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“A soccer genius lived a life of recklessness.” Those were the words of the critics about “Maradona, Hand of God.” As an accurate description of a film that was described by Marco Reese, its director, how to describe Diego Maradona, the legend of Argentina from a completely different angle that not everyone knew.
Italian director added “It is the dark tunnel of Diego Maradona’s life outside the stadium, those facts that the fans did not see and many are unaware of Diego, the moments when he collapsed and fell into the trap of darkness with ease.”
(Reissued on the occasion of Maradona’s birthday)
In 2004, Maradona lay in his hospital bed waiting for death at any moment, his health had deteriorated a lot, he collapsed a lot, especially with his severe addiction to alcohol and his eating habit no longer controlled him and he consumed him all the time .
Maradona at that time had suffered more than one attempt at treatment, either in a healthy or psychological way, but the end was always one, the collapse.
All those who cared for Maradona feared something that would disappear forever, that he would die quickly before he was cured, it seemed that his return to life was something impossible, but within a few years he achieved the impossible.
Maradona’s story at that time specifically became a major transformation from a legend who wasted his career and recklessly became a soccer hero who reclaimed his life and fought for it and returned from the point of death to reach the top. .
In the British newspaper The Independent, quoting the Italian director Marco Risi, it was written: “I was surprised when I visited South America, and that is, naturally, Maradona is loved even more than Pelé. Diego is loved for more than his talent in soccer and more than Beckham or any player born in the West.”
The beginning of Maradona was similar to that of Pelé and most of the Argentine children of that time, a shirtless boy wandering the streets of Buenos Aires, for the Argentines he has achieved everything and they do not ask him for anything, they love him very much.
His career that began in 1976 and his way to the top was interrupted by numerous accusations, be it name-calling, arrest, or arrest.
Everything got more out of control in 1984 when he signed for Napoli, after two years of playing for Barcelona, he was still a new young man in Europe and was not used to European life with many disagreements in Spain, and in Italy the temptations they were getting bigger and bigger and they surpassed what he found in Argentina.
His club, Napoli, was associated at the time with the Italian mafia, and reports said it was at the time responsible for supplying him with drugs.
He was suspended from playing in the Italian league in 1991 for 15 months, after tests showed positive drug abuse.
Maradona was received at the Newell’s Old Boys club in Rosario but in 1994 he missed training and was expelled from the club, and that was the year he shot a journalist outside his home.
The legend went through everything, he triumphed as a footballer and then disappeared, and on June 30, 1994, Julio Grendona, president of the Argentine Federation, received the news of the tests for doping and drugs, and the sample was positive for Maradona, and everything started to disappear from then on.
The best footballer of the time faced a scandal in the biggest sporting tournament, and just a week ago, he was the star of the World Cup that he could not equal at all.
At the time, the whole world had the sick face of Maradona, the soccer genius who had suffered many personal setbacks due to his love of careless life and cocaine abuse, and admiring glances turned into accusing fingers.
During 1997, he failed a doping and drug test again, to keep him from fame and the limelight, and suffered a severe psychological breakdown and ruined his career.
By 2000, he had fallen asleep in the hospital suffering an acute heart attack while on vacation at the Uruguayani resort. At that time, Carlos Menem, president of Argentina and his friend at the time, said: “It is a heart attack that he is suffering due to stress.”. But Uruguayan police said he was using too much cocaine.
He wrote in his autobiography, confessing to being a drug addict, but making it clear that he was the victim of a plot by soccer leaders and politicians.
He stated: “I am the voice of the voiceless, I am the voice of a large number of people who feel that I represent them, because I always have a microphone in front of me, but they never have the opportunity to express what is inside.”
When Maradona went to the rehabilitation center, the headline of the British newspaper “The Independent” was: “It is between life and death.”
That was once Maradona’s most famous, during which he managed to escape death, until in 2004 a new crisis came knocking on his door only after 4 years of crisis and a previous scandal.
And his medical staff had all the time to deny the news that he had consumed a cocaine overdose, especially since the crisis had hit him when he was watching a match between his former favorite club and Boca Juniors at the “La Bombonera” stadium. and he was forced to withdraw between the two halves and the doctors feared that his heart could not. Continue.
We can imagine the following scene outside the rehabilitation center, the crowd lines up in front of the “Buenos Aires” hospital and everyone is wearing the blue and yellow t-shirt of the bucagonistas and on the back the number 10 and many posters showing their love and fear, written on it: “Diego Argentina loves you”. “Wait, Diego.”
Police had to stand outside the hospital, make a security entrance, and prevent the crowd from entering.
قال ريسي: “Many Argentines have turned off their radios and televisions for fear of hearing news that they greatly fear.” But Maradona fought and narrowly escaped death.
And he appeared in the documentary about Maradona clarifying that most of those close to Maradona had completely abandoned him because of what he went from being a national hero to a mere clown who abused cocaine and was ashamed and always.
The voice of one of the interlocutors from Radio Argentina Radio said: “Let him die, let him kill himself.”
Maradona then went to Cuba to cure himself of drugs and drug addiction, and that was one of the strangest periods of his life, as he dyed his black hair orange and remained in the company of Fidel Castro, president of the State and your friend.
Subsequently, press reports said that Maradona donated all the income from his CV to the people of Cuba and Castro, after admiring their “dignity and origin” with respect to the health treatment system.
Next, Maradona underwent weight-loss surgery, on a trip that seemed very strange to one of the best footballers in history.
Despite what happened to Maradona and the brokenness he went through, his first autobiography “Anna Diego”, which was published in September 2000 in Argentina, was among the best-selling books there, selling 125,000 copies in just one week.
One of the most famous phrases in that biography was: “I’m Maradona, I can do whatever I want.”
Reese commented: Even in his darkest moments and his addiction, everyone used to tell him in the past that he was great, and in that sentence he seemed to believe he was and knew very well that he was collapsing.
Maradona was a role model for a player who went from poverty to fame and wealth and then was stigmatized for drug use, and his private guards weren’t trained and professionals, but young people from Buenos Aires, and he was famous. for the poor class there who used alcohol and cocaine.
In 2005, Maradona regained his throne as the king of football in all the hearts of football fans, when he did a television program and talked about his goal against England in the 1986 World Cup, and admitted for the first time in history that he hit the ball with his hand and that he never regretted it.
He stated: “Peter Shelton, the England goalkeeper, was very long and it was not easy to mark him with his head, so I registered it with my own hands. I would like to say this to the Argentines and the world, why not?”
And he added: “Shelton told me then that he had scored a wrong goal, and I told him that I did not care, I had never regretted that goal, and you know more? I scored one like him when he was a Naples player.”
Maradona’s life story was a different mix of everything, political objections, poverty, wealth, fame, drugs, addiction, scandals and everything.
After all that came his appointment in 2008 as coach of the Argentine national team, and the concerns were in several newspapers, the most prominent and famous of which was the first saying: “Diego runs the risk of damaging his reputation and legend as Maradona “.
And he added: “But this is the best moment and opportunity for him, because he has a clear head, he is close to the players, they love him a lot and he has a year and a half until the World Cup.”
Perhaps he did not present the World Cup that matches his name as a coach, and perhaps his coaching career is not very busy, but he recovered his image in everyone’s hearts, that was a point of difference and a great transformation in his life for the better.
Sources: “The Independent Newspaper Archive – The Book” I Am Diego “- The Movie” Maradona “- The Book” El Diego: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Gamer “
