It’s all about the world game this week with not one but two biographical films connected to soccer, WW2 Drama The Keeper, and a documentary about perhaps the greatest footballer who ever lived –Diego Maradona, the 58 year old Argentinian superstar who, like soccer, is a man of two halves, with Diego being the shy, private side, and Maradona being the face he presented to the world.

From Asif Kapadia, the same director behind incredible documentaries on Formula One legend Ayrton Senna in 2011, and gifted yet troubled singer Amy Winehouse in 2015, he calls this film the third part of a trilogy of “child geniuses and fame”, and the effect it can have, and what they mean to their country, and what they mean to people.

This film charts Maradona’s rise to fame playing not only for Argentina in 4 World Cups, but for local Italian team Napoli, taking them from the bottom of the ladder to win the Italian Championship, before turning the entire country against him when Argentina beat Italy to advance to the 1990 FIFA World Cup Final.

He gets entangled with the Mafia, drugs, women, the law, The Hand of God, and the local population, and once he was no longer able to play football, the myth was all that was left.

4 & ½ Stars – “Staggering”