CANNES (France), May 21: Soccer icon Diego Maradona hit the big screen in Cannes Tuesday in an exuberant documentary depicting him as a rebel fighting Western imperialism first through football, now through friendship with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

“Maradona,” by Serbian director Emir Kusturica, got its premiere just days after another sporting “bad boy,” boxer Mike Tyson, turned up in Cannes for a flattering film on his own rise from mean streets to global notoriety.

Maradona, notorious for his post-football descent into drugs, is perhaps best known for his role in knocking England out of the 1986 World Cup in a 2-1 victory.

He scored both goals, the first infamously helped by the “Hand of God” and the second so stunning it has been called the “Goal of the Century.” For Kusturica, that victory was a triumph by the “third world” over the West, which he said imposes its rule on countries like Argentina and Serbia, using weapons such as the International Monetary Fund and NATO bombs.

“I cannot understand why the earth was not knocked off its axis after the match when a billion people like me jumped for joy,” he told reporters after he and the footballer briefly showed off their soccer skills for the benefit of photographers.”—AFP