SOCCER / GRAHAME L. JONES : In Any Language, Maradona Means Selfish
South Korea and Japan are locked in a furious battle for the right to stage the 2002 World Cup, but there must have been a few sniggers in Tokyo last week at the way the Koreans were treated by Diego Maradona.
The pudgy Argentine was paid a ludicrous $1.75-million to come to Seoul for his first game after a 15-month drug-related suspension. For that amount, the Koreans expected some cooperation from the former star.
Instead, they got the typically arrogant and insensitive behavior that has been Maradona’s hallmark for the past decade. For example:
--He threw an elaborately planned welcoming ceremony and news conference into disarray by missing his plane.
--He kept almost 1,000 children and their parents waiting for more than two hours, then disappointed them by failing to show up for a promised coaching session at an amusement park.
--He performed only 10 minutes worth of juggling tricks for 1,000 fans who had waited in the rain for an hour at a train station for what was intended to be an autograph session.
--He was a no-show for an expected appearance at the Hyundai car-manufacturing plant.
Needless to say, the Koreans were not thrilled by the snubs. And the Japanese, who have the oh-so-correct Pele and Bobby Charlton among their World Cup 2002 spokesmen, enjoyed every moment of the Koreans’ discomfort.
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More than 70,000 fans, including South Korean President Kim Young-sam and Argentine President Carlos Menem, were in Chamsil Olympic Stadium for Maradona’s much-heralded return after he was banned from the sport for more than a year for failing a drug test during World Cup ’94.
Boca Juniors, Maradona’s latest team, defeated the South Korean national team, 2-1, with the 35-year-old former star looking his age. He took only one shot on goal and was described as “tired and sluggish.”
He did, however, sport a blond “racing stripe” in his black hair--a fashion statement pounced upon by the British press as incontrovertible evidence of the famed Maradona “yellow streak.”
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Unable to keep out of the news for more than a few days, Maradona ruffled FIFA feathers earlier in September when he announced the creation of a worldwide players’ union to be based in Paris.
Among the international stars supporting the plan are Eric Cantona of France, Rai of Brazil, George Weah of Liberia, Tomas Brolin of Sweden and Gianluca Vialli of Italy.
The concept was quickly denounced by FIFA President Joao Havelange, a longtime Maradona foe, who dismissed it as a waste of time. FIFA, he said, would deal with national federations and no one else.
Perhaps Havelange recalls Maradona’s comment last March when the Argentine said: “Playing World Cup games in midday heat while Havelange has pizza and champagne in the VIP box, that has to stop.”
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A week after his Korean appearance, Maradona returned to professional play as Boca Juniors scored a 1-0 Argentine League victory over Colon de Santa Fe on Saturday in Buenos Aires.
A crowd of 62,000, some of whom had paid four times the face-value for a ticket, saw their long-idle idol get a yellow card and then be chosen by lottery to undergo a drug test after the match.
The results were not immediately available.
“It’s something I don’t want to talk about,” Maradona said. “It’s all over and now we have to wait and see what happens.”
An ominous response, given his troubled history.
Soccer Notes
Former U.S. Coach Bora Milutinovic returns to Los Angeles this week, bringing with him a new-look Mexican national team that will play Saudi Arabia at the Coliseum on Wednesday at 8 p.m. Milutinovic, who took over from Miguel Mejia Baron in August, has introduced a half-dozen new young players to the Mexico lineup in preparation for the CONCACAF Gold Cup in January and a World Cup ’98 qualifying game later in 1996.
Chuck Blazer, the CONCACAF general secretary, will also be in town to announce details of the Jan. 10-21 Gold Cup for the championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean. World champion Brazil has agreed to compete as a guest in the nine-nation tournament, to be played at the Coliseum, Anaheim Stadium and San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.
UCLA defender Frankie Hejduk heads a group of six Californians among the 20 players selected for the U.S Olympic team’s full-time residency camp in Chula Vista. The others are defenders Ramiro Corrales of Salinas and Mike DuHaney of San Diego and midfielders Jorge Flores of Los Angeles, Brian Johnson of Livermore and Felipe Rodriguez of El Monte. Once their collegiate seasons are finished, other players will join the camp, which opened Oct. 1 and will be run along the lines of the 1994 U.S. World Cup team’s training camp in Mission Viejo.
The U.S. women’s national team that will compete in the Atlanta Olympics lost a world champion when defender Linda Hamilton, 26, announced her retirement. Hamilton, a starter on the team that won the title in China in 1991 and finished third in Sweden this summer, had been slowed by repeated knee surgeries. . . . Among the 24 players in Coach Tony DiCicco’s recent 10-day Olympic training camp in Chula Vista was forward Brandi Chastain of San Jose. Chastain, another member of the ’91 world championship team, is trying to make a comeback at age 27. . . . A third world champion from China, UCLA women’s Coach Joy Fawcett, has the Bruins ranked among the top 20 in the nation in only their third season.
