Soccer standout falls from grace

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
BUENOS AIRES -- Gods should not need travel documents, but then, gods aren't what they used to be. Some, like Diego Maradona, lose out to human weakness.
Maradona was proclaimed a deity in Argentina for his heavenly play on the soccer pitch. He led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup. He ranks with Pele as the greatest soccer player of all time.
But too much food and too much dope fattened Maradona up and slowed him down, until he could not longer keep up in the game he once made look so easy.
Now, since hanging up his ever-expanding jersey, Maradona has fallen from a mythic figure to a pathetic one -- with only a short stop at tragic in between.
Maradona, 43, is being treated for cocaine addiction and a series of other ailments at a suburban Buenos Aires psychiatric clinic. By all accounts the treatment is not taking hold, and Maradona wants to leave Argentina for Havana and another shot at drug rehabilitation, Cuban style.
That should have happened last week. Then it should have happened this week. Now maybe it will happen next week. Or maybe it will not happen anytime soon.
All the twists and turns, the feints and rushes of Maradona's efforts to flee his homeland have received intense media coverage in Argentina.
It was front-page news last month when Maradona, barred by court order from leaving Argentina, met privately with President Nestor Kirchner to ask for help. The two talked soccer, presidential aides said, not legalities. Even during the Olympics, when Argentina's soccer team was marching toward the gold medal, Maradona's trials competed for coverage.
Yet many Argentines are now tiring of the whole thing.