Diego Maradona got up around 10, felt bad and went back to bed. But, his two faithful guardians (Maximiliano Pomargo and Johnny Espósito) did not remain calm. Therefore, they immediately began to communicate with the closest contacts of the Ten. From Dr. Leopoldo Luque to his friend and lawyer Matías Morla, to his daughters who live in Argentina: Dalma, Gianinna and Jana. Around noon, in the San Andrés neighborhood, on the border between Tigre and Escobar, there was already half a dozen ambulances. They all started trying to achieve the last miracle in Diego’s life: recover from the cardiorespiratory arrest that he suffered this damn Wednesday, November 25 …
They could do nothing. “Diego Armando Maradona died “, gave the scoop Clarín, the first to confirm the sad news by two direct sources from the environment of the Diez. The commotion in the world was already total. Maradona, the one who on December 31, 1999 at 6:00 p.m., a day before entering the new Millennium, had told me in a room at the Cristóforo Colombo hotel in Palermo: “The best athlete of the century was me.”
I was anxious, depressed and distressed in recent days. Therefore, both Luque and his psychologist Carlos Díaz and his psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov were analyzing the “Return to Cuba Plan”, so that Diego return to a place he loves: the land of his great and dear friend Fidel Castro and where he spent another difficult stage in his life.
Maradona was so bad these days that Plan Cuba was more than a chance. And more after the “invitation” that Tony Castro, son of Fidel, who contacted the inner circle of the former footballer to offer him stay and privacy to recover.
Diego died with two very great pains. First, not having been able to reunite on his last birthday (last October 30) all his children: Dalma Nerea, Gianinna Dinorah, Jana, Diego Fernando and Diego Jr. (his Italian first-born and who could not come since he was hospitalized with coronavirus in Naples), and also his beloved grandson Benjamín Agüero Maradona, the son who “Gianni” he had with the footballer currently in Manchester City and in the Argentine National Team, Sergio “Kun” Agüero.
His two great loves. Dalma and Giannina smiling, next to their father Diego. Photo: EFE / Guillaume Horcajuelo.
They, his children, had taken on the responsibility of assisting him, accompanying him and taking care of him. Late? God only knows…
Diego died accompanied by Maximiliano Pomargo, Morla’s brother-in-law, and by his nephew Johnny Espósito, Mary’s son (María Rosa). And for his faithful maid, cook and “fake mom” Monona which Diego Maradona always praised saying that it does “the richest stews in the world” and whom he loved and worshiped almost like a second mother. Monona knew that non-alcoholic drinks could never be absent from the refrigerator – by strict medical prescription – and eucalyptus gummies, candies of all kinds and dried fruits of which Diego was a fanatic could never be missing.
San Andrés is an exclusive neighborhood in full development, located between Nordelta and the Villanueva complex, on the border between Tigre and Escobar. Maradona went to live there, after leaving the Olivos Clinic, in a house specially adapted so that he could continue his treatment after the operation for a chronic subdural hematoma on the left side of his head, and that it was detected after an MRI at the Ipensa (La Plata) and Olivos (Buenos Aires) Clinics.
It is worth remembering. In Punta del Este (Uruguay), in the first days of January 2000, from a cocaine overdose, doctors told him that at 39 he had taken so many medications that his heart rate was at 38% capacity. Already in his first interview since his collapse, Maradona had admitted that he was “half dead”. But he warned: “I don’t want to leave this world. I’m going to fight to continue living, since I want to spend my last years with my children.”
They put him on a plane to the exclusive health resort of The prairie, in Cuba, where he could come and go as he pleased and invite as many people as he wanted to his guest house. Before leaving Argentina, accompanied by a team of doctors, his wife Claudia, his parents Diego and Tota, his manager Guillermo Coppola and personal physician Alfredo Cahe, he said that his time in rehabilitation abroad would be three to six months . The treatment ended up being four years in a spa on the Caribbean island, and a last step in 2005 but in another place with a much stricter regime. The quarterer Rodrigo Bueno visited him at his peak of fame and Maradona appeared obviously overweight and with constant changes in his look: his hair was dyed orange yellow and he had a huge Che Guevara tattoo on his right arm. There he got away, but …
Now he was almost alone in the exclusive neighborhood of San Andrés. Only people with significant purchasing power can access these lands, whose only entrance is through Avenida Italia 5208, just a few meters from the Euca Tigre recreation complex, and where the value of the square meter ranges between 2000 and 3000 dollars. A few meters from there lives Gianinna Maradona, the person who became the family leader in this crusade to recover her father. Diego and Claudia Villafañe’s youngest daughter spent several nights at the Olivos clinic.
With Doña Tota. Dalma Salvadora Franco was one of the great affections in Diego’s life. Missing her was one of the reasons for his last depressing days. Photo: Clarín Archive.
Isolated at his home in Brandsen (Campos de Roca II) and In his only report to an Argentine media, Diego Maradona agreed to answer the questions that this Clarín journalist He sent it through his press officer (Sebastián Sanchi) on the occasion of his birthday. And the Ten talked about football and life … “What I regret most is not having my parents. I always make that wish, one more day with Tota, but I know that from heaven she is proud of me and that she was very happy” she said almost with tears in her eyes.
-Raise the glass for your birthday and I made a wish for all Argentines, I asked him.
-My wish is that this pandemic passes as soon as possible and that my Argentina can move forward. I want all Argentines to be well, we have a beautiful country and I trust that our President will be able to get us out of this moment. It makes me very sad when I see kids who don’t have enough to eat, I know what it’s like to go hungry, I know what it feels like to feel when you don’t eat for several days and that can’t happen in my country. That is my wish, to see the Argentines happy, with work and eating every day.
-Do you feel how people’s faces change when they approach you, see you or touch you?
-I am going to be eternally grateful to the people. Every day they surprise me, what I experienced in this return to Argentine football I will never forget. It exceeded what I could imagine. Because I was outside for a long time and sometimes I wonder if people will still love me, if they will continue to feel the same … When I entered the gymnastics court, the day of the presentation, I felt that love with people is never going to end.
-What excites you about sports and Argentine athletes?
-Everything, I look at everything, I follow any Argentine wherever he is. Wherever the Argentine flag is present I will always be encouraging. When I see the face of an Argentine athlete who wins, it thrills me. The other day I saw Peque (Diego Schwartzman) with Nadal and suffered more than him.
That was Diego. Great with the ball. Smart with your answers. Contradictory to your ideas. Conflictive with those who did not want to be around. But -after almost 40 years of relationship- I can say that it was fiel, honest, and with a heart -the one that this Wednesday said enough- of gold. Bye, Diego.
.
