As the chess furore between Carlsen and Niemann rolls on, we take a look at some enduring disputes in sportNot since Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit enthralled 62 million viewers has chess captured mainstream attention to such an extent.Last month the Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, world No 1 and already the “rock star” of chess – see GQ profiles and multimillion‑pound apparel collaborations – accused the American Hans Niemann of cheating after the 19-year-old ended Carlsen’s over-the-board 53-match winning sequence. Continue reading...
Lionel Messi’s tribute to his fellow Argentinian was strangely moving, an acknowledgement of a debt owed to the previous generation of playersIt’s a tribute, but there’s more to it than that. It’s a shirt, but there’s more to it than that, too. For a fleeting moment, as Lionel Messi stands at the Camp Nou in 2020 wearing the No 10 jersey that Diego Maradona wore for Newell’s Old Boys in 1993, past and present are aligned. Messi isn’t just paying homage to Maradona; in that moment he is Maradona, two as one. Then, as if re-entering the earthly plane, he slips his Barcelona jersey back on and dutifully collects his yellow card.So yes, here we are: another paean to Maradona,...
A tribute in a Barcelona or Argentina shirt might not have felt right. No one expected a Newell’s one but it worked betterLionel Messi could feel the weight of Diego Maradona’s No 10 on his back. It was the final moment before kick-off in the 917th game of his career, the first without Diego, and Europe’s largest stadium stood virtually empty and entirely silent. At each end of the ground, maternity hospital on one side and cemetery on the other, a picture of Maradona was projected on the screens, in the directors’ box a man held a framed shirt, and on the pitch Barcelona’s and Osasuna’s players gathered around the centre circle where a floral offering was made, four days...
From dazzling as a 16-year-old to shooting football journalists with an air rifle, the Argentinian’s life was like no other Related: Diego Maradona: the achingly human superstar who embodied Argentina | Marcela Mora y Araujo Related: 'We felt invincible in those days': Naples pays its respects to Maradona Related: Child genius Diego Maradona became the fulfilment of a prophecy | Jonathan Wilson Continue reading...
Blessed with sublime talent developed in the slums of Buenos Aires, cabecito negro went on to become everything that defined Argentina’s football principlesIn the 1920s, as Argentina, a booming immigrant nation, sought a sense of identity, it became apparent that football was one of the few things that bound its disparate population together. No matter what your background, you wanted the team in the blue and white striped shirts to win – and that meant the way the national side played was of political and cultural significance.The debate was played out in the pages of El Gráfico, and a consensus emerged that Argentinian football stood in opposition to the game of the British, the quasi-colonial power having largely departed by...