Diego Maradona landed from a helicopter for his unveiling at Napoli. Playing the messiah came naturally. It was the beginning of a phase that would catapult him to the greatest heights reached by a footballer. The first part of the story can be found here.
Max Weber, one of the leading sociologists of the twentieth century, introduced the idea of ‘charismatic authority’ – a ‘certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities’.
In the January of 1983, new national team coach Carlos Bilardo visited Maradona, offering him the captaincy. The move was a political masterclass, given Maradona’s stature in his country and the galvanizing power he held amongst his teammates. It raised some eyebrows and scorned some others, most notably that of 1978 skipper Daniel Passarrella, but Bilardo had no doubt about his central figure in the quest for Mexico ‘86.
A year later, Maradona joined Napoli. For one of the world’s leading footballers to choose a southern Italian club, going past Milan, Inter or Juventus, was uncharted territory. Naples is Italy’s most densely populated city, adorned by dingy alleys and littered footpaths; not quite the beautiful landscapes and walkways that will make the front pages of Italy Tourism brochures.