Martin Palermo, who hadn’t played for the Argentine national team for a decade, scored in the 93rd minute of last night’s rain swept game against Peru in Buenos Aires’s River Plate Stadium to keep hope alive that Diego Maradona’s team may yet make it to South Africa.  After the game, Maradona, according to the BBC, canonized Palermo “It was a miracle from Saint Palermo that gave us another life,”  (for the record there was, until now, no actual Saint Palermo and the patron saint of that  operatic Sicilian city is Saint Rosalia (1130-1166) who beat back a devastating plague in 1624) and then declared, according to Yahoo Sports, that “The bearded man (God) came to visit the stadium of the river.”

Over the last decades God, like almost everyone else, has developed what appears to be a consuming interest in the world of sports. He often helps individuals towards triumphs and rewards.  Christians in particular appear to be benefiting from God’s help, as attested to by the rash of pre-match and post-goal celebrations that incorporate making the sign of the cross. Since the lifting of that heavy Iron Curtain, one of whose functions was to keep God out, genuflection has become almost de rigueur among the footballers of Eastern Europe.  Protestants in Western Europe, it must be said, don’t thank God nearly as much as Catholics worldwide and this may be why, for example, England hasn’t won the World Cup since 1966 and, by extension, why the People’s Republic of China, despite its massive population, can’t seem to put together an eleven that can beat the Faroe Islands. One thing is for sure: God doesn’t seem to like losers much and they never thank him. I have yet to see a goalkeeper cross himself after the ball rolls through his legs.

Here’s a question: why didn’t God help Peru? In fact, why did he torture the Peruvians and their fans by permitting an equalizer in the 90^th minute only to gift Argentina victory in the dying seconds of the game? The fact that God, unshaven, was in sold-out River Plate stadium suggests he was probably an Argentina supporter to begin with.  This is understandable. He’s obviously a fan, admires good soccer and wants to see Messi in South Africa. He may also still harbor some resentment about the whole Inca thing.

In the United States there is general agreement that God resides in the heavens above, represented in our earthly sphere by the sky or the underside of a dome if the game is played indoors, and there is a lot of pointing upwards after home runs and touchdowns. Everyone knows that God is watching. This is a problem: God has become distracted by sports and that may explain why the world is fucked up in so many places.  I mean if Maradona is correct and God was at the game last night, and it was a gripping game, he certainly wasn’t taking care of business anywhere else.  It is rumored that in Buenos Aires a player actually pointed at God (easily recognizable from his beard) where he was sitting in the stands and offered the equivalent of “You the man” as Martin’s shot hit the back of the net.  Another possibility I don’t particularly want to entertain but you can’t entirely discount: God had money big time on Argentina.

Will God show up in Montevideo on Wednesday in his blue and white striped shirt singing “Vamos Argentina”? Maradona, a man gifted by God with consummate soccer skills but only mediocre talents as a coach, better start praying that he does.

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