“What do you expect at Napoli?” … “Peace.”
- Title: Diego Maradona
- Director: Asif Kapadia
- Release date: 19th May 2019
Without proclaiming to be the world’s leading expert on professional football, one may wonder what attracted me to review this documentary. Well two things, one being my dad constantly going on about how good Maradona was back in the day, the other strangely enough was that after watching Senna, another Asif Kapadia documentary on a subject that I was totally in the dark about and absolutely loved, I thought ‘Why not?’
Asif, you did it again…
The documentary is set around the time of Maradona’s transfer from F.C. Barcelona to S.S.C Napoli in 1984. It tells the story of a young boy from a low-income family who through his extraordinary talent, achieved his dream which was to be able to buy a house for his parents and to never return to the shantytown from where he came.
With my knowledge on football stretching as far as the assumption that a footballer scores lots of goals, his team wins the league, the end, this documentary made me realise, boy was I wrong…
Consisting of a montage edit of hundreds of hours’ worth of footage, recorded by two Argentinian cameramen when his agent decided to document his life, Kapadia brilliantly puts together this documentary on the highs and the lows of a superstar.
The documentary perfectly shows how, when coming from humble beginnings and getting life’s riches thrust upon you, sometimes it’s the ability to say no, which is life’s greatest gift. This journey from a god-like figure, who’s picture was placed next to that of Jesus Christ in many Neapolitan homes, to being vilified and hated by the same people, based upon one football match, is truly something remarkable.
For me, the girl who thought Leroy Sané was the best thing to cross that white line. Maradona is the G.O.A.T.
Tia's Not-So-Secret-Diary 