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Argentina is crying. Strict exit restrictions have been in place for eight months. Argentina groans under the worst economic crisis since World War II. But the news, which reached the country shortly before 1 p.m. on Wednesday, shook society to the ground. Diego Maradona, the best Argentine footballer, perhaps the greatest in history, is dead, deceased from cardiac arrest. Less than four weeks after turning 60. They had just operated on a clot in his head.
Maradona was an artist: “Probably the best footballer in history”(06:36)
Dozens of camera crews in front of Diego’s house
All television stations interrupt their programs this Wednesday afternoon (local time). At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the entrance to Diego Maradona’s house in the Tigre neighborhood, an elegant suburb of Buenos Aires, is like a madhouse. Dozens of camera crews stand up to each other. And every minute more journalists arrive.
“Todo Noticias”, the most important news channel in Argentina, headlines: “Paró la bocha” – the ball stops.
In Argentina, the world stops spinning for a moment.
Bigger than Evita, bigger than Che Guevara
The boy from the poor neighborhood of Villa Fiorito made Argentina feel very happy. Diego was taller than Evita. Bigger than Che Guevara.
Never before and never since has a player been as dominant in a World Cup as Maradona was in Mexico in 1986 when the gauchos won the title. Diego, by himself, turned an average team into world champions.
All of Naples was at his feet
Also in Naples, the whole city was at his feet. In 1987 and 1990, the South Italians won the championship twice thanks to Maradona’s magic left foot.
The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, declared a three-day state of mourning two hours after Maradona’s death. And this in the midst of the pandemic, which hits the South American country more than almost any other.
Diego grew up without running water
At age 15, Diego, who grew up without running water, moved to the capital and signed his first professional contract with Argentinos Juniors. In 1981 Maradona moved to Boca Juniors.
The following summer he should have become the superstar of the World Cup in Spain. But in the second round Argentina lost to Italy and then to Brazil. In the South American classic, Diego saw red after a desert kung fu insert.
Hepatitis knocked out Maradona
His transfer to Barcelona after the World Cup also has a bad star. The hepatitis knocked him out of action for three months.
Then, in the 1983/84 season, Andoni Goikoetxea (nickname: “El Carnicero”) of Athletic Bilbao reached a dubious fame when he broke Maradona’s left ankle. Maradona has been dating again for months.
When Diego got back in shape for the return leg against Athletic, he started a massive brawl after the final whistle that had never been seen before in Spanish football. Players, supervisors and officials attack each other. In the end, 60 people were injured.
Maradona is suspended for three months and flees to Naples.
80,000 look at Diego’s art
When Maradona was driven in the back seat of a VW Golf through the narrow streets of Naples to the San Paolo Stadium on July 5, 1984, the city was turned upside down. 80,000 watch Diego juggle the ball multiple times.
The video of Maradona in loose shoes as he arrived at the 1989 UEFA Cup second leg in Munich for the hit “Live Is Life”, which went through the stadium speakers, shook the ball and juggled for minutes, is one of the best things you can see on YouTube. has seen.
Maradona is at the height of his work in the late eighties. But reputation grows more than man.
Wild coke parties with prostitutes
Maradona throws coke parties with prostitutes and champagne Monday through Thursday, often only showing up in soccer gear for the last training session. He surrounds himself with mobsters, wears a fur coat and a different Rolex every day.
That works as long as Napoli wins the weekend. And until he throws the Italians out of the tournament at their home World Cup in 1990, of all places, at the Naples stadium.
In the final against Germany, Maradona and his Argentines have the whole stadium against them. “Damn sons of bitches,” Diego tells the man next to him when the Argentines get up before the start of the anthem, which is whistled mercilessly by 74,000 people.
First positive coke test
In March 1991, Diego tested positive for cocaine for the first time after a game against Bari. 15-month ban. The beginning of the end.
Ahead of the 1994 World Cup final, after Argentina lost 5-0 at home to Colombia, then-Argentine President Carlos Menem is personally committed to bringing Diego back to the national team.
Diego shoots Journis with an air rifle
In the training ground before the World Cup, Maradona shoots journalists with an air rifle.
At the US tournament, the next positive doping result, after which Diego tearfully announced that his legs had been “cut off”. It is the first death of soccer player Diego Armando Maradona.
But Diego returns once more to the field. For Boca Juniors, his club of heart. The most spectacular image of this time shows him kissing his partner Claudio Caniggia on the mouth after scoring a goal. On his 37th birthday, he resigns permanently.
I almost died of coca in 2000
But there is nothing calmer about him. Diego is completely out of control. In 2000, he nearly died after a cocaine overdose and three nights of partying. Doctors say his heart capacity is still 30 percent.
Diego tries to coach the Argentine team.
After the happy World Cup qualification for the 2010 tournament, thanks to a lucky goal in the torrential rain of Buenos Aires, Diego insulted the journalists at the press conference for the worst. “Those who did not believe in us should give themselves a blowjob,” Diego says into the microphones.
After unsuccessful adventures as a coach in the United Arab Emirates, Diego left for Mexico’s second division Dorados de Sinaloa two years ago, which is also home to the most powerful drug cartel in the world.
Completely disoriented
Previously, for example at the 2018 World Cup, Diego was seen completely disoriented insulting Nigerians and South Koreans on the VIP balcony and nodding his head to turn away his swollen face while he slept. Maradona was a caricature of himself, thick as a rain barrel, despite the gastric band.
Then there was this interview from the car when Diego collapsed with the engine running and even the Argentine reporters barely understood a word.
Daughter Giannina: “You are slowly killing him!”
The last call for help came a year ago, after the 59th birthday of Maradona, of his daughter Giannina, when Diego was dancing in the living room drunk and surrounded by false friends. “You are slowly killing him and he doesn’t realize it,” she wrote on Instagram.
More recently, Diego was a coach at the Argentine first division club Gimnasia de La Plata. Maradona led the units mostly seated, even for short distances he had to take the golf kart.
Shortly after turning 60, on October 30, Maradona had to have a clot removed from his head as an emergency.
He is discharged from the hospital on November 11. His first married daughters are worried. His health is precarious.
“Time to cry”
On Wednesday morning, Diego went into cardiac arrest. His nurses and a neighbor try to revive him. Unsuccessfully. Shortly after 12 pm local time, her heart finally stops beating.
The news channel “Todo Noticias” leaves viewers alone with Diego’s photos for several minutes. Without sound.
“It’s time to cry,” says the moderator. Everyone should now have their own thoughts on Maradona and appreciate his memory.
