were trying to kick you, they just couldn’t catch you...
Of course, was it Peter Reid? He wanted to kick me; you could see him trying, but just not making it. And then when I faced the sweeper, Fenwick, I dummied him and he didn’t know what to do, whether to go this way or that. Then Shilton came out and I dummied him too, and Butcher closed in and gave me a kick on my right leg, but I’d already touched the ball home.

It was an incredible goal, even more so given that the pitch was terrible. Every time you put a foot down the turf moved...
It was bad, very bad. We almost couldn’t even walk on that pitch and it was very, very difficult to carry the ball and give it, move it around. But all the ingredients came together. If the ball was moving wrong I would correct it and it all happened very fast and came together. I had the possibility of passing or going on; I went on and, well, you know.

What about the last 20 minutes, when John Barnes came on?
Of course, what a great player he was, that guy used to play very well. Barnes made it difficult for us, he made everything that we’d planned very difficult.

Was winning that World Cup the highlight of your career?
It was the ultimate achievement, a moment of total glory. It was a World Cup in which we weren’t the favourites but we became stronger as we progressed, and I was captain, so for me it was the ultimate. When Germany scored to make it 2-2 in the final, I said to myself “the cup is leaving me, no, please no”. Then when I set up Burruchaga for the winner I said “you returned it to me, thank you”.

A lot of people say that Maradona won that World Cup on his own, that Argentina didn’t have a good team. What do you say?
No, no, no. We had a great team. A good team became a much greater one because of my presence, I recognise that, but I didn’t win the World Cup alone. Without the team’s contribution I might have won the game against England but not all the games we won after that. Maybe I stood out from the others, but we had Valdano, Burruchaga and many others playing at a very, very good level.

In 1990, you were playing for an Italian club, the World Cup was in Italy, and you went very close to winning it again.
Yes, but with far more complications, which is why it’s very hard to win the World Cup because everything is concentrated into one month and you need no injuries and no problems in your head. In Mexico everything was given to us, in Italy we had injuries.

After Argentina beat Italy at Italia 90, the nation where you’d lived for seven years turned against you. Do you regret that?
If the deal had been that I would have to stay there and end up paying for knocking Italy out then I’d have said OK, I’ll pay my dues. They threw me out, but the joy I felt knocking Italy out was living it. Fantastic.

Do you think there was a campaign in Italy to get you out?
Yes, later on. Caniggia also had problems at Atalanta. That’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? All year we were the villains. It’s really hard to live in Italy when you go to play in Verona and they put a banner up saying ‘Wash yourselves, you’re dirty’. But the people of Napoli were with me, because they knew me.

You were kicked out of the World Cup four years later in the USA for taking drugs. What are your thoughts on that?
It was a mistake. We used to take Rip Fuel, which doesn’t contain ephedrine here in Argentina but it does in America. It was a mistake on the part of my doctor. I was a cocaine addict at the time and that’s not an advantage, but if my intention had been to take a performance-enhancing drug I’d have chosen other stuff, not ephedrine.

How shocked were you when you got the news of the doping?
When they told me I’d tested positive, I was really hurt. I’d worked really hard to get to that World Cup and we had a great team who were good enough to fight for the title with Brazil. I’m convinced of that, because it wasn’t an irresistible Brazil.

Having been suspended, how were you received by your people when you returned home to Argentina?
My people have always been with me, with my family, my wife and my daughters. What was tough was not going back but being out of football for so long, and being a drug addict. I wasn’t taking drugs because I wasn’t playing football or because I didn’t score more goals or because I didn’t train everyday, I was taking them because I was addicted. It’s an illness, a disease, and today I thank God that I’m able to get up every day.

At one stage you were taken to a mental institute. How was that?
I felt... I felt bad, but my problem wasn’t madness, it was an addiction, an illness. But thanks to God I recuperated well, I recuperated for my daughters.

Given your weight problems and subsequent heart attacks, did you ever think “This is it, I’m going to die”?
No, you don’t realise that you’re going to die. One always wants to grieve, but I felt really bad when my youngest daughter told me that I was practically dead, and when she said to me, “Dad, live for me, live for me.” I was dying, practically dead, and she said “Daddy, daddy live for me.” I just thought, “Wow”.

Shortly after that, weighing almost 20 stone, you decided to have your stomach stapled in an effort to control your obesity. Was that scary?
Yes, but I had to do it because I was so overweight I couldn’t even walk. I’d stopped consuming drugs but I was almost diabetic and my blood pressure was so high. The doctors told me about this operation and I spoke to my daughters about it. We knew there were risks but I said: “I’m going to have it done, I’m going to do it.” It had to be done because the situation got out of control. Watching a football game I would eat two whole pizzas on my own. But I’m not anxious anymore and I eat very little now.

Was that the turning point?
Yes.

Were you aware of the massive feeling of affection for you from around the world?
Yes, and that also gave me the strength to recover as fast as possible. Seeing on television that people were praying for me, praying that I would get better – that gave me strength.

Do you feel that, with addiction, you have to reach rock bottom to make you realise there’s something worth fighting for?
Yes. The thing is, even while others want to help you, you’re out of reach. You shut yourself off inside and you don’t speak to anyone. I was almost dead, and you can’t go any lower than that. What makes me want to keep on living is being able to see my daughters every day. Before, I used to see them around, but I was addicted to drugs so I didn’t enjoy them, I didn’t touch them, I saw them but everything was just flashing by.

You’ve come a long way over the last 18 months or so...
Yes, it’s been a year since my operation and almost two years without drugs. I feel great and I get up every morning with lots of energy. I say I ought to thank the guy upstairs, ‘the beard’ as I call him. He gives me opportunities and I give my all to make the most of it.



Last night, I saw you playing football, and playing with great enthusiasm. What does the game mean to you these days?
It gives me freedom and allows me to enjoy myself. All sport is great but football is the most beautiful, the sport of kings. Running with a ball, running after a ball gives me great enjoyment and pleasure – it’s something much more powerful. For example, watching football: I watch the Premier League, the first B, the first C – on Wednesdays, on Thursdays, on Saturdays, on Sundays; English football, French football or whatever. My daughters call me and say: “What are you doing? Are you watching football?” Of course I am.

And you’ve a new career in TV...
We made a brilliant programme, La Noche del Diez, and we had great fun. We gave the people what they wanted and I really enjoyed myself. It wasn’t a question of my just going along to see what happened – I took the responsibility very seriously and it was a real challenge to me.

You’ve also got an interest in politics. Where did that come from?
No, I’m not interested in politics, it’s a dirty business. I don’t believe politicians.

So you won’t be President of Argentina?
No. I believe we have to make this a better country. But I also think we should be more self-critical in order to motivate these so-called politicians, the people who can give us a better country. Fidel Castro is the most iconic figure we have in the world. He risked his life for his land and he gives the people what he can.

So how do you see your future panning out? More TV work, or are you going to coach Argentina at some stage?
I’m moving towards the future. We’ll be doing the programme again, but I would also like to be in charge of the selection of the Argentinian team: I would love that.