Review by Booklist Review
If you know the name of only one soccer legend, it's Pelé. If you know two names, the second should be Diego Maradona. Pelé endeared himself to the world through both athletic talent and good sportsmanship, but Maradona, one of the most creative, exciting players ever to grace a pitch, had a career marked by feuding, controversy, and failed drug tests. But it's his mercurial personality that makes his 2000 as-told-to autobiography, newly released in the U.S., such involving reading. Translator Mora y Araujo has taken pains to preserve the idiosyncrasies of her subject's speech, and his personality bursts through. Maradona races exuberantly through his life, from his impoverished childhood and debut with Argentinean club teams, to stints with FC Barcelona and S.S.C. Napoli, to World Cup infamy (the 'Hand of God" goal was actually scored by the hand of Maradona), drug addiction, and repeated comebacks. It's sometimes claustrophobic, and certainly self-serving, but there's an undeniable truth: Maradona loves, and lives for, the game. Pelé may have been the better spokesman, but Maradona makes for better reading.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this rambling though passionate monologue, Maradona (with the help of two ghostwriters) takes readers from his impoverished youth in Buenos Aires to the heights of celebrity as the greatest player in the history of the world's most popular sport. An unlikely superstar, the short (5'5") and rather chunky Maradona regularly performed impossible feats on the soccer pitch, yet his career was shadowed by criminal allegations and florid drug abuse. Even a casual soccer fan could describe the numerous highs and lows of Maradona's career, including the "Hand of God" against England, the 1986 World Cup victory, firing an air-gun into a crowd of reporters, a failed drug test at the '94 Cup and a massive heart attack (probably drug related) in 2004. Although quite open about his drug use and philandering, Maradona admits to little wrong and spends most of his energy detailing his exploits on the field and railing against the owners and bureaucrats who control the sport. While Maradona's pungent mode of expression and outspoken politics-he loves Castro and sports a Che Guevara tattoo-have undeniable charm, the book will be tough going for general readers lacking background in international soccer. 32 color and b&w photos. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
