Football legend Diego Maradona died of cardiac arrest on Wednesday. He leaves the image of an extraordinary footballer but also of a man of excess.
God has found “his hand”. Diego Maradona died on Wednesday November 25 of cardiac arrest, his spokesperson announced. He was for many the greatest Argentinian player of all time. He was an artist in the field as well as a character of excess outside.
The 1986 world champion was hospitalized for anemia and dehydration on November 2 in La Plata, a city 60 km from Buenos Aires and where he trains the local club. A CT scan then revealed the presence of a subdural hematoma, a pocket of blood formed under the skull. This resulted in his transfer to a private clinic in Olivos, where he was successfully operated on the next day. He was out a few days later to continue his convalescence at home.
A legendary 1986 World Cup
Diego Armando Maradona, born in Buenos Aires, had just celebrated his 60th birthday. He will forever be the incarnation of the position of “diez”, the “number 10” that every child football fan has dreamed of being, capable of both dribbling and scoring the most beautiful goals.
“Whatever happens, everyone knows that the N ° 10 of the selection will be mine … Forever,” he said in May 2020, tackling Lionel Messi, the only compatriot who could also claim as the best Argentinian player of all time.
Coming from the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, the “Pibe de oro” or “Gamin en or” fell into the cauldron of the Bombonera, the stadium of the Boca Juniors club, when he was small. It is also the club that he will mark during his passage in 1981. During this season, he scored 28 goals in 40 games and above all humiliated the rival River Plate with a double and an assist.
Diego Maradona will remain the symbol and undisputed captain of Argentina. Under the colors of the national team for 17 years (1977-1994), the legendary number 10 scored 50 goals in 115 matches. A nation to which he offered his second World Cup.
The World Cup-1986, in Mexico, with the Argentine selection is indeed that of the consecration of Diego Maradona. That year, he won the competition after scoring five times and giving his partners five assists in seven games.
However, it was the quarter-final against England that made him legendary. As the two countries clash in the Falklands, Diego Maradona offers victory to his people: first by marking with his hand, a gesture passed down to posterity as the “Hand of God”, then he victoriously dribbles all the defense opponent, in what will be sacred the goal of the twentieth century by Fifa.
Nevertheless, Diego Maradona was also known for his escapades off the field as for his flashes on the green square. An aspect of the eternal “Pibe de Oro” which has never ceased to fascinate. Again in 2019, the Briton Asif Kapadia presented, out of competition, at the Cannes festival, a documentary on the Argentine legend looking back on his tumultuous years in Naples, which brought him his greatest joys and ended up crushing him.
Glory and dependence in Naples
It is estimated that he started using drugs during his time at FC Barcelona, where he played two seasons (1982-1984). Then, his habituation did not weaken during his years of glory in Naples (1984-1991), a club where he was adored for having won him the only two Italian league titles in his history, in 1987 and 1990.
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In March 1991, he tested positive for cocaine after a match played with Napoli against Bari. Suspended fifteen months, he returned to Argentina. The following month, he was arrested at his home in Buenos Aires for possession and use of cocaine. The photo of the shaggy, puffy, unshaven superstar shocks the footballing world.
Soiled by scandals, under a two-year suspension for a new positive test in 1994, he officially left the world of football, at 37, on his birthday.
The forfeiture continues for Diego Maradona. A spiral of rowdy statements, aborted returns, detoxification cures and relapses. Far from the stadiums, the number 10 will also increase health concerns.
In 2000, he was hospitalized in Punta del Este, Uruguay’s famous seaside resort, for a drug-related heart attack. He got out of it and went to Cuba for rehab. Four years of back and forth between Argentina and his second homeland will not succeed in curing him sustainably of his addiction to cocaine. In 2004, he came close to death after a cardiovascular accident after which he returned to Havana.
The following year, he underwent surgery in Bogota to reduce the absorption capacity of his stomach to fight obesity, which allowed him to lose nearly 50 kilos.
Unhappy coaching experiences
Argentina then hopes to find its hero. At the end of 2005, charming and in good shape, he broke audience records with his television program “La nuit du 10” where he notably invited his great rival Pelé. However, Diego begins to drink, gets fat, smokes and relapses in a liver attack which brings him back to the hospital in 2007.
Once again, he is doing it. he even resumes service in the world of football. He was appointed coach of the national team in 2008. Argentina then wants to believe that the legend will be able to take the flamboyant young generation of Messi and other Aguero to the titles. He was finally dismissed two years later for poor results.
Subsequently, he coached two Emirati clubs before enlisting as president of Belarusian club Dinamo Brest (D1) in 2018. The same year, he became coach of Dorados de Sinaloa (Mexican D2) before slamming. the door with a crash eight months later because of a penalty not whistled for his club. His passage will be immortalized by Netflix.
Diego Maradona has never been far from his country. And despite his age, he still lived the matches of the Albiceleste to 200%. As during the World Cup-2018 during the match against Nigeria where he seems in a trance.
His rival Pelé, another football legend, said tonight to have lost a friend. “We will surely one day hit the ball together in the sky”, wants to believe the three-time world champion of 80 years.
At the age of twelve, little Diego dreamed aloud at the microphone of Argentine TV: “I have two dreams, to compete in the World Cup with Argentina, then to win it.” He will have. The rest is incidental.
With AFP
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