Maradona’s dance team has just lost a competition. Maradona appears quite resilient at first and resolves to keep training. However, it quickly becomes clear how much the loss affects Maradona. Maradona’s behavior in this scene is best analyzed through ‘The Divide.’ ‘The Divide’ references the different circumstances that Maradona and his family experience as asylum seekers compared with native Germans.

In this scene, Maradona becomes defensive and reminds the camera that they, meaning his family and his team, can not even count all of their trophies from previous competitions because they have so many. Maradona becomes defensive because he constantly feels like he has to earn his place in Germany. Ever since his family was deported, Maradona felt rejected from German society. In order for his family to return to Germany and be able to stay, they had to meet unfair standards to earn their place. Maradona justifies his place in German society through his dance skills, so this loss cuts him deep because dance is how he defines himself in Germany. He then states that he cannot practice every day, unlike some of the dancers in the other groups, because his brother works, he must attend school, and they have problems at home. This is another aspect of the divide. Because Maradona’s family is of lower socioeconomic status, the children must work to help with the bills. They also experience more difficulties, such as the threat of deportation, police coming to their home, struggling to pay bills, and more. All of this, as Maradona states, takes its toll not only on Maradona’s dance skills but on his mind as well.

Because of the treatment that Maradona’s family receives in Germany as asylum seekers, i.e. ‘The Divide’, Maradona has come to feel like he must justify his place in Germany. He also experiences many more hurdles, such as coping with the threat of deportation, than most native Germans would which unfairly impacts his dance performance and his state of mind, as portrayed in this scene.