Diego Maradona, one of the greatest footballers in history, is dead. He combined everything that makes football: genius, madness and the longing for happiness.
No one who was there will ever forget it. How Diego Armando Maradona first stepped into the San Paolo in the hot summer of 1984. The stadium of the SSC Napoli was filled to the last seat, 70,000 people wanted to see the Argentine curly hair, who had finally said yes to the change after lengthy negotiations. Cheers swelled as the helicopter with the superstar soared up and grew into a hurricane when Maradona finally stepped out of the concrete tunnel into the glaring sunlight, surrounded by a bunch of photographers who snapped him taking a ball, juggling him, him up let his shoulders dance and shoot him high into the sky and catch him again with his foot.
Tricks that Maradona had already presented as a little boy, as unofficial prelude to the first division kicks of the Argentinos Juniors, in whose youth teams he had kicked and where he was already called “El Pibe de Oro”, the golden boy. Because Maradona’s extraordinary talent was noticed early on, at his foot the ball seemed to merge with his body, dribbling at the highest speed, rapid hooks, unbelievable feinting and an irresistible pull towards the goal, all this made the fifth of eight children of a factory worker to hottest bet of the late seventies. At the age of fifteen he moved up to the men’s junior team, two years later he was top scorer and South America’s footballer of the year, moved to the Boca Juniors – and was ready for the leap into big football, for the move to Europe FC Barcelona.
Disaster in Barcelona
But what was planned as an era turned into a disaster. Constant injuries, charges of bodily harm, bans in numerous bars, plus a grumbling President Nunez and a stubborn German trainer Lattek, who pestered the Argentine with intense running sessions. “He wants to turn me into a 10,000-meter runner,” Maradona grumbled and also reported his displeasure to his manager Jorge Cyterszpiler, who at some point decided: “Dieguito has to get out of here.” Then came the offer from SSC Napoli and the happiest time in Diego Maradona’s life began. Not only because the contract guaranteed him a rounded two million marks a year, plus an impressive fleet of vehicles, a villa with a sea view and free flights to Buenos Aires to alleviate the homesickness. But also because Maradona found something in Naples that he had always been looking for: unconditional love.
The Tifosi idolized Maradona, and the Argentine returned that love. The port city with its poor neighborhoods reminded him of his youth in the shabby suburb of Villa Fiorito. He felt at home. With the Argentine, the previously bobbing SSC became a top team again, and when two years later, after a 1-1 draw at Como Calcio, Naples were the Italian champions, the city drowned in jubilation. Diego’s curly hair was emblazoned on the walls of houses and asphalt streets, posters and stickers. And the awesome slogan “I saw Maradona!”, Which was also sung in the stadium, made it clear that the Argentine had become something of a new patron saint of the city.
Maradona later described these years as intoxicating times, and in many ways that was aptly worded. There was the title frenzy. In 1986 he became world champion in Mexico after a tournament that cemented his status as one of the best players in football history. In 1987 he had also won the Coppa Italia, a year later the UEFA Cup against VfB Stuttgart and then the championship again. But there was also the cocaine with which Maradona escaped the pressure, the constant attention, the eternal hustle and bustle with increasing frequency. And that made for a bad ending. In 1991, Maradona was banned from doping for 15 months. Although his cocaine addiction was no secret in Naples, the club was surprised and threw Maradona out – a financial relief for the completely over-indebted club. And there was the threat of additional trouble, a paternity lawsuit was pending, the tax office was investigating irregularities, and to make matters worse, rumors were growing that Maradona had been too close to the local Camorra.
It was the blueprint of all the problems that would accompany Diego Maradona through the second phase of his life. He still played a bit in Seville and at home at Boca. But then the bones stopped cooperating. He found no happiness off the pitch. Unsteadily he raced from coaching job to expert job and back again, allowed himself to be endured by oligarchs and chatted, but coaching the Argentine national team again – it was a disaster. In between crashes, drugs, binge eating and medication, plus a failed marriage, countless affairs and illegitimate children. Just one cure in Cuba, which his host Fidel Castro used for bizarre PR, resulted in three successful paternity suits. He never looked happy, just driven.
The work of art Maradona has been a series of clownish appearances in recent years, sometimes he did an interview with Gaga answers, sometimes he stumbled across the stands, sometimes he let himself be driven to training in a tank. But the appearances seemed bizarre, the audience continued to love him. Because in the bloated wreck they saw the young man who had shown back then how magical, how enchanting football can be. Everyone knew it wouldn’t last much longer. He had already looked bad on his 60th birthday, the cocaine had broken his heart.
And yet everyone had hoped it would continue. Because Maradona always combined everything that makes football. The beautiful and the ugly, the genius and the madness, the greatest happiness and the fear of it.
The Argentine Cuarteto singer Rodrigo wrote a song about Maradona that Diego loved and sang many times. It says: “Y todo el pueblo cantó: Marado, Marado!” That has always been true, but not anymore. People don’t sing, people cry. Diego Maradona has died.
