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Good morning. In Argentina they treat him like a god. In Naples, where he transformed the fortunes of an under-performing team, many have an image of him in the family shrine next to that of San Januario, the city’s patron saint. He even has his own church, the Iglesia Maradoniana. This week’s allegations of negligence against Maradona’s doctor suggest that the story will run and run and that, even in death, he will continue to seize the headlines. Maradona was the possessor of extraordinary gifts both as a footballer and as a motivator of others and it’s not hard to understand the obsession that many have with him. But as well as the gifts, there was also a darker, more sinister side to his life. For example I have only just got round to forgiving him for undoing England at the 1986 World Cup when he used his hand rather than his head to score. That was the kind of craft and guile Maradona needed to survive because was brought up in unspeakable poverty in Argentina. When fame came his way, he found it hard to bear. He was banned for 18 months for using drugs. He was involved with the Camorra mafia gang in Naples. His finances were dubious, his private life complicated to say the least. But despite all this, the people just loved him more and more. Maradona shows us the attractiveness of vulnerability. Perfection can be cold and alienating. The best heroes come with scars and wounds because that means people can relate to them and understand them. Maradona also had a complex relationship with faith. ‘God makes me play well,’ he once said and he certainly maintained the raw piety of his catholic upbringing. He had a close affinity with his fellow Argentinian, Pope Francis, who also understood the impact of poverty on the human soul. Maybe the faith he sought to profess can offer a way to understand the attractiveness, even the benefit, of human weakness. In the second letter to the Corinthians St Paul writes of his own failings, ‘For when I am weak, then I am strong.’ For the Christian, weaknesses are not altogether bad news. Human brokenness and vulnerability is the place where God can be at work because that is where the Christian most realises their need of him. The world values and honours strengths, gifts, concrete achievements. But there are times when vulnerability matters more than strength because of the way it demonstrates human co-dependency and so builds up relationship. It is quite right that people should try and develop their strengths and become better people. But maybe they should also value their weaknesses along the way.