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(Reuters) The great world footballer Diego Armando Maradona died on Wednesday (November 25) after suffering a heart attack at his home in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, his relatives confirmed.
Maradona, who was less than a month past his 60th birthday, was worshiped as a god for his genius with the ball, but his demons nearly destroyed him.
Rising to stardom from a grubby Buenos Aires slum to lead Argentina to World Cup victory, Maradona was a story of poverty to wealth in his soccer-mad land and gained the iconic status of Argentines Che Guevara and Avoid Perón.
One of the most talented footballers in history, Maradona’s pinnacle of glory came when he captained Argentina to win the World Cup in 1986 before falling into misery when he was kicked out of the 1994 World Cup for doping.
Years of drug use, binge eating and alcoholism cut short a stellar career and altered his appearance from an agile athlete who could effortlessly slalom between teams to a bloated addict who nearly died of cocaine-induced heart failure in 2000.
But he reinvented himself in a surprising comeback in 2008 as coach of the Argentine national team, convincing managers that with sheer charisma he could inspire the team to victory, despite a lack of coaching experience.
A wizard with the ball, deceptively fast and a visionary passer, Maradona is considered by some to be the greatest footballer of all time, surpassing that other great, Brazilian Pelé. In Argentina, he was worshiped as ‘El Dios’ – El Dios – in part a pun on his number 10 jersey, ‘El Diez’.
He was largely responsible for Argentina’s victory at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, scoring two famous goals in a match against England in the quarterfinals.
The first was a notorious goal scored with his fist, and the second, where he dribbled half of the England team, is often called the goal of the century.
“It was partly God’s hand and partly Maradona’s head,” he said of his first goal in the 2-1 victory.
On the ball from the start
Born on October 30, 1960 in the Buenos Aires working-class suburb of Lanús, the fifth of eight children of a factory worker, Maradona grew up in the Villa Fiorito settlement.
His mother Dalma, known to her fans as “Doña Tota”, saw a star reflected on the floor of the church where her son was baptized and envisioned a bright future as an accountant.
But Maradona’s love affair with soccer was evident from the start. Given his first soccer ball as a baby, he slept with it under his arm.
Discovered in street kicks by the scout for the first division club Argentinos Juniors, the prodigy made his league debut at the age of 15.
At 17, he missed home inclusion for the 1978 World Cup winning Argentine team. At the 1982 tournament in Spain, an expulsion against Brazil was a fitting prologue to two unhappy seasons in Barcelona, marked for hepatitis and injuries.
But then came liberation and triumph. In 1984, he moved to Napoli for a then world record $ 7.5 million contract. Maradona helped homeless Napoli win the Italian title twice, creating a new group of fans in the process.
And, after the 1986 World Cup triumph in Mexico, he also convinced a mediocre Argentine team for a second consecutive World Cup final in Rome in 1990.
But in 1991, drugs and alcohol began to take over his life.
That year, Maradona received a 15-month suspension from soccer around the world for doping and was called to trial in Naples for alleged links to a vice.
He was suspended again for 15 months after testing positive for drugs at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
The compact, 1.65 m (5 ft 4 in) player with curly dark hair and an aggressive jaw stance surrounded himself with an entourage of men who did and became known for his sharp confrontations with journalists and critics.
Through the years he publicly reflected on his greatness and weaknesses, publishing photo books and quotes about himself and hosting a television show.
“Soccer is the most beautiful and healthy sport in the world. Soccer should not pay for my mistakes. It is not the fault of the ball,” he said.
Slow motion suicide
Maradona retired from professional soccer in 1997 and after his brush with death in 2000 underwent drug rehab, living intermittently in Cuba between 2000 and 2005, where he often spent time with Fidel Castro. He had a tattoo of the Cuban leader on his leg and one of fellow revolutionary Che on his arm.
For many, his offside sins overshadowed his genius.
“My main question is whether he is great enough as a person to justify being honored by a global audience,” said Pelé after a popular vote awarded Maradona the FIFA Century Award in 2000, leaving Pelé in second place.
Argentine media obsessed with Maradona’s addictive personality, with general coverage of his 2005 gastric bypass operation to lose weight and his 2007 hospitalization for life-threatening alcohol-induced hepatitis.
Drug and alcohol experts called Maradona’s abuse of one substance after another a suicide in slow motion.
But Maradona cleaned up and recovered. In 2008 he convinced himself to take a position as coach of the Argentine national team.
Many Argentines doubted that he could come up with a talented team of players to act as a coherent unit, and they seemed justified when the team barely made it through the qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, ultimately falling into the quarterfinals.
The training stints in the United Arab Emirates were followed by a stint in charge of the Mexican second division club Dorados de Sinaloa, before returning to Argentina to take over Gimnasia y Esgrima in La Plata in 2019.
Meanwhile, Maradona was never far from the covers.
During a rest cure in Italy, the tax police confiscated her signature diamond earring to help pay back taxes. In 2010 he was rushed to a hospital in the middle of the night for reconstructive surgery after one of his own dogs bit his lip.
With his knees causing him increasing pain and his weight fluctuating, his mobility was hampered and his famous speed disappeared.
But the fans remained devoted. From China to Europe, Argentines found they could make friends just by mentioning Maradona’s name.
Some created the Maradonian Church, with their own religious images and the Ten Commandments, one of which is, ‘Make Diego your middle name and name your first son Diego.’
Maradona was an antidote to the turmoil in Argentina, as it suffered successive economic crises and a humiliating defeat to England after the 1982 conflict over the Malvinas or Malvinas.
And it was a balm for the wounded souls of Argentines, obsessed with the perpetual failure of their country to live up to its potential on the world stage.
“In our collective imagination Diego Maradona represents a glorious past, he is a symbol of what we could have been,” said the professor of popular culture at the University of Buenos Aires and Maradona expert Pablo Alabarces.
“He will always be forgiven,” said Maradona fan Marcelo Pose, a lawyer from Buenos Aires. – Reuters
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