World Cup in the boot prints of Maradona and golden ghosts

An image of the FIFA 2022 World Cup trophy adorns a building in the Qatari capital Doha on August 16, 2022. (Photo by Mustafa ABUMUNES / AFP)

In 2017, the two brightest stars in football history were united in Moscow at the draw for the following year’s World Cup in Russia.

Ignoring Vladimir Putin’s attempt to photobomb the moment, Diego Maradona stooped to kiss a smiling Pele who held up a phone as he took a selfie of the occasion.

The two men may have occasionally sniped at each other in the debate over which was the greatest of all time, but it was a happy moment that provided a reminder of the shared glory the former winners brought to the World Cup and which the World Cup bestowed on them.

With Pele in a wheelchair, it also provided a reminder of the mortality of even sport’s most seemingly immortal stars.

Pele was the affable ambassador for a sponsor at a string of World Cups after he retired.

Maradona, who didn’t always do diplomacy, epitomised the passion of the fans at his last World Cup in 2018, dancing with an opposing fan and producing a double middle finger salute as Argentina scored a late winner against Nigeria in Saint Petersburg.

For the first time since Pele won the first of three World Cups in 1958, the 22nd edition in Qatar will go ahead with neither great looming over it.

Maradona died in 2020 and the increasingly frail Pele has been absent in the buildup to Qatar. Yet fans watching coverage of the World Cup will surely see them, and not just because a luxury watchmaker which has Pele as a brand ambassador promises to preserve him in their online ‘Metaverse Stadium’.

Footage of their greatest moments is among the brightest threads in the tapestry of World Cup history.

As fans tune in, dreaming of watching