Maradona Watch, Part 735

After you've been suspended three times by your soccer league, had two coke-related heart attacks, and socked Miss Bora Bora with a glass, it might seem that you've achieved a kind of Platonic perfection in the 'embarrassing moments' category. Not, however, if you're the much-loved Diego Maradona. The most recent brouhaha concerns a commercials the patron saint of Argentina made in Brazil; the comedy lies in what he did afterwards. The kerfuffle began last week when Maradona wore a Brasilian national soccer shirt in a TV commercial (Fee: U$S 150,000), thus prompting some to suggest that, oh, wearing the national soccer jersey of Argentina's biggest sports rival might not be entirely patriotic. The excitement escalated when he told a bunch of reporters that, "Todos los putos que hablan hoy debido a que me puse la camiseta de Brasil son eso, ´putos´. Con el perdón de éstos, a quienes respeto mucho." (Roughly: "All those homos who are talking becasue I wore a Brasil t-shirt are just that, 'homos'. With all due repect to homosexuals, whom I repect.")

This, of course, does not end here. As a former star with the Boca Juniors team, Maradona could not, legally, allow a moment of free publicity escape without a dig at crosstown archrival River Plate (no matter how tenuously-related the dig might be). So Maradona continued, "Eso si, no me pondría jamás la de River, a pesar de que tengo en casa una de Passarella y otra de Francéscoli, no la usaría jamás." (Or: "That being said, I would never wear one from River, even though at home I have one from Passarella and another from Francéscoli. I would never use it.") Because, as we all know, betraying your barrio is worse than betraying your country.

UPDATE: My fellow blogger (and, well, wife) just noted to me that Branden over In the Argentine Metropolis... posted a v. similar piece on April 30. Great minds, as they say, think alike. And apparently so do ours...