The former England, Barcelona and Tottenham manager has died aged 80.

I owe the lovely Terry Venables some memorable times together during which his colorful ideas provided the material for two of my books which have been enjoyed by fans around the world:The hand of God And Barca.

It was Venables who told me how he had resigned himself to losing Diego Maradona from his team shortly after taking over as manager of FC Barcelona in May 1984.

Although there was speculation that Maradona hated the English because of the Falklands War and that Venables had no desire to manage a player of such stature, both failed to understand the real story , according to Terry.

The main reason, Terry told me, was that Maradona, one of the highest-paid players in the world at the time, was in financial difficulty because, as he put it, people were “sponging off” him.

The club had gathered evidence through its own internal investigation, but Venables only realized how critical the situation was after carrying out his own investigation.

Venables discovered that there were hundreds of unpaid bills across the city, most of which had been spent not only by the player but also by members of Maradona’s extended family of friends and various hangers-on.

“Maradona had practically been bled dry and the only solution was for him to get the kind of money a transfer would bring him. Giving him a £1,000-a-week pay rise would not have begun to solve the problem. problem,” Terry remembers.

Venables had succeeded Argentinian Cesar Menotti as manager of Barca. While Menotti helped Argentina win the World Cup in 1978, without Maradona, the player later caught the coach at Barca after the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

Unlike Menotti, Venables in 1984 was not a big name outside his own country, let alone well known to Maradona. Menotti told me: “Terry arrived at Barcelona thanks to me. Most people hadn’t heard of him. And Menotti had heard about Venables from a British journalist he had befriended, Jeff Powell of Daily Mail.

“I spoke to Powell and asked him which English manager was competent. Barca is a team of important players. He must not be a dictator. He must be able to convince the players.

Powell recommended Venables. According to Terry, Bobby Robson and Doug Ellis also put in a good word on his behalf to the Barcelona president. Nuñez.

The subject of Maradona featured prominently in Venables’ first interview with Barcelona bosses. “They wanted to know what I wanted to do with Maradona, whether I wanted him to leave or stay. I had the feeling that the filmmakers really wanted Maradona gone and hoped that once I heard the whole story I would think the same thing.

Venables took some time to deliver his own final verdict. The other players he spoke with were almost positive about Diego. But in a later conversation Venables had with Maradona (Venables had taken Spanish lessons and was able to communicate), the Argentine was surprisingly frank about his situation, admitting that his time at Barca had become sour, especially with Nuñez whom he despised and he wanted to resign.

“From what Maradona told me, I felt that the situation at Barcelona if he stayed would become very, very difficult. The damage was perhaps irreparable.

Venables decided not to argue for Maradona’s stay Barca. The picture he had painted was of an immensely talented player who could no longer be trusted to show loyalty and deliver results for the club, both because of his hatred of Nuñez and because of his financial problems.

The fact that Maradona was facing a three-month suspension at the start of the new season due to a match against Athletic Bilbao players in the Copa del Rey final was also taken into account.

Venables’ decision to push for Steve Archibald to replace Maradona, initially greeted with skepticism by home fans, turned into good news when “Archigoles“, as the Scotsman nicknamed him, helped bring the Catalan club to their first victory in the Spanish league in eleven years.

Terry would never forget the celebrations. As he told me: “I witnessed how the streets of Barcelona filled with the colors of Barca and the colors of Catalonia. What I learned that day was that Barcelonans can be more than willing to assert their sense of community, which is almost tribal, but more like a giant. partya ritual of commitment that is instinctively part of the collective unconscious.

Under Venables or Tel as some have colloquially written about him, Barcelona also reached the 1986 European Cup final, the club’s first appearance in a European Cup final since 1961, although they lost to Steaua Bucharesti on penalties. The defeat, combined with Barca losing the Spanish Cup and once again finding themselves behind Real Madrid in La Liga that season disappointed some Barca fans repeating ‘the historical dream‘of the club’s newfound fortune…’the historical nightmare‘ of the club’s underperformance.

At the start of the 1986–87 season, Venables had been joined by Gary Lineker, who had transferred from Everton and emerged from the World Cup in Mexico as the tournament’s top scorer.

It was Venables who introduced Lineker and his wife, Michelle, to his and what became their favorite drinking and dining haunt in Barcelona. This included a beer bar at the top of the The Ramblasand a beach club, south of Barcelona, ​​along the coast, which serves excellent seafood.

When I interviewed Lineker for my book Barca he was already pursuing a post-playing career as a successful sports commentator on BBC TV. I remembered the way Gary’s eyes lit up when he talked about his playing days at Barcelona, ​​as if it had been one of the happiest times of his life.

“I love the place. It has everything: charm… a fabulous place: the mountain on one side, the beach on the other… We had such a wonderful life when we lived there. I would work out in the morning, then go to the beach or town and have a hearty lunch, followed by a nap from five to eight hours. Then around ten o’clock most evenings we would go to dinner, it was such a relaxing and loving lifestyle…”

Lineker’s contentment off the field during his first season at Barca reflected his success in football terms. Nicknamed ‘The MatadorFor almost a year, he maintained a goal-every-other-game ratio, scoring twenty-one goals in forty-one games in his first season at FC Barcelona.

And yet, during the 1986-87 season, Lineker’s goals were the only bright spot. Barca fans perceived in a period that was marked more by loss than success.

The team failed to win a title, and Venables’The Master‘ officially bowed out on the 23rd^rd September 1987, after obtaining what appears to have been a significant reward during a series of meetings with Nuñez and its vice-president Gaspart.

I met Terry several times after he left. He retained, like most fans, a lasting interest in Maradona, and was only too happy to see me bring his ex-manager Jorge Cysteszpiler, whom he had known in Barcelona, ​​one evening to his nightclub in Kensington.

But it was back in Spain, whether to welcome guests to the hotel hidden (Refuge in Spanish) in Alicante, or catching up on a match at the Camp Nou and meeting up with old friends who seemed to be the most relaxed or like, as they say in Spain, ‘like at home.’

May you rest in peace, Meester Terry!

Terry Venables: January 6, 1943 – November 25, 2023