Shamik Chakrabarty in Dubai
The decision had to be taken on specious presumption. The Indian cricket team was enjoying a day off, making things a bit difficult for the group of hacks who have assembled here in Dubai to cover the Champions Trophy. As a journalist, words are your currency, but you need a subject to put those words in order.
On the days when the team is training or playing matches, filing stories is relatively easy. Once again, as a reporter, you don’t take sides. You write what you see. But what do you do on a day when there’s no activity? This is where the search for a special story — something offbeat — comes in. This endeavour has to be accompanied by legwork. Giving ‘gyan’ from an armchair is the easier option. But a reporter worth his or her salt doesn’t fall for shortcuts.
New Zealand’s win over Bangladesh on Tuesday and Pakistan cricket’s free-fall provided enough material for the morning copy. Another copy in the evening was desirable, although absolutely not mandatory. Freedom and freehand for reporters are the two key components that make working at RevSportz enjoyable. Your editor is never forcing a make-or-break push, rather encouraging his troops to enjoy, even on overseas tours, while they work.
At this point, an elongated prelude is veering towards boredom. Coming directly to the subject of this article has become important. How about turning to Diego Maradona to save the day was a thought that came to mind. A visit to the Al-Wasl Sports Club ensued.
Vaibhav Tripathi, my colleague and roommate here, follows football from World Cup-to-World Cup. A bit of talking-to was needed to convince him. Vaibhav is a quick and good learner. Once he was there at the club, he thoroughly enjoyed the experience. He also took the extra initiative to do a nice video from outside the club compound.
Now, coming to the specious presumption thing — the club allowing us to take videos and images from its inner circles was never going to happen. All top clubs in the world maintain a standard protocol — the request for a recce starts with dropping an email to the PR department, which in turn responds with a yes or no. We were just gate-crashing.
And we were happy to do that for Maradona — unarguably the greatest footballer in history of the game. Apologies to the Pele and Messi fans, but those who watched Maradona at the 1986 World Cup and followed his career at Napoli will never need another hero.
When Maradona came to this part of the world in May 2011 as the head coach of Al-Wasl, he was still larger than life. A year previously, he had managed Argentina at the World Cup in South Africa and despite Messi’s presence, he was the team’s focal point. Obviously, his arrival to coach a club in the UAE Pro-League was a big thing for Dubai. Al-Wasl were a gracious host, going to the extent of completely overhauling their Zabeel Stadium to welcome the Argentine genius. The club was starving for success — their last league title came in 2007 — and sought Maradona’s Midas touch.
But maybe, Maradona was never going to be successful as a coach. Football came easily to him and on the pitch, he could do the impossible. Henry Winter, a revered football correspondent, once narrated a story about how effortlessly Maradona was feeding crosses to Messi and other Argentina forwards in team trainings during the 2010 World Cup. He was 50 years old then.
Managing a team, however, is a more complex thing and the responsibility wore him down. Eventually, after 14 months in a two-year contract, Al-Wasl sacked Maradona. In a 12-team league, the club was in the eighth place then. They won just seven matches.
Al-Wasl, though, remained respectful about Maradona. After the legend’s death in 2020, they put out a classy tribute. A Maradona photo still graces the wall inside the stadium. Unfortunately, it was closed on Wednesday and there was no ‘Hand of God’ to unlock the door.
P. S. Despite arriving uninvited, the Al-Wasl administration office was kind enough to allow us to have a pitch-side view of their training facilities. Taking photos and videos was a no-no.
The post In Dubai’s Maradona corner: An Al-Wasl diary appeared first on Sports News Portal | Latest Sports Articles | Revsports.
