Diego Maradona was God’s gift to a generation of sportswriters during his legendary football career

At first it might seem strange to note that Diego Maradona, who died in Buenos Aires this week at age 60, did not play muse to a notable cohort of writers in the way that other 20th century sporting greats were.

Where Ali had Norman Mailer, David Remnick and Mark Kram, and DiMaggio had Gay Talese and Richard Ben Cramer, there is no standout contender staking literary claim to the Argentinian hero.

One obvious explanation is that in both personality and playing style, Maradona was a figure too lurid and unbelievable for the restrained pens of respectable journalists and writers.

Also, there was his ubiquity in international football’s first era of blanket television coverage; his most outrageous moments were readily accessible and endlessly…