‘In a YouTube interview Christiano Ronaldo explained why he is so close to his sons. It was his father who abandoned him when young. That l...
‘In a YouTube interview Christiano Ronaldo explained why he is so close to his sons. It was his father who abandoned him when young. That loss haunted Ronaldo even after he grew up,’ I tell him. Sports is not one theme that recurs often in our tete-a-tete, but I know that he is an avid follower of sports. A keen athlete when young, he also played hockey in one of the lower-placed Calcutta clubs in the league.
‘I don’t know of Ronaldo but somehow from the private pictures Messi seems very happy with his family,’ he conjures, ‘actually I think you need some stability to sustain performance. Not everyone is such an enigma as a Maradona.’
‘Is Maradona your favourite footballer?’ I ask.
‘I do have a softness for Maradona the way he raised himself from poverty. This is not sympathy of any sort but more of an understanding, I think. But if we consider sheer sportsmanship alone, I am very much drawn to Pele. Maybe because he is a black footballer who is respected so much worldwide. This adulation hasn’t happened on its own. If you look at the greats before Pele – Puskas, Stanley Matthews, Bobby Charlton they were all white. It...
