Maradona: the Argentine dies who was much more than the greatest footballer in history

Some, for example, saw him as God; others, like Diablo.

But Maradona was not only a footballer: he was a successful television presenter, a controversial soccer manager and coach, an acid commentator in the internet age, a central protagonist of world entertainment, a political activist and an example for millions around the planet.

Likewise, he was a hyper-media figure fallen from grace due to scandals, drug addiction and sympathy with controversial rulers.

Maradona was born on October 30, 1960 in Villa Fiorito, a small and poor town in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as the fifth of eight siblings in a family that depended on the father’s job as a boatman.

Like his life, Maradona’s soccer triumphs had an epic degree that made him a hero to two closely related peoples and particularly given to intense passions: the Argentine and the Neapolitan.

Representing both fans was that Maradona exposed to the world not only a gifted left-hander, perhaps unrepeatable, but also a charisma to materialize historical demands in populations identified with defeat and exclusion.

This is how the “Pibe de Oro”, the “Pelusa”, the “Cosmic Kite”, became “D10S”.

Maradona won many important things in football. In order of relevance: a soccer World Cup, two Italian leagues, a European cup, two Italian cups, an Italian super cup, a Spanish King’s cup, an Argentine league and a youth World Cup, among other things.

In addition, he was the top scorer in the Italian league, three times a top scorer in the Argentine tournament and umpteen times awarded as “the best in history”, “the best of the century”, “the best of the World Cups”.

His sporting triumphs led him to be an ambassador for UNICEF and FIFA, an “inspiring teacher of dreams” at the University of Oxford and coach of teams in Mexico, Belarus and the United Arab Emirates, among others, and of the Argentine national team.

Maradona’s talent gave football an unprecedented creativity in the 80s: with extraordinary physical and mental speed, with impeccable fine motor skills, the 1.65m tall Argentine put the ball where the laws of physics couldn’t they seemed to apply.

If he wasn’t a footballer, Maradona might as well have worked for a circus.

His victories, moreover, used to count on what in Argentina is known as “stamina”: a feeling of optimism, courage, almost daring, He found images of Maradona bleeding, Maradona muddy, Maradona injured, but celebrating.

Many players in the history of soccer won more things than him. A few are considered physically and technically better. The Argentine, sometimes by his own decision, starred in alleged rivalries with the other “best in history”: Pelé, Cruyff, Zidane, Ronaldo, Messi, etcetera.

Complex and relative debates, which in any case must take into account the following: unlike almost any other superlative player, Maradona created symbolic feats in the most famous sport in the world that made him an extra-sports figure, unique or, as the devotees of the Maradoniana Church, divine.

His most famous feat was in a 1986 World Cup quarter-final match in Mexico against the England team. Four years had passed since the British army defeated the Argentine in the Malvinas / Falklands war and, in the great Azteca stadium, before the eyes of the world, Maradona gave the English a dose of mischief and another of genius that Argentines celebrated on behalf of the 700 compatriots killed on the battlefield.

The mischief was a goal with the hand that he himself baptized “the hand of God” and genius, a run of 52 meters in 10 seconds with the ball at the foot leaving English behind that was later classified by FIFA as “the goal of the century”.

Days later, Argentina won its second World Cup. And Maradona became the leader of a people that, the narrative supposes, does not give up.

Another of the feats that define Maradona’s almost mythological spirit occurred between 1984 and 1990, the years he was in Naples, a relatively small team until then that, legend says, represented the “poor” and “black” Italians of the south in its historic rivalry with the “rich” and “white” Italians of the north.

In the role of messiah, with four Italian titles and several games won between political tension to teams in Milan and Turin, Maradona gave Naples the glory that the south had not achieved politically, militarily and economically after 150 years of dispute .

With that antecedent, the Argentine team led by Maradona reached the final of the World Cup in Italy in 1990, which was played in Milan. The match, preceded by provocative statements by the parties, began with a string of insults from the captain to the Milanese audience during the anthems and ended with a victory for Germany in what he considered an “orchestrated fraud”.

It was around this time that Maradona, afflicted with injuries and legal battles with clubs and ex-partners, revealed his other mood. His reaction to the criticism became aggressive, challenging, part of an alleged conspiracy against him. His private life became a recurring topic in the tabloid media. And his routine, a drama.

His children out of wedlock, his drug addiction, his exit from the 1994 World Cup due to doping, his fights with his daughters Dalma and Gianinna, his alleged link with the Neapolitan mafia, his weight, his tattoo of “Che” Guevara, his Friendship with Nicolás Maduro and Fidel Castro, his support for Cristina Kirchner, his Peronist militancy, his plastic surgeries and his state of health were, among other things, the elements that shaped Maradona’s public figure after his retirement from the courts.

Like most of the symbols of the Argentine nation, the historical value of Diego Armando Maradona is, until today, the subject of rigorous public scrutiny that reaches meticulous levels of detail and does not allow gray, but loves and hates.

The world can be separated between those who saw Maradona on the field and those who did not, clinging to the prominence of his scandals. It will always be for some God and for others Devil. Whatever the opinion, it can be agreed that we are talking about something more than the greatest footballer in history.