Episode 182: Celebrating And Reckoning With Diego Maradona
Legendary football star and Argentine icon Diego Maradona died Wednesday, at the age of 60. Arguably the sport’s greatest player, Maradona championed the poor and railed against imperialism. This week, Shireen and Brenda look back on Maradona’s brilliance and, at times, painful contradictions. [3:12] And, as always, you’ll hear the Burn Pile [37:22], Torchbearers, [42:32], and what is good in our worlds [45:45].
This episode was produced by Martin Kessler. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is a member of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Links
Diego Maradona: Comrade of the Global South: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/diego-maradona
Maradona's union to fight for justice: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/maradonas-union-to-fight-for-justice-1601891
It’s a shame Liverpool’s training ground has everything except the women’s team: https://theathletic.com/2208411/2020/11/20/liverpool-women-training-ground
Surviving the Game: Allegations of abuse in Cal's soccer program: https://www.ktvu.com/news/surviving-the-game-ktvu-investigates-allegations-of-abuse-in-cals-soccer-program
Indigenous NHL pioneer Fred Sasakamoose dead at 86: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/fred-sasakamoose-dead-1.5814919
Arizona Coyotes mourn young fan Leighton Accardo, who bravely fought cancer: https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nhl/coyotes/2020/11/24/leighton-accardo-inspiration-arizona-coyotes-dies-cancer/6416527002
Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year honorees: https://www.sportswomenoftheyear.co.uk/latest-news/2020s-winners-the-sunday-times-sportswomen-of-the-year-awards-in-association-with-vitality
Transcript
Shireen: Hello everybody, and welcome to Burn It All Down. I’m Shireen, and joining me today is Brenda Elsey. Brenda, how you doing?
Brenda: I’m doing good, Shireen. How are you?
Shireen: I’m really good. I’m looking forward to this conversation with you. Both sitting here in our Argentina kits, there’s a lot to talk about.
Brenda: Definitely.
Shireen: Before we get started, I just wanted to ask you something unrelated to football, unrelated to any type of grief and process and legend…Perhaps legend though. What is your favorite fall recipe?
Brenda: I only make green bean casserole once a year, and I make it from scratch, like, I do the onions and everything, you know, in the oven. So I guess that’s my favorite. I try to save my cholesterol for Toaster Strudel – and Tater Tots, that’s a big one.
Shireen: Love Tater Tots.
Brenda: Yeah, and mayonnaise. So, I don’t usually afford myself the green bean casserole recipe but it’s pretty good. It’s not that hard, it’s like half and half, but it’s even got nutmeg, that’s the secret right there.
Shireen: Nutmeg?
Brenda: Yeah, it’s wild.
Shireen: I actually Googled green bean casserole because casserole is not a thing that Pakistanis do, really, so I was like, what is this? Something about canned soup is involved in this?
Brenda: [laughs] But this is the real kind! So no cans, no Campbell’s. Real green beans, you know?
Shireen: Okay.
Brenda: So at least there’s some nutritional value to it.
Shireen: Totally.
Brenda: What about you, Shireen?
Shireen: I actually had stepped away from making chili con carne for a while, and I went back to it because it’s fall and it's cold. We had a beautiful snow fall last weekend in Toronto and I made it and my kids were like, just make this only for six months, all the time. [Brenda laughs] I couldn’t believe it, like, I cook about 5 pounds of meat per meal for my children and myself, so there was not even enough–
Brenda: They’re like a small lion pride. [laughter]
Shireen: They’d eat me if I didn’t have everything else! No, but what I did do is I found chipotle and adobo in my cupboard, which I know you should put in anyway, but just in the summer…Like, I feel like that’s a hearty fall/winter kind of dish because it’s so rich and full of flavor. The smokiness of those flavors just did me in. We had garlic bread with it and we sat around and it was just wonderful. It also took me maybe 15 minutes and then it simmered for like a half hour so it was like the easiest thing imaginable.
Today we’re going to talk about the legend, the complexity, the person that is Diego Maradona. Brenda, can you take us a little bit through who Diego Maradona is?
Brenda: Well, Diego Armando Maradona died suddenly this week, so that’s part of why we’re doing this segment on him, at the age of 60. He was to many people the greatest men’s soccer/football player – and therefore athlete, for Shireen and I – of the 20th century.
Shireen: [groaning in protest] Cough!
Brenda: [laughs] He was born in 1960 and he was born in a place called Lanús which is an industrial suburb of Buenos Aires, and pretty working-class at best, you know, precarious economic positions. He was the youngest professional in the top division in the history of Argentina when he premiered at 15 for Argentinos Juniors. He went on the play for Boca Juniors five years later which is sort of a perfect plot twist to the people’s hero at the people’s club, the most popular club in Argentina. Then he went on to win a title for Boca and on for Barcelona in the Spanish league and Napoli in 1986 which was Napoli’s first title in the 60 year history of the Serie A, and that year he put in the greatest individual performance in World Cup history, leading Argentina to win Mexico 1986 World Cup, and he played every minute of that tournament for Argentina. So, those are the general outlines in terms of the highlights of why he’s going to arguably be the greatest footballer of all time.
Shireen: I wanna dive a little bit into that in terms of not just the cliches of what he did on the pitch, which we also will address, because if there’s one player ever in the world that was cliche-worthy it was Maradona. But what did he mean to the people? This was very much the people’s player. Why are people grieving the way they are and reacting worldwide the way they are? I wanna talk a little it about that. I have to admit the news of his death caught me completely off-guard. There’s just some people that when you hear you’re like, “No.” The only other person I remember feeling this strongly about was actually Lady Diana. I was like, there’s no way! That had that visceral reaction. That was the only other time that I felt so…Perplexed, almost. I knew he wasn’t in good health, I knew this, but it was almost like, what do we do now? For those of you that don't follow football, the discussion about Pelé/Maradona is undisputed. Nobody questions it. There’ll be questions like, “Is this basketball player good? Is this hockey player good enough?” Blah blah. There’s no debate about this. I think that has affected people in a very intense way. I actually tweeted after I heard he had died, because he’s a complex character, and as I got older and learned more about how – very much through you, Brenda – I had mentioned that and the response I got was really astounding to me, but unsurprising I guess you could say, because people were in the midst of their grief at all levels. It was just a lot. I just said that he was magical and his performance on the pitch was what our dreams are made of, but it’s also important not to canonize him. I really thought that, and I think that we continue to glorify people without looking at nuance. But sometimes people aren’t ready for nuance. Right, Bren?
Brenda: I don’t think people are ever ready for nuance when it comes to Diego Maradona. I am sorry that you got that reaction but not surprised, because of the attachment that Argentines and really Latin America and the Global South have to Diego Maradona. I mean, I think it’s impossible to understand that unless you understand a little bit of the history of the 1980s in Argentina and South America, right? So, they’re recovering from a ruthless dictatorship. You’re looking at the period between ’76 and 1983 as one of enormous violence on the part of the military. They also lost a humiliating war against England, the war of the Malvinas, where they were trying to re-occupy an island off of Argentina that England has always claimed…Well, not always. Of course not always! But since, you know, colonial times.
Shireen: Which are the Falkland Islands.
Brenda: Right. We say Malvinas.
Shireen: Okay.
Brenda: Because not wiling to concede them to England linguistically either.
Shireen: Okay.
Brenda: But yeah, in English they are known as the Falkland Islands. So that was a humiliating war, one that saw a lot of young conscripted men die for no reason – because of poor planning, because the military just sort of hoped that England would just give it up. You know Margaret Thatcher, she’s real flexible. So anyway, you have to understand that in ‘86 and the time that he's doing all that club play in the 1980s people felt very ambivalent about nationalism, you know? People on the left were horrified at how the military had used nationalism. People on the right even were sort of embarrassed by this war and embarrassed by the unraveling of the dictatorship, and Maradona gave Argentina this moment to celebrate itself in a way that everybody could sort of agree on, right? Because he was an anti-authoritarian figure, because he was anti-military. So I think that’s really important to kind of think through. He understood very well that the world was not fair. We’ve gone over this on the podcast, but it’s more than just the moment of the Hand of God when he says England historically have used their power to exploit Argentina. Football is no different than the rest of the world. It’s not fair. Nations don’t start at the same level playing field.
You know, I guess I’ll just say one more thing quickly, that obviously his humble beginnings are really important to the Global South, but we should think about the fact that most footballers – most people in the world – come from poor backgrounds. The difference with him is that in the 80s, at a time when footballers were turning away from political statements, when they had agents, when they were being managed, he thought about that identity as a political one, that this is something I articulate politically. It's not just like, “I’m poor and now I’m rich and that’s awesome and I’m sorry for poor people,” right? It’s, “Because I grew up in this I understand both my meaning to people but also that working class people can be pillars of excellence and artistry,” and that’s something that’s really important to Argentina as it's going through neoliberal reforms in the 1980s and the Global South more broadly. So, I don’t know, that’s a long way…I guess I have a lot of feelings about Maradona. [laughs]
Shireen: Well, I mean, I think it’s a great time for you to talk about it. You’re one of the world’s foremost historians on this stuff, so I think we would be foolish not to talk about this with you. One of the things that always really astounded me in particular is my love for Eric Cantona, Manchester United player and just absolute football legend. I think people need to understand that in the 80s and 90s football really was trying to suppress any hint of politicization – they still are, to a degree, until very recently. I mean, you couldn’t wear a shirt with any type of message on it without getting fined and being sort of shunned in the community. But therein comes Maradona, and very shortly after he was kicked out of the ’94 World Cup for failing a drug test he actually mobilized in a way with Eric Cantona, who was a French player. Like I said, for those that don't know of him, please check him out. He is an absolutely wonderful person, interesting character, brilliant mind. He’s truly a thinker.
He and Maradona basically decided they would start a professional football union, and this was unheard of and really unprecedented in that time. There's a quote that I’m gonna read that we’ll put in the show notes where Maradona says, “This just came to me, the idea of this union.” He says, “I don’t intend to fight anyone unless they want to fight.” That is such a huge ‘fuck you’ to the powers that be, which we know he had a penchant for doing. Not just England, which I particularly enjoyed for many reasons, but just this idea that you can take the best interest of the players and not just in Latin America but – correct me if I’m wrong – in many parts of the world football is a sport of the poor. It's not historically a sport that was enjoyed and occupied only by the elites.
Brenda: Right. I mean, it starts for a very brief amount of time as sports for the elite, as the British and the French and the Belgians and the Germans bring it with the colonization of Africa and then…This is all 19th century. Then surely they bring it with their economic influence in Latin America, but just like cricket in South Asia it stays elite for a very short period of time [laugh] you know, until it disseminates very quickly. It’s funny how often that shows the British…What’s the show on Netflix about the very origins…Whatever.
Shireen: We talked about it with Jean Williams!
Brenda: I know, I know, but I hated it.
Shireen: ‘The Beautiful Game?’
Brenda: I know, but I hated it so much I totally forgot. [Shireen laughs] But anyway, point being all of these things spend so much time on this elite moment of these popular sports to kind of romanticize that, but in large part that was a very brief blip in history.
Shireen: The English Game, it was called.
Brenda: Yeah yeah yeah.
Shireen: No wonder you tried to block it out of your memory, [Brenda laughing] anything with that kind of title would offend Brenda.
Brenda: Yes, it does.
Shireen: So, this idea that he was unionizing and mobilizing was really fascinating, and people have actually talked about Maradona’s politics and that he was leftist and he was for the people. I mean, there’s even been commentary on how he was pro-Palestinian, which is certainly something we did not see in that time at all. I mean, talking about Palestine is incredibly unpopular in the larger scheme of sports globally. So, there was a quote that he had said he was very happy to say, “My heart is Palestinian,” although I’ve only seen that quote once. It’s not as if he used every platform he had to talk about this. But there’s something about him talking about Bush as a war criminal, something about a star of his magnitude talking about anti-imperialism that I had certainly never seen before. That was enthralling.
Brenda: Yeah, I think his anti-imperialism is central to his popularity. I also see it as an outgrowth of his class solidarity. He saw this as a kind of economic global class struggle and that imperialism was a tool of the economic elites of the world to divide poor people, right? It was sort of an extension of that popular politics in Argentina. So the idea that Palestine was just one more example of a new world order that oppressed people by and large was not that rare in Argentina. It wouldn’t have been a surprise to the Argentine left, nor the Chilean left, nor the Latin American left. It’s actually not nearly as controversial there as it would’ve been in the US today. It was sort of seen as, yeah. But that was part and parcel of who he was, right, that his class politics, that articulating it that way, meant he saw himself as champion against imperial projects. The Fidel stuff, I mean…Che Guevara is Argentine, so even though he leads the Cuban revolution with Fidel, this is also…If there’s anybody more iconic in Argentine popular culture and Latin America it’s gonna be Che Guevara, Eva Perón and Fidel Castro, right?
So, you know, he goes to Cuba ultimately to seek rehabilitation for the drug abuse, and because of their public healthcare system and because of the way Fidel sort of identifies with sports as a platform to building a kind of leftist agenda he goes there and he calls Fidel Castro like a father, at a time when Castro seems sort of archaic. We think more of Castro’s heyday in the 60s and 70s. So Maradona sort of goes and revives this cultural fascination, I think, with Cuba on the part of many Latin Americans. He gets a giant tattoo – he already had a tattoo of Che Guevara, you know. So, it’s interesting the ways in which he sort of had that politics but then he also made a point of visiting those places, made a point of living in Cuba for the time that he did. A lot will be mentioned about his support for Hugo Chávez, and there’s people that will say, “Oh, how could you support Hugo Chávez!” Until Hugo Chávez wasn’t, he was the most democratic force in Venezuelan history. So remember when Maradona’s supporting him, you know? And why.
Shireen: Right. Yeah, I think that’s very important to say. Then those that are critical of his alliances and allegiances, I think the thing we have to keep in mind is we’re very much looking at this from an American lens and what that looks like and how we’re tainted that way. It’s really important that we get this information, Brenda, as we think about it. One thing that as I grew up watching Maradona, and the first World Cup I remember was his, and my father was obsessed with him and we watched him…The way he moved, and we’ll get into this a little bit later, but as much as we wanna look and imagine and dream about his moves and emulate them, there’s a lot of news that I begin to hear, and not just within the whispering of the digital feminist circles. It was allegations of violence, and can you tell us a little bit about that?
Brenda: Yeah. The whispering of feminist circles is usually more right than wrong, and in this case it’s also true. There were reports throughout his career of his treatment of women. In particular there was a video that circulated a few years ago where he is abusing his partner at the time, both physically and verbally. So, intimate partner violence has really marked his record as a person and been really hard and painful with a lot of feminists to grapple with. Also coupled with a lot of homophobic statements that he made throughout the years. People will look back and say, “Well, that’s the way people talked back then…” – this was like 2014! There’s a lot of people that don’t talk like that.
Shireen: Yeah.
Brenda: It’s hard and it’s frustrating because you wanted him to change like you wanted society to change, but in many ways he still embodies really traditional gender ideologies. So, as much as his sort of masculine performance of long hair at a time when the military was enforcing short hair and prohibiting miniskirts by law, and his earrings and his tattoos felt like they were something that was really anti-authoritarian. He hurt women very near to and far from him, and so there’s that. I don’t know what to do except to just say there’s that and it’s not insignificant.
Shireen: Has anything come of those allegations against him, Brenda?
Brenda: I mean, no. [laughs] No. There wasn’t. The video circulated, a million people in Argentina rose up in arms to defend Diego Maradona. Millions of justifications. Nothing was really done. There are some charges against him that circulated but did not get picked up by the police nor pursued by the survivors about sex with minors, which is rape, but I’m translating the sexo con menores literally from the Spanish, which is the charge. But no, they didn’t go anywhere and not much investigative journalism has been done to pursue whether those are concrete. But in any case there’s enough there to make you feel a little bit uncomfortable just brushing them aside, too.
Shireen: Yeah, and what Brenda’s speaking of is Spanish media because there’s absolutely nothing in English media about these specific allegations, this story in football media. We’ve spoken about this before, how it tends to be hagiographic in nature, and I think that’s something to be said. I remain completely unsurprised. I don’t hold a lot of hope that football media will anytime soon start…And we’re two people who have written about rape apologia in football culture, be it De Gea I’ve written on; we’ve written on Ronaldo together, Brenda, and it’s almost like asking whether anything has come is a rhetorical question because we know he was never going to be charged with anything. Along with that there’s a couple of things that have confounded me as I kind of struggle to reconcile my adoration for his play but my questioning of what happens and just sort of the way that women athletes love him. One of the things that I was aware of, and Diana Taurasi – who we stan on this show, WNBA legend! – has said when asked who her biggest Hispanic inspiration was and she said, “Diego is God to all Argentines.” She said, “Manu Ginóbili came from Argentina and changed the game in the NBA and how you play, and now Messi with his touch and his worldwide impact.” But essentially the fact that Diego is God, I was really struck by that. How much do people not know, do they not interrogate everything that’s happened? Why is that?
Brenda: Well, there’s a famous quote by…Well, first, I can’t answer that in a way, because that’s not the people that we are on this show, right? [laughs] So, I don’t know what it would be like to be somebody else, but this is what I imagine is there’s a famous quote by Argentine writer Roberto Fontanarrosa and he says, “I don’t care what Diego did with his life. I care what he did with mine.”
Shireen: Wow.
Brenda: I think that’s dangerous in a sense because if everybody believes that then nobody’s ever accountable, right? It’s all anecdotal, like, “Well, it was good for me! I worked with Clarence Thomas and nothing happened to me! That’s awesome.” [Shireen laughs] You know? “It just matters to me what Clarence Thomas did with my life.”
Shireen: That’s such a wild example but okay. [laughs]
Brenda: I don’t know, I’m sorry.
Shireen: No, I did Lady Diana, you can do Clarence Thomas. It’s fine.
Brenda: Well, politics on the brain, right?
Shireen: Yeah.
Brenda: Supreme Court somewhere working in the background. So I think that’s a dangerous precedent but I also feel a lot of sympathy with Fontanarrosa, who’s saying it’s almost a betrayal or feels like a betrayal to go in and find all the warts and scratch all the scabs off of a wound that he felt Maradona helped to heal, and I think a lot of Argentines felt that way. I think it’s very difficult to go and kind of reopen that. In some way it would sully the entire process that had felt healthy.
Shireen: Yeah, that’s so beautifully put, Brenda. Also, one of the biggest things of how complicated it is. He was a contradiction in himself in so many ways. There’s one thing that I remember most recently from the 2018 men’s World Cup that he was seen and caught live by Jacqui Oatley, who’s a British football reporter and commentator, he was in the stands and he was actually caught making racist gestures to the South Korean fans. He explained that, “No no, that’s not what that was, it was me interacting with them and communicating with them,” and very much how you said, no, you need to lose that. It’s antiquated, it’s racist, it’s unacceptable. But again, so many people jumped to his defense. But then again very recently when in Napoli, Kalidou Koulibaly who is a Black player endured racist abuse at Napoli. How Maradona came out, held up his shirt, and said, “This is not acceptable.” So, we still saw him trying to be better or do better or connect with that type of pain. I think we talked about this too: he argued that he endured racist abuse as well while he was at Napoli.
Brenda: He did. Also in Barcelona as well where he’s called Indio, it’s a slur in Spanish for Native American, I guess because of his father’s mixed heritage. But really it’s also about racist stereotyping of any poor person from Latin America, right? So you go to Spain and he’s also called sudaca, which is another…Like Indio, it’s not a slur as much as it’s a racialized term that’s loaded with prejudice. It’s like, you can use it in a way that’s not but this isn’t the way it was used against him.
Shireen: I mean, we’ve talked so much about the complexities of him as a man. Brenda, I do want to talk a little bit about his magic on the pitch.
Brenda: Me too!
Shireen: I do. [laughter] Casual fans, Brenda, know of him, but we’ll dive deeply into this because you and I are just rearing to go to talk about the technicality and the actual football play. So, tell me about him. Tell me about how he was a 10. Tell me about the type of 10 that he was, Brenda.
Brenda: Maradona is a classic 10. So, for those of you out there that don’t love football so much – and bear with me those of you that do – the numbers are indicative of the position a lot of times, particularly back then in the 1970s and 80s in South America. So, a classic 10 is either an attacking midfielder or a kind of forward position. Maradona is perfect for it – dribbling skills, field of vision, playmaking, and disruptive, right?
Shireen: Oh yeah.
Brenda: Yeah, so, whatever way the defenders are thinking that they’re gonna defend you you’ve already sort of interpreted how they’re gonna defend you and you’re able to disrupt whatever play that they have. This isn’t a type of play, it’s very individual and it’s not one and it’s not Cruyff – it’s like the anti-Cruyff.
Shireen: Oh yeah.
Brenda: Right? He is not a passer, he’s a dribbler. I don’t think this type of player will ever exist again. I don’t think there’s any space for a 10 that is to put it in juvenile terms a ball hog like that. It wouldn’t work because of the press, right? They’re too athletic, they’re too fast, defenders are too quick on the ball, right? Defenders now have dribbling skills that they never had before.
Shireen: Which we could argue was inspired very much from him.
Brenda: Yup, yup, and players like that – Pelé and these kinds of players. Although Pelé did know how to pass. [Shireen laughs] So, it’s a little bit different. Also in the 1980s one thing that probably shortened his career that made…I don’t know that he would’ve done well in the 1994 World Cup even if he wasn’t bounced for a drug test, but shortened career by the hacking. It was just a different era of officiating. If you look at that, I mean, the tackles are so dirty! So dirty. [wincing noise] It’s painful to watch.
Shireen: I mean, I’m a forward and I’m very much a tackler and I was very inspired by him in so many ways. I pass, however! But I think that that comes from being a Barcelona fan, very much so, wanting that.
Brenda: Because I see you as a #9, just as a footnote, I see you as a striker.
Shireen: Yeah, I’m a striker, I’m not a 10 at all. But I think the thing is that for me I felt that he was not the most graceful player, and I think this is fine to say. [Brenda laughs] If we look at his tactical skill he wasn’t graceful at all. I mean, we think of Pelé, we think of him dancing with the ball, his movements, his strides, even the way that he touched from one to the other. And like you mentioned, Johan Cruyff for those that don’t know, the Dutch legend that also played at Barcelona. There were two very very different…I’m just gonna pretend there’s people that don’t know Johan Cruyff. So I think the thing is is that we have to accept this power with what can be construed now, when we have very much a tiki-taka passing type of game, that he was a force, he was a brutal force. I actually have this theory, it’s a bit of a hot take here, that he was better suited to Napoli than he was to Barcelona because Barcelona at the time he was there was up and coming. I see Brenda’s thinking face about it…But just that culturally he was better suited to Napoli, but during his lifetime the way that he played, the style of play that he had that was unrepentant and unapologetic and “I’m going forward”… I think inconceivably him going through five players, and there’s this iconic image of him dribbling during the World Cup through five Belgian players. We’re all like, “Oh, that’s amazing,” but if you're on the play and you’re a tactical person with knowledge and game IQ dribbling through five players is not the smartest thing – you should be able to pass and move on and move the ball around the field, and that’s ideally what we wanted from people. He didn’t do that. At the same time you’re like, “Oh, this is a disaster!” you’re like, “I can’t get enough of this!”
Brenda: I wouldn’t wanna be his coach.
Shireen: Yeah. Oh, god. [laughs]
Brenda: I think that would be an incredibly frustrating experience. So I would have to think a little harder about Napoli’s coach, but to say that certainly Napoli had never had a world-class player of that caliber, that at Barcelona he got a lot better and much fitter than he had been. He’s 5’5”, he’s really small in stature. The Spanish league was brutal. He got his ankle broken with a late tackle by – I just know him by his nickname – the Belgian Butcher, whatever. [Shireen laughs] That’s a real thing that makes Sergio Ramos look like decent human. So imagine! ¡Imagínate! So, I don’t know, but I know that probably the Spanish league was a little bit violent for him to get the job done even though he did get the Copa del Rey and he did win the Clásico against Real Madrid for Barcelona. But he did get in a brutal fight with Bilbao where his ankle had been broken before, he takes a few months off, he goes back, he gets frustrated; more dirty tackles, to the extent that he basically starts one of the worst brawls in the history of the Spanish league, which you can find on YouTube.
He will be elbowing, a full-out head butt, you know? That’s in front of the king of Spain…And then he’s traded. [laughs] So I think they were like, “Oof!” The Barcelona president says, “Go to Napoli because you’re too hot to handle.” So certainly Napoli was ready for him. Again, really storybook, right? You have Italian immigrants who came to Argentina and made up about a third of the population of Argentina, which is disproportionately the place where there’s most diasporic Italian communities. So him going to the south of Italy in this moment where northern racism and Berlusconi just took over Milan, and so he’s infusing Italian football with all of this white nationalist power, and to have Maradona then take them out for the first time in history, it was like the win of the south. So if you look at the testaments to him and the memorials, you know, Italy really rivals Argentina in its grief and adoration of Maradona. So, yeah, it worked out.
Shireen: And as we continue to grapple with Diego Maradona and what he meant to football and what he’s given to football and what he’s given to so many of us, we’ll just end that by saying that in this religion that we call football he wasn’t a prophet, he was a god. He’s a little preview of my interview with Azurá Stevens of WNBA’s Chicago Sky on the wubble, women’s basketball, and why Black women are everything. That drops on Thursday.
Azurá: Just being a WNBA player you have such an impact that you can make on your community. That’s something that I try to do the most is being here, you know? Mentoring young Black female athletes, coming up, really taking them under my wing, sharing my experiences with them, look out for them a little bit more. But even in general just young female basketball players around here, I try to really give back to my community in that way, but I think it just looks different for everyone. I think after this year, all of the tragedy and stuff, it’s kind of like you have a moment where you’re like, “Dang, what can I do?”
Shireen: Onto our favorite segment. Brenda, what are you burning?
Brenda: I am burning the behavior and the reaction to the behavior of UC Berkeley women’s soccer coach, Neil McGuire. So, a local Fox News channel, KTVU, did a year-long investigation into the climate at UC Berkeley women’s soccer program. Now, this is a storied program, produced the likes of Alex Morgan, very important. It also of course comes in the wake of all kinds of cases that are coming to light about abuse in college athletics. Of course it’s like a snowball, right? I mean, it just sort of feels like it’s exponential, which is probably maybe good because people care. So anyway, a year-long investigation into Berkeley, and what they found is that this guy, Neil McGuire, basically has verbally and emotionally abused his players to a shocking extent. The reaction of people has been, “Meh. I mean, it’s not that bad!” I implore you to go and listen to the players who are interviewed and who come out and talk about a climate of retribution and describes the way in which Mr. McGuire treated them for years, sometimes putting them into such a crisis and depression and threats of taking away their scholarship that they are suicidal by the end and quit football and hate football and never wanna play it again and are actually triggered by the entire sport that they love. So I wanna burn his behavior. He’s in a public program at a flagship university, one of the best public universities in this country. He should be fired and dismissed if these are found to be substantial, and certainly it looks like that from the report but I encourage people to go look at it for yourself and to listen to this. At the very least there needs to be a thorough investigation on the part of Berkeley, and I wanna burn all the people that are so shitty just out there being like, “Well, if it’s not physical then it’s not abuse” – seriously?! Where have you people been? Well, I know where you are, you’re in your troll cave somewhere. So go away. Stay off the story or learn something and pick up a book. It’s abuse and it shouldn’t be tolerated at the university. Burn.
Shireen: Burn. Keeping in theme with our football this week, and we’ve talked about this burn before on the show and how the storied Liverpool football club, ‘You’ll never walk alone,’ well, there is one segment that is walking alone! That is their women’s side. For those that don't know, Liverpool actually opened a brand spanking new facility, it’s called the AXA Training Centre. It’s a £50 million facility, this is huge, in Kirkby. It has a paddle tennis court – Jürgen Klopp, the coach, is very interested in paddle tennis courts, so of course you’d have one on the facility. They have two televisions in his office, which is like two minutes there. There’s another tennis court, there’s beach soccer and beach volleyball facilities. It’s a beautiful training space. It’s like a recreational center also in a way. It’s for the team, accord to their manager and managing director Andy Hughes, “More things for the team to do when they are not playing football.” But guess what’s one thing it doesn’t have? The women’s side having access to it.
Women to this day still practice at a facility that is about 13 miles away from that. It’s the Tranmere Rovers facility. It’s called The Campus. Now, it doesn’t have a paddle tennis court and all the facilities that we could expect for a club of that level to provide, and we all know how shitty Liverpool has been with their women’s side, we’ve talked about it on the show. It’s unacceptable. Katie Whyatt of The Athletic, and I’m actually reading from her article which we will put in the show notes, talks about how the contract with Tranmere actually expires at the end of this season, and then what happens to the Liverpool women? Well guess what y’all? They don’t know! They can’t even commit to having the women share the space. That for me is unacceptable. It’s really difficult for women to perform if you don't invest in them. This is a basic concept. I wanna take all of this, including – no offense to the paddle tennis people, but I’m sorry, I got no time for this – I wanna take all of it and I wanna put it on the burn pile. Burn.
Brenda: Burn! Not to crosstalk but Liverpool is worth $2.3 billion.
Shireen: Really?
Brenda: $2.3 billion, yeah.
Shireen: Really? Like, we know this, but like, REALLY? I have no time for these shenanigans. [sighs] Moving on from these shenanigans, Brenda, let’s lift up some wonderful people. We have lost many sporting greats this week and we’re honoring their memories. May a candle be lit and glow very brightly for the following legends. Burn It All Down offers our deepest condolences to the family of Fred Saskamoose, the first Indigenous man to play in the NHL. He died at 86 after being hospitalized with COVID-19. We also offer our thoughts and love to the family of Leighton Accardo, the nine year-old Arizona Coyotes super fan who lost her battle with cancer this past week. Now, honorable mentions for the following trailblazers. Brenda?
Brenda: Equestrian Hollie Doyle named The Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year!
Shireen: Along those same lines, The Sunday Times has also named British Cyclist Dame Sarah Storey as the Disability Sportswoman of the Year.
Brenda: Black Muslim Rugby player Zainab Alema was voted Vitality Grassroots Sportswoman of the Year.
Shireen: Sue Barker, OBE received the talkSPORT Lifetime Achievement Award.
Brenda: Young Muslim footballer Layla Banaras was handed the Young Inspiration Award.
Shireen: Fitness expert Alice Liveing wins Influencer Award, which celebrates the influencers who have used their voice to inspire the nation during this lockdown period.
Brenda: Now they they’ve all received honorable mention for torchbearers award, so there’s that!
Shireen: [laughs] Obviously. Who you got next, Bren?
Brenda: I wanna shout out our fave fiery scribes – Jessica Luther and co-author Kavitha Davidson got a wonderful review in New York Times for Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back. That was published by University of Texas, where you should go and purchase it.
Shireen: Can I get a drumroll please?
[drumroll]
Brenda, no. Drumroll! Longer than one bar.
Brenda: Okay!
Shireen: Okay? You know Phil Collins. Okay, torchbearer of the week goes to Sarah Fuller of Vanderbilt University. [Brenda cheering] Fuller makes history as the first woman to appear in a Power 5 football game. She is an amazing kicker who also happens to be the senior goalkeeper on the women's soccer team.
Sarah Fuller: I just wanna tell all the girls out there that you can do anything you set your mind to, you really can. If you have that mentality all the way through you can do big things.
Shireen: Fuller wore a “Play Like a Girl” sticker on the back of her helmet in support of STEM. We are here for this glory and this herstory. Brenda, tell me what's good.
Brenda: I really enjoyed the Burn It All Down commencement of our secret Santa holiday elf thing, which Amira set up, this thingy–
Shireen: Secret Santa!
Brenda: An elf thingy, and then I get to look up what people actually want and it's super cute and funny. It’s under $25 or whatever, and I don’t know…Then people ask you anonymous questions, so people ask you what your favorite color is and what your size is and then you see what they answer and then you ask them random things and it's really really funny and cute and adorable. Also, on the topic of Maradona there’s an event on December 10th at the Institute of the Americas at University College London where I’ll be talking about Maradona with Ernesto Semán, Pablo Simonetti, Matthew Brown, and Paulo Drinot. That’s gonna be really cool. It’s sold out, so I’d tell you all to come but I do think I can make some spots for flamethrowers if need be. So I’m really excited about that because as sad as I am it’s kind of nice to be able to spend a whole lot of time on Diego with a whole lot of people as well, as a testament. You know, gift that keeps giving. Not his death, his life! I’m so morbid.
Shireen: I want to, 100%. I need a link for that. I definitely want to attend that. For me it’s end of November, I have tons of term papers and everything due. I also have bought glittery jogging pants, sequined ones, and I’m very excited about that. I’m very susceptible to online targeted ad campaigns and marketing. [Brenda laughs] I’m the worst. Jihad, my daughter, has been like, please stop, you have to stop, now.
Brenda: Wait, but are they loose fit, or like leggings?
Shireen: They’re beautiful. They’re loose fit. They look like joggers but they’re sequined! They’re amazing.
Brenda: Are they flippy sequins?
Shireen: No, I’m not from the generation of flippy sequins! Sequins are supposed to go in one direction. I’m a sequin purist when it comes to this. I don’t object to reversible sequins, however I’m just really excited about these pants. I bought them in Christmas red, is the name of the color. I don’t actually celebrate Christmas but I’m very excited about these pants and I shall wear them, festively. Last week sometime I watched this movie on Netflix, I rewarded myself after doing tons of work. My Saturday night is mostly in front of a computer reading academic journals so I rewarded myself when I was done with watching a movie called The Life Ahead with Sophia Loren on Netflix. It’s this really beautiful story about this elderly Jewish woman and her interaction and fostering a young Muslim child who’s an orphan. It was an unbelievable moving film. I thought her performance was incredible, I loved the whole thing. I cried my eyes out, but I cry at everything, but I particularly really cried at this. So if you haven’t seen it I would definitely recommend. It’s not a Christmas film, it’s just a beautifully done story. In fact Sophia Loren’s son directed it, which I find really interesting. I also still marvel at how perky her boobs are at 86. So that’s phenomenal to me.
Brenda: No work there. [laughter]
Shireen: So, what are we watching this week? Now, this is so fun for me: SNOOKER. For all of y’all like me who are interested in snooker, the UK championship is happening at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes. NCAA, it’s a big month of college football this month with a couple of weeks left in the regular season before the conference championship and then the bowl season. NFL football: we’re gonna head into weeks 13-16 – although we have concerns about all that and how terrible it is, this is gonna happen before they gear up for the NFL Playoffs. The LPGA is happening, the Volunteers of America Classic, will be from December 3rd to the 6th. We’ve got Motorsport: Formula 1, folks. We’ve down to the final two Grand Prix events and then Lewis Hamilton will look to claim another driving championship. We’ve got the Women’s Euro Qualifiers, the FA Women’s Super League continues, the FA Women’s Championship, and the Premier League continues; as well as the next round of the Champs League, we’ve very excited about this, before we get to the final sixteen. So, there’s some incredible matches coming up this week. Also, just wanted to say shoutout to the new Japanese Pro Wrestling that is happening between November 15 and December 11, the NJPW World Tag League and Best of the Super Junior is happening. It’s imperative for those of you interested in Japanese pro wrestling.
That’s it for us this week, thank you for hanging in as we reveled and reflected and inflected on the legend of Diego Maradona. That’s it from me and Brenda, and although we’re done for now you can always burn all day and all night with our fabulous array of merchandise including mugs, pillows, tees, hoodies and bags. What better way to crush toxic patriarchy in sports – and do your Christmas shopping! Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, buy it anyway! And you can do this by getting someone you love a pillow with our logo on it. Burn It All Down lives on the Blue Wire podcast network but can be found anywhere you get your podcasts. Please rate and subscribe to let us know what we did well and how we can improve. Find us on Facebook and Instagram @burnitalldownpod and Twitter @burnitdownpod. You can email us at burnitalldownpod@gmail.com, and check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com, where you will find previous episodes, transcripts and a link to our Patreon. We would appreciate you subscribing, sharing and rating our show, which helps us do the work we love to do, and keep burning what needs to be burned. We wish you safety and health and whatever joys you can muster during this chaotic time. As Brenda always says: burn on, and not out.