26 November 2020, London, United Kingdom
He‘s so revered, he’s so worshipped in Argentina. He constantly had a huge entourage around him.
I went to see a game and I’ll never forget it, to see Boca Juniors play. He had his own little box there. I went with his family. And he was standing …. the atmosphere was unbelievable at this game.
And his family, one of his daughters was literally holding him as he was screaming over the balcony, holding him so he wouldn’t actually fall off. He had such an incredible passion for the game.
I never thought in my lifetime I’d see anyone come remotely close to Diego, in terms of ability with a football. I think we’ve seen Messi, who’s very similar in many ways, Argentinian, diminutive, brilliant left foot, but Diego was incredible.
I played, I actually played with him as well for half a game, played for the Rest of the World at Wembley, against, funnily enough, an English league side because it was a centenary, I played for the Rest of the World, because I was at Barcelona at the time.
And all the player, there were people like Platini on the pitch, lots of great great players from around the world. And everyone was totally in awe of him.
The first thing he did was in the dressing room, he sat there; just a pair of shorts. And you know you roll your socks up? He did that and just juggled them on his left foot for about five minutes. And everyone was going whoooah whoooah.’
Then we went out on the pitch and he did something incredible, one of the most unbelievable things I‘ve ever seen on a football pitch. it might not sound that amazing to you at home, but I think you’ll appreciate this.
He juggled the ball all the way out to the centre circle and then he got to the centre circle, still juggling it, and then he went bang, he whacked it as hard he possibly could (up into the air) and he waited. And then it came down and he went bang and did it again. He did it 13 times, and the most he ever did was walk three paces to it.
All of us were standing there going, ‘That’s impossible’. I remember going to training the next day at Barcelona. We all tried it and the best anyone did was three, and they were all running for the third one.
I‘ve just never seen anyone have such a beautiful affection with a football.