DUBAI // Having spent the best part of his life playing to the crowd, Diego Maradona was back in his element: the obvious object of attention, the undoubted darling of proceedings.
The Argentine may have hung up his boots some time ago and later this year will celebrate his 54th birthday, but there was little to suggest on the set of The Victorious that his star has begun to wane.
Fronting the football reality television show, shot at Dubai’s Sports City, Maradona acts as judge alongside Rabah Madjer and Hany Ramzy, distinguished former footballers with Algeria and Egypt, respectively, as a collection of aspiring Arab youngsters battle for a professional contract with either Real Madrid or Juventus. Think football-meets-Arab Idol.
The stakes are high, yet on the programme’s first “prime” here, on Saturday – the recorded show airs on Dubai Sports tonight – Maradona did his utmost to keeps things light-hearted.
The 1986 World Cup winner arrived to rapturous applause from the audience, the majority of whom are too young to remember this little man’s gargantuan feats as arguably the game’s greatest player.
In his new guise, he provided another virtuoso display. Breaks in filming were filled with Maradona cajoling the crowd and joking with the show’s contestants; he even found time to indulge in a spot of Latin dancing, much to everyone’s delight. He was in high spirits throughout, no doubt buoyed by the presence of his daughter, Dalma, who is in Dubai to mark her 27th birthday.
The tagline for the show, which runs until the week before this summer’s World Cup, is The Victorious – the No 1. In Maradona, it clearly has a rival for that claim.
jmcauley@thenational.ae
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