One of the reasons I've never been too bothered either way by Maradona's character is that I've always strongly believed that those who were would change their opinions of him completely if he had represented their team. In this respect, I'm thinking particularly of tabloid newspapers. There are the occasional instances of good sportsmanship to the detriment of your team in professional football which come tp mind (e.g. DeCanio stopping play when he could have scored a match winning goal late on in a game at Everton and Fowler trying to persuade the ref not to give a penalty for a foul on him in an Arsenal v Liverpool game), but there aren't many of them.

Maradona cheated in the same way as ninety per cent (at the very least) of his fellow pros would have done that day against England, so why should he be denied the praise he is now due because of that? My judgement of him as being the best footballer I've seen is based entirely on what he could do with a ball and not on a character assessment.