You always assume books by footballers have ghostwriters. While Daniel Arcucci is named on the book, I hope he was only a translator and that no one who calls themselves a writer put their name to this book. Touched by God reads like a 3 or 4 hour long stream of Maradona’s consciousness as if someone asked him an open-ended question about the 1986 World Cup.
Maradona’s telling of this story is designed to big up his friends in the team and downplay the role of manager Carlos Bilardo who he fell out with when Bilardo criticised Maradona as Argentina manager in 2010. Considering almost all football fans acknowledge Maradona won the cup largely single-handed, its amazing he sees the need to be so critical and dismissive of Bilardo. Mardaona claims that the players, and himself, deserve almost all the credit for the team being well prepared and for their fitness levels by actively railing against Bilardo’s original plans.
Maradona’s personality certainly shines through – ego, craziness and an amazing ability to hold a grudge. At times it feels like half the book is score settling with Bilardo and former captain Daniel Passeralla – with a little bit of spite left over for ‘that heartless turkey’ Platini. He has some kind words for certain teammates in particularly Brown and Ruggeri.
Probably the biggest flaw in the book is that it makes so many assumptions that you know who and what Maradona is talking about. If you don’t already know a huge amount about Maradona, Argentina, the players of that era and the ’86 World Cup you will be totally and utterly lost for the first chunk of the book.
The book rambles around a lot at times covering random bits of Maradona’s life and a decent bit of detail about his time in Napoli where he was playing during the ’86 World Cup. He drops in complaints about Fifa, his love of Pope Francis and the bits of advice he gave Messi when he was Argentina manager.
There are interesting bits, some entertaining anecdotes and bits of genuine insight into the mindset of a great player as he faces the most important games of his life and plays at a level beyond compare. However, the decent bits are totally drowned out by the terrible writing and rambling style. You could read the section on the World Cup final and still have no idea what happened in the match bar Argentina winning, such is the rambling style.
Overall, I recommend giving this book a miss. It’s almost as poor as his first memoir El Diego, poorly written, rambling and hard to read. For a genuinely great book on Maradona, I’d recommend seeking out Hand of God by Jimmy Burns.
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