Yours truly feels obliged to write about Diego
Maradona, the fallen soccer hero who passed away two days ago due to a heart
attack.
Even though the Argentinian was never his cup of
tea.
Truth be told, Yours Truly grew up in a world
dominated by English soccer, which was heavily broadcasted in Hong Kong in the
early 80s. In fact, that was probably the only world-class soccer action
broadcasted in Hong Kong back in those days, as the coverage on Bundesliga and Serie
A came later. Not surprisingly, Yours Truly was really fond of English soccer,
and did not know that there were other national soccer teams that he could root
for.
So when England, his favourite of the time, was
beaten by that diminutive Argentinian single-handedly (figuratively and
as-a-matter-of-factly speaking) in THAT quarter final of the 1986 World Cup, there
could only be one public enemy for him.
To make matters worse, when Yours Truly started following
Serie A, he grew a liking to Milan, and to this day, he will maintain that his
all-time favourite is the great Dutch striker Marco Van Basten. But when the
minnows Napoli often got in the way of Milan's path to glory, he could always put
the blame on that Argentinian genius not much taller than him.
(Speaking of an Argentinian genius not much taller
than Yours Truly, there is another one playing for Barcelona right now. And you
may have heard of him.)
Anyway.
Yours Truly is impressed by what Maradona had done
in his professional life. From humble beginnings to being a global superstar,
for leading Napoli, which had achieved virtually nothing before his arrival, to
two excellent Serie A titles in four years and a UEFA Cup victory in 1989 (over
Stuttgart with Jurgen Klinsmann in the side), and for captaining and leading
Argentina to the 1986 World Cup title almost single-handedly, his impact to the
game could never be overstated.
While his private life and drug and alcohol problems
may have tarnished his image to some (Yours Truly included), perhaps he should
be regarded as a rock star, who rocked and shocked the world with his performance
on stage and his undoing off it.
Sevilla, a modestly successful Spanish soccer team
with ONE La Liga title under its belt, has won the UEFA Europa League (formerly
the UEFA Cup) SIX times (all in the last 15 years), which is one more than the La Liga's big three, namely Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have won COMBINED (FIVE).
Evidence #2:
Nick Heidfeld, the retired Formula One driver who is
known for having never won any Formula One races in a 12-year career, had
maintained his perfect winless record in his four-year Formula E career. In
fact, the closest he came to a victory in Formula E was in its and his first-ever race,
when he made a kamikaze late lunge in the final corner in Beijing in 2014, with
disastrous consequences.
...
Evidence #33:
On the very first day of the 33rd week this year (i.e., August 9), South African rookie Brad Binder shocked
the MotoGP world by winning the Czech MotoGP race on a KTM. Earlier, Italian
rider Enea Bastianini won the Moto2 race, his second in a row. Later that day,
Dutch driver Max Verstappen came home first in the 70th Anniversary Formula One Grand Prix in
Silverstone.
They all had race number 33.
...
Evidence #42:
Part 1:
Jackie Robinson Day is held on April 15 each year. To commemorate Hall of Famer Robinson who broke the colour barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947, all MLB players don a nameless #42 jersey on that day in his honour, while his #42 jersey has also been retired by MLB.
This year, however, due to the coronavirus outbreak, the MLB season has been delayed, and the on-field celebrations have been postponed to August 28.
Part 2:
Chadwick Boseman, the Hollywood actor famous for his role as Black Panther in the Avengers series, as well as playing Robinson in the movie 42, died recently.
In its previous life, KTM must have done something
hideously wrong to Johann Zarco.
Otherwise, it would not be possible to explain how
Zarco, intentionally or not, has been spoiling KTM's party in the past couple of years.
Zarco became a red-hot property after his outstanding
first two seasons in MotoGP in 2017 and 2018 with the Tech 3 Yamaha team.
Looking to take the next step, he decided to sign a two-year contract with KTM before
the 2019 season, with the hope of becoming the number one rider in the up and
coming Austrian squad which, at that time, was still finding its footing in
MotoGP despite showing a lot of promise.
With Tech 3 switching to KTM in 2019, the newly-set up Petronas SRT Team became the official customer Yamaha team. Had Zarco stayed with Yamaha, he would have become the leader of the de facto second-best Yamaha team on the grid. His departure though, meant that the honour has now fallen onto the current MotoGP championship leader and fellow Frenchman Fabio Quartararo, who at the time was an unheralded 20-year-old and a surprise choice for SRT.
Unfortunately, Zarco's tenure with KTM ended in disaster.
Apart from starting on the front row in the wet Czech Grand Prix, his best
finish was tenth in the Catalunya Grand Prix. Growing so frustrated with his performance,
he asked for a release from his contract, and was dumped with six races left.
Having severed his ties with KTM, Zarco became a
free agent, and was called up later that season to replace LCR Honda rider
Takaaki Nakagami who opted for season-ending surgery. However, his performance
was not good enough to secure him a ride with one of the so-called big teams.
Let's go back to KTM for a moment. Zarco's replacement
for 2020 is South African Brad Binder, who went on to secure the Austrian
marquee's first-ever win in MotoGP class in the Czech Grand Prix last week.
Now back to Zarco. Thanks to the efforts of various
sides, he had landed a ride with Avintia, a team he initially didn't want to
join because he didn't believe that it is good enough. His concern, in fact, is not unfounded. Despite joining the MotoGP
class in 2012, Avintia has never finished on the podium.
Then it finally came right. In the third race of this truncated 2020 season in Czech Republic, a race that would eventually be won by
Binder, Zarco put in a herculean effort to put his Avintia Ducati on pole. And
he was running strongly in the race when more skirmishes with KTM took place.
Pol Espargaro, the incumbent number one rider in
KTM, ran wide in a corner. Seeing a gap, Zarco decided to go for it, only for
Espargaro to veer back onto Zarco's racing line and the two collided. While
Zarco managed to stay upright and go on to finish third despite being controversially
given a long lap penalty for the collision, Espargaro's race was over. Judging
by the pace of Binder and Espargaro at that time, it would be fair to say that Espargaro
would have finished ahead of the South African.
While KTM did get its first win, its plan to probably
give it to Espargaro, who has been with the team since it joined the MotoGP
class in 2017, was ruined by Zarco.
In the very next race in Austria, Espargaro showed great
pace again throughout the weekend. At one-third distance of the race, Espargaro
had a healthy lead over Andrea Dovizioso and Jack Miller. It looked as though
Espargaro would finally secure his first win in the premier class.
Then Zarco struck again. This time, he did it in an indirect but spectacular fashion, and it almost resulted in tragedy.
While swerving and dicing for positions in the top
ten, Zarco was hit from behind by Quartararo's team-mate Franco Morbidelli, and
their two bikes went out of control, skidded along and across the track at a high
speed, and then somehow somersaulted through the tiny gap between the Yamahas
of Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi, who were clearly unaware of what was
going on behind them.
It was such a miracle that the two flying bikes
somehow didn't hit the two Yamaha riders and strike a probably fatal blow on either
of them. It was also a miracle that no one was seriously injured in such a
frightening accident.
With carnage and pieces of bikes (fortunately not riders)
all over the track, the red flag was shown and Espargaro's advantage gone. Clearly
upset and unravelled by it, Espargaro rode with a vengeance but erratically in
the re-started race, and in a carbon copy of his accident with Zarco in the
previous race, he clattered into fellow KTM rider Miguel Oliveira after running
wide, thus ending their races and his hope of victory.
So, what's more to come between Zarco and KTM? So far, the 2020
season, like what is going on in the world right now, has been pretty crazy. Yours truly just hopes that they will bury the
hatchet and things will go back to normal soon.
