The thought of seeing Paul Gascoigne and Diego Maradona on the same pitch was a mouthwatering proposition for fans of that era.
The maverick duo were two peas in a pod - capable of moments of breathtaking genius on the pitch and equally as likely to indulge in acts of self-sabotage off it.
With Gascoigne arriving in Serie A a year after Maradona had departed Napoli, the pair never shared the pitch in a competitive game, but their paths did cross - and the story is as brilliant as you’d expect.
Gazza on playing against Maradona
“Playing against Maradona, f** king hell… I did it a few times in Soccer Aid and in Seville, and he was still unbelievable," said Gascoigne, speaking in an exclusive interview for FourFourTwo magazine, to coincide with the launch of his new book Eight. “We could have done f**king rehab together! I’ve had a couple of drinks with him.”
The clash Gascoigne mentions in Seville was a charity game when Gazza’s Lazio side headed to Spain in November 1992.
“Lazio dropped me from playing on the Sunday because they wanted me to play against Maradona on the Tuesday, and I wasn’t happy about that, so I f**ked off to Euro Disney,” he explains, of his impromptu trip to the Paris theme park.
“They found out where I was, and I was drunk, but I told them, ‘I’ll meet the players in Seville and I’ll play against Maradona, OK.’
“I got on the plane and got pissed. In the tunnel, I said, ‘Diego, I’m pissed.’ He said, ‘It’s OK, Gazza, so am I…’ I just started laughing!
“I scored in that game – I beat about five players, an unbelievable goal. If I didn’t know what the f**k I was doing, the defence had no chance.
“I looked at Maradona and said, ‘F**king beat that then, will you?’ And he f**king did! What a goal – I went, ‘Oh, f**k me!’
“Afterwards I went back to Lazio and they said, ‘We’re fining you £40,000,’ so I f**ked off back to Euro Disney again. After that they said, ‘OK, we’ll call it quits, just get back here.’”
Sadly, the pair didn’t cross paths on the pitch again until retirement, with Maradona returning to Argentina with Newell’s Old Boys in 1993, before he made his final appearance for his country at the 1994 World Cup, when he failed a drugs test.
Gazza, meanwhile, would spend three years in Serie A with Lazio, before returning to the UK when he signed for Rangers. His international career also came to a sudden halt, when he reacted badly to missing out on Glenn Hoddle’s World Cup 98 squad, wrecking the manager’s hotel room.
Paul Gascoigne: Eight (published by Reach Sport) is on sale now in print, ebook and audiobook
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