MEMORY. The death of the Argentine genius of the football deeply moved the Algerians, who consider that the aura of Maradona exceeds his sporting legend.
“My ideology is that of liberation, and I am very admiring of what the Algerians have done to free themselves, and I am also admiring of the Algerians’ attachment to their flag, to their passion. One, two, three, lived Algeria!” Spoke Diego Armando Maradona during his visit to Algiers in December 2013, invited by the public telephone operator Mobilis for the launch of 3G. “I hope that the 3G in Algeria will be as fast as me on the ground”, amused the Argentine star, whose disappearance was much commented on in Algeria, a country passionate about football.
Social networks shared his photo where he kisses the Algerian flag but it is above all that of the kiss exchanged with his campaign, at the table of three ministers who seem to be looking elsewhere, during the Mobilis ceremony, which is the more viral. “In Algeria, only Maradona has the right to kiss his girlfriend in public”, read an electronic newspaper!
“Thug Treaty”
“For me, Algerian, it’s also the brilliant pain in the ass who kissed his chick in December 2013 in front of everyone during a publicized evening. The scene was as magnificent as a beautiful caricature: hypocrites and prudish people who turned their heads or buried their chins under the dinner table. A former minister had called him a thug, he did not know what a surge of love is, poor man,” recalls the columnist and director of the daily Reporters Nordine Azzouz.
“[The ministers] hadn’t seen Maradona offside. VAR is not used in Algeria ”, ironically Hichem on his Facebook page, recalling this funny episode. But beyond the love kiss alongside the Algerian apparatchiks, another controversy ignited around the amount supposed to be earned by the Argentine star: one million euros out of public funds, paid by Mobilis for his visit to Algiers for 24 hours, information quickly denied by the two protagonists.
But the meeting between Maradona and Algeria goes back further, more precisely to September 2, 1979, in Tokyo when Argentina faces Algeria in the quarterfinals of the Under 20 World Cup. El Pibe de Oro was then 19 years old, and his team crushed the Algerians (5-0, including a goal signed by Maradona), and will be elected Golden Ball of the competition. Argentina wins the Cup against the powerful USSR team.
“We were touched to play against Algeria”
This Algeria-Argentina match will remain engraved in the memory of Maradona who recounted, on September 2, his fit of anger on September 2, 1979, on his Facebook page: “We joined the locker room with a score of 4-0 after a goal of Caldera and a hat-trick from Pelado Diaz. In the second half, El Flaco [nickname given to illustrious Argentine coach César Luis Menotti] replaced me with Tucu Meza. And Juancito Simon had to leave the field too, with an ankle injury. The truth is that I went back to the locker room being very angry, I screamed like crazy. But hey, nobody likes to be replaced, let alone me who was the captain. “Maradona admits anyway:” We were touched to play against Algeria. They were playing well, but we were able to beat them.
Thirty-four years later, during her visit to Algiers, Maradona spoke about Algeria’s chances at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil: “I must say that it would be a serious mistake to underestimate Algeria. Beware of teams who will disrespect Algerians! But the Fennecs will stop in the eighth final, surrendering to Germany with a score of 2-1.
However, Maradona is not just football for Algerians. “He was a legend who electrified the imagination and the existence of people with his values of justice, freedom and revolution. Maradona is the footballing continuity of Che Guevara, ” writes author and researcher Mohamed Benziane, while social networks abound with tributes for his pro-Palestinian positions and his relations with Castro or Chavez.
“A kind of Mohamed Ali, a totem”
“There is politics in Maradona,” says Nordine Azzouz. “The kid who came out of the slum of Fiorito, near Buenos Aires, and who climbed all the rungs to the top of the world to then say to the church and to the Pope: ‘Stop selling speeches to the poor and downgraded, and do something! Sell your trinkets! ” Let us also take 1986 and the ” hand of God ”: it is the revenge of the little Argentine people against the British Empire and Thatcher for the Falklands. The Argentines who mourn him today have understood it, as have understood those who praised Mohamed Ali for boxing or, before, Jack Johnson! “
“Maradona is for Algeria a kind of Mohamed Ali, a totem pole, a symbol of impertinence and success. It also refers to the imperfect character of the human being ”, considers Akram Kharief, founder of the strategic information site Mena Defense.
For political scientist Abed Charef, “Maradona has managed his career less well than Messi, but his life has more punch”. “Meeting Castro and playing in the poor part of Italy, these are choices that stand out. And then he won the World Cup, which is not the case with Messi, too smooth, and which shows that the impact of a player on the collective is as important, if not more important than the talent. individual. “
The poet Adel Sayad proposes to name the great stadium of Algiers, under construction, with the name of Maradona to “perpetuate the magic that he breathed into the round balloon and to salute all the young energies of the region”.
