• 80s.The legend of Mágico González in Valladolid

At the Gol bar, in front of Carranza, they are used to seeing almost everything. The cadismo breathes there these days excited with the good passage of his team through the Second Division . Saturday's victory at La Rosaleda strengthens him in the lead of the table, with eight points ahead. There is much to return to First, they know, in a very bitch category, treacherous in May with the good autumns.

When the Cádiz is resurrected, the memories, the good ones, many of them in the form of a weak player from El Salvador, come with more force. A few months ago, he entered the Goal asking for Magic Gonzalez an Italian with also unruly hair, like that striker who preferred to play with 11 although it was a 10 as a house, admired even by the 10 of all time. Marco Marsullo is a Neapolitan author, he is 33 years old and has as much passion for the eternal idol of his city as for which Cádiz continues to vibrate. The two appear in the title of the Italian edition of his latest work: Maradona's taxi driver , a little book that devours himself with the same taste as the best Magic plays on YouTube. The taxi driver is the elusive Salvadoran, paying attention to the urban legend that placed him, when he hung up his boots, behind a steering wheel through the streets of the capital of his country. Today I would continue doing careers.

"I prefer the title that has been put in Spain," Marsullo confesses in a telephone conversation. Magical Gonzalez, the genius who wanted to have fun [ Altamarea editorial ] is a review of the life of the bohemian soccer player halfway between the biography and the story, with famous anecdotes, others unknown and some writer's license, such as the deep conversations he imagines between Mágico and Camarón de la Isla , two geniuses who became friends in the late Cádiz of the 80s. At Casa Manteca, the flag tavern in the La Viña neighborhood, they sang, drank and philosophized two social phenomena endorsed by their followers. The footballer was not approached by sick people to impose their hands, like the Flemish icon, but the echoes of the madness that it generated in the Atlantic city still resonate.

"His madness, his generosity"

«I like to get into the skin of the characters. And in the Magic one, I went deep. I don't understand how such a guy knows so little. Young people now know the last Swedish U21 striker and have no idea of ​​a player that Maradona came to put above him in the world rankings, ”recalls the Italian author, also a columnist for La Gazzetta dello Sport and with Taste for the football theme. His first book, for which he was awarded as a revelation author, was about a peculiar football team, the Atletico Minaccia Football Club .

«I was going to write about the historic 2005 Champions League final, between Liverpool and Milan, where the English went back, but a friend started talking to me about the Magic ... And I couldn't resist. I became obsessed with him, with his madness, with his generosity, with his football », Marsullo accelerates, which affects the firm will of Magical to be who he was, without falling into the cartoon of a wayward star. «He decided to stay in Cádiz and he rejected other possibilities that led him to the football Olympus because he wanted to live the life he led».

Bohemian life

A routine of awakening at noon, afternoon workouts with the Carranza stands full (for him) and endless nights where the keys of his house curled from hand to hand, sometimes without space even for his owner to sleep. That pace could only take him in Cádiz, to the despair of his managers, who even locked him up with a psychologist. Just for this anecdote it is worth the book of Marsullo. The therapist was Chinese, Mr. Chang , and he ended up on the couch himself after some blatant sessions with the indomitable soccer player. At last he arrived in pajamas. In the first one he directly tried to bribe the doctor: "I give you double what the club pays you and you leave me alone."

I wanted at all costs to continue in Cádiz . That is why he played badly every afternoon that he knew that the envoys of some of Europe's greats were examining him and that is why he showed his most mischievous version in the American tour he did with the Barcelona of Maradona in 1984 . The alleged joke he spent in a hotel was on his shirt, triggering the fire alarm while hurrying the dawn in the company. Marsullo relates that, while the Barca expedition and the rest of the guests went out in the street scared by the sirens, he was still frolicking with two friends in bed. That ended up frustrating his transfer to the Catalan giant, despite Maradona's good words. He didn't get his friend signed, like Messi with Neymar. Objective accomplished for the Magician.

"Is there fried fish there?" They say he always asked when they talked about the interest of other clubs, from PSG to Fiorentina . Marsullo and his editorial are still looking for a way to send the book to the protagonist. "It's a ghost in San Salvador, impossible to find," they lament.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Youtube
  • Neymar
  • sports
  • Second division

Champions Di Maria burns Madrid

Soccer "Signing Neymar was sustainable"

SoccerBrazil still does not win and Neymar is injured