Pope Francis enjoyed playing football when he was a child and used to play as a goalkeeper He stated that it taught him that threats could come from anywhere”. From tough street games in Flores to San Lorenzo de Almagro’s stands, the Argentinian team he cherished his entire life, football was in Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s veins. He was a boy with dirty boots before he became Pope Francis, dreaming in red and blue.
Pope Francis used to tell often how he played as a young child on the streets of Buenos Aires with a rag ball. He claimed he wasn’t so great and kidded about having “two left feet,” but played anyway, usually as a goalkeeper. It was, he felt, the best way to learn how to deal with “dangers that might come from anywhere.”.
He continued to be a member even after being elected pope – and raised a small stir when he was sent a membership card by arch-rivals Boca Juniors as part of a Vatican educational initiative. Francis was kept informed about the club’s fortunes by one of the Vatican’s Swiss Guards, who would leave results and league tables on his desk.
From Argentinian compatriots Lionel Messi and the late Diego Maradona to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Gianluigi Buffon, Francis welcomed the biggest stars of football to the Vatican, signing dozens of shirts and balls from across the globe.
He devoted a whole chapter in his 2024 autobiography to Maradona, whose notorious “Hand of God” goal assisted Argentina in defeating England in their 1986 World Cup quarter-final match. When, as pope, I welcomed Maradona to the Vatican a few years ago… I asked him, in jest, ‘So, which is the guilty hand?’ he recalled in 2024.
Although his love for San Lorenzo was worn on his sleeve, otherwise he attempted not to take sides. Asked one time who the game’s greatest player – Maradona or Lionel Messi – was, the pope hedged his bets.
“Maradona, as a player, was wonderful. But as a human being, he failed,” Francis said, about his decades of struggles with cocaine and alcohol addictions. He referred to Messi as a “gentleman”, but added that he would prefer a third option, Pele, “a man of heart”.
The pontiff was such a fan of the game that he even featured in a scene in Netflix’s blockbuster movie The Two Popes, in which then-Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio watch Germany take on Argentina in the 2014 World Cup final.
