'Contento' The word of God

IN HIS heyday, one of the qualities that distinguished Diego Armando Maradona as a candidate for the accolade of football's greatest ever player was a low centre of gravity.

When hulking defenders attempted to scythe the feet from his legs, the little attacker enjoyed a wonderful knack of staying upright and ghosting away from trouble.

Now he's an international manager, and this asset proved every bit as valuable at Glasgow Airport yesterday when the 48-year-old coach of Argentina arrived on a flight from Madrid ahead of Wednesday's match with Scotland at Hampden.

His head held high, he glided past a heaving scrum of reporters, photographers and TV people with the Zen-like composure of a man who has been here before and seen it all.

It was this reporter's privilege 29 years ago to cover for The Scotsman the then 18-year-old's enchantment of the Hampden crowd with a thrilling goal, his first in international football, in a match Argentina won 3-1. Alan Hansen, the TV pundit who played for Liverpool, formed a central defensive partnership with Paul Hegarty that day, and never forgot the experience. "I'm looking at him, looking at the ball and the next thing I know, both are gone," recalled the Scot. "I was shell-shocked."

Hegarty was similarly unhinged in 1979. "There are instants in life frozen in your mind for ever," remembers the former Dundee United player. "This was one for me. I knew there was no way I could tackle him properly and expect to get the ball. So I did what any rugby man would do. I tackled him according to their code – waist-high."

Almost half a lifetime later and in spite of all the drugs, the health problems and the controversy, he's been described as Argentina's most venerated myth since Evita. This onlooker guessed Scotland's admiration for the best footballer in modern times to grace the turf at Hampden was more or less undimmed.

As a player, Maradona could usually rely on the support of hard-bitten colleagues of the calibre of Daniel Passarella, the man with the sharpest elbows in football, to provide safe passage.

But at Glasgow Airport, it was a posse from Strathclyde Police who formed a circle of protection around the coach and prevented the frenzied media pack from emulating Hegarty's rugby tackle.

Maradona, who has never spoken more than a smattering of English, shrugged aside requests for comment on Wednesday's friendly international against Scotland with the polite but firm message: "I don't speak English."

A tactical ploy devised by the Scottish Football Association's media man to present the Argentine manager with a jersey in order to lure him in the direction of the TV cameras – a Spanish translator was also on hand – proved as ineffective as all the defensive strategies dreamed up by opponents to stop him when Maradona first emerged as a serious rival to Pele.

Although appearing to walk with a slight limp, Maradona looked in good shape compared with the bloated figure he became during a downward spiral in his life a few years ago when drug and alcohol abuse took their toll.

He kept moving at a steady pace out of the terminal and managed to ignore most of the questions tossed his way.

Bearing in mind how he'd scored his first goal for his country as a teenager at Hampden, someone asked him how it felt to be back in Scotland for his first game as manager of his country. With admirable brevity, he replied in Spanish: "Contento".

If he didn't look particularly pleased or content to be pursued by the media, Maradona was at least willing to acknowledge his admirers. Once he'd reached the safety of the coach, he came back to the door of the vehicle and spent a few minutes signing autographs.

When he visited Manchester United's training ground earlier this month, even a player of the calibre of Rio Ferdinand conceded he was in awe. "We were like schoolkids around a star coming to school," enthused the England player.

Little wonder then that one journalist resembled the cat who got the cream after stuffing a photograph into Maradona's hands of the "Hand Of God" incident, the moment when he fisted the ball past Peter Shilton at the 1986 World Cup came back with a priceless signature.

Though he said hardly anything, Maradona carried himself through the media scrum with the charismatic air of a man who knows exactly where he stands. It wasn't hard to understand why Carlos Bilardo, the World Cup winning coach, believes that for Maradona, training Argentina will be like touching heaven.