You may have seen the famous clip of Diego Maradona’s warm-up routine, from the second leg of Napoli’s Uefa Cup semi-final against Bayern Munich in 1989: the one where he is like a Marvel superhero with a football. It is not just that Maradona pogos up and down with the ball seemingly glued to his head. Or that he effortlessly juggles the ball on his knees while jogging – before upping the ante by then bouncing it repeatedly off alternate shoulders. It is that the greatest player of all time is doing all this, and many other nonchalant tricks and flicks, with his shoelaces untied.
Maradona’s extraordinary routine, which has been viewed tens of millions of times on YouTube, came to mind again while watching another renegade master, Ronnie O’Sullivan, caress, finesse and blast his way to another world snooker final. For retired professional-turned-pundit Alan McManus, the Rocket’s red and black combination against John Higgins were the best two shots back-to-back he has seen in a semi-final, while these eyes slightly preferred the blunt power of a red to the middle against Stephen Maguire. Either way, O’Sullivan has a rare knack of making the ball dance to his tune, just like El Diego.
