Last Updated:
Pope Francis loved to play football as a child and often played as a goalkeeper and said it taught him that dangers could arrive from anywhere”.
Pope Francis greets Argentinian former football star Diego Armando Maradona prior to a meeting with members of the Scholas Occurentes at the Vatican. He dedicated an entire chapter to his compatriot in his autobiography. (IMAGE: AFP)
From scrappy street matches in Flores to the stands of San Lorenzo de Almagro, the Argentinian club he loved all his life, Jorge Mario Bergoglio carried football in his blood. Before he was Pope Francis, he was a boy with muddy shoes dreaming in red and blue.
Pope Francis often recounted playing as a young boy on the streets of Buenos Aires using a ball made of rags. He said he wasn’t the best and joked about having “two left feet”, but he played anyway, most often as a goalkeeper. It was, he believed, the best way to learn how to respond to “dangers that could arrive from anywhere”.
Pope Francis Is Dead At 88 | LIVE UPDATES
His love for football was tied to his loyalty to San Lorenzo in Buenos Aires, where he went to watch matches with his father and brothers.
“It was romantic football,” he recalled.
He maintained his membership even after becoming pope – and caused a minor uproar when he received a membership card from rivals Boca Juniors as part of a Vatican educational partnership.
Francis kept up to date with the club’s progress thanks to one of the Vatican’s Swiss Guards, who would leave results and league tables on his desk.
Messi Or Maradona Or Pele
From Argentinian compatriots Lionel Messi and the late Diego Maradona to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Gianluigi Buffon, Francis received the greatest stars of football at the Vatican, signing dozens of shirts and balls from around the world.
He dedicated an entire chapter in his 2024 autobiography to Maradona, whose infamous “Hand of God” goal helped Argentina beat England in their 1986 World Cup quarter-final clash.
“When, as pope, I received Maradona in the Vatican a few years ago… I asked him, jokingly, ‘So, which is the guilty hand?'” he said in 2024.
While his attachment to San Lorenzo was worn on his sleeve, he otherwise tried to avoid taking sides.
Asked once who the game’s greatest player – Maradona or Lionel Messi – was, the pope hedged his bets.
“Maradona, as a player, was great. But as a man, he failed,” Francis said, referring to his decades of battling addictions to cocaine and alcohol.
He described Messi as a “gentleman”, but added that he would choose a third, Pele, “a man of heart”.
The pontiff’s love for the game even inspired a scene in Netflix’s hit film The Two Popes, where former Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio watch the 2014 World Cup final between Germany and Argentina.
In the film, the two popes bond over the game, yet it was pure fiction. The soon-to-be Francis had already given up watching television in 1990, the same year West Germany beat Argentina in the World Cup final hosted by Italy.
Pope Francis also met Brazilian football stars Dani Alves and Ronaldinho during his visit to Brazil, a country where Catholicism and devotion to Jesus Christ run deep, making the meeting a symbolic intersection of faith and football.
Social Responsibility
There was a kind of Franciscan (the spirit of humility, simplicity and joy rooted in the teachings of St Francis of Assisi, after whom Pope Francis took his name) grace in the way Pope Francis loved football.
“Many say that football is the most beautiful game in the world. I think so too,” Francis declared in 2019.
When he met players, he always reminded them that footballers have a social responsibility. In 2013, addressing the Italian and Argentinian teams, Francis reminded players of their “social responsibilities” and warned against the excesses of “business” football.
In 2022, before the World Cup final between France and Argentina in Qatar, he called on the winner to celebrate the victory with “humility”.
French Bishop Emmanuel Gobilliard, the Vatican delegate for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, said Francis understood the crucial role played by football.
“Whether you are an amateur or professional footballer, whether you like to watch it on television, it makes no difference: this sport is part of people’s lives,” Gobilliard was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.
As with religion, the goal in football is to “put the collective first, to go beyond individual interest,” Gobilliard said.
It’s no surprise that Pope Francis loved it. Football, like faith, begins with belief and ends in the body, in sacrifice, in rhythm, in the geometry of hope. The ball never quite obeys, the pass is never perfect and the goal, like salvation, is always harder than it looks.
He knew the game didn’t offer much control, only movement, chance and a bit of space to chase something bigger than yourself.
