This is how the Maradoniana Church prepares for the first Christmas after Diego’s death

A new Christmas for Maradona fans is just around the corner. It will be Diego’s first birthday since his death. All the devotees of the Ten will congregate in a new mass of the Maradoniana Church concentrated in Rosario, but with thousands of subsidiaries both in Argentina and the rest of the planet.

November 25, 2020 will be remembered as one of the gloomiest days for anyone attached to football. The religion, which accumulates approximately 170,000 members on Facebook, is preparing to return to the presence in the most important ritual of the year and emotions will not be lacking when it comes to honoring Diego for the first time since his departure. Alejandro Veron, one of the founders, chatted with Infobae and he was excited to think about what the ceremony of what would have been the popular idol’s 61st birthday will be like.

– How does the Maradoniana Church live the previous one of this so special festivity?

– It is a special year and it is tough. There is not a day that I do not cry. A lot of sensations and emotions are mixed with you. It is like that we do not finish falling the token. One to Diego in life showed so much love and it is good to see everything new and beautiful that appears every day. Although there are people who want to link Maradona to quilombos, problems and others, what has been ours for 20 years has been pure love. We showed it to him in life, he even thanked it and there are even guys that I don’t even know who tell us: ‘Crazy, here Catholics celebrate Christmas every December 25 when 2,000 years ago Jesus died. How can we not celebrate the first Christmas without Diego? ‘ There we decided to commemorate the birth of Diego, once again “.

– What is the Maradonian Church for someone who is not familiar with religion?

– It is the largest movement in honor of Maradona in the world, who believes that Diego was and will be the best player in the history of football. That he has been honoring him since 2001 and that we do not make fun of the Catholic Church, because the referents are Roman Apostolics. We have two gods: one of the heart and the other of reason. One is Christ and the other is Diego. We do not take religion for the fuck, this is folklore, it is something very Argentine and pure logic. If we say that soccer is a religion for Argentines, God is Diego.

As is customary, this October 29 from 9:00 p.m., Rosario will host the Mass of the Holy See after a year of absence. The place chosen on this occasion is called Místico Plank (Italy at 2940) and the detail that cannot be missing is a soccer field to perform the ceremony that those who seek to join in an official way want to perform so much. “There is no entry charge, there is no card, there is nothing. Only prior reservation. Anyone can come. The idea is that there are choripanes for everyone and make a good tribute “Alejandro announced.

– Last year they held the mass through Zoom for the pandemic …

– The last face-to-face baptisms we did were on October 29, 2019. And that night was when Diego was in Rosario, since he directed Gimnasia, which scored four goals against Newell’s. That day we saw Diego and people came from all over to do the Maradonian mass. You try to avoid that word, but I think Diego was ahead of us. Diego now takes care of us from a more mystical place. I would never sin out of pride, but what we feel is pride. Do you know what goes through our heads? That all the tributes are very good, we applaud them all over the world. But we can puff up the chest and say that for 20 years we honor him in life. We don’t expect him to be in the afterlife to say he’s the best ever.

The ceremony, as it was shown Infobae in the 2019 edition, it maintains its format. “To get baptized you have to promise above the Maradonian Bible (the book “I am the Diego of the people” that Ernesto Cherquis Bialo and Daniel Arcucci wrote) that generation after generation you are going to make sure that people know that Diego was and will be the greatest of all time. After swearing, you go to one of the arches and there are three attempts to imitate the Hand of God as best as possible, which is not easy “Verón explained. And he added in comparison to the one carried out by Maradona in 1986: “The other guacho did it with 100,000 people watching, a referee, a linesman and nobody noticed, ha.”

To close, a piece of Neapolitan pizza is delivered along with a short sip of moscato, while next to one of the priests holds the Holy Grail with a ball surrounded by a crown of thorns.

– Since Maradona’s death, has there been an increase in the number of people interested in religion?

– We double the numbers on social networks. From 94,000 we jumped to 168,000, which is almost double. I have no doubt that the figure will continue to rise and not counting the people who adhere in another way, in a different place on the planet with some of the subsidiaries or personally living this special date. This surprises us every day, but it is something good and positive.

When the clock strikes 12 at night, once again the songs in honor of the Ten will be heard both in the streets and in various corners of the planet. “Olé, olé, olé, Diego, Diego” will resound again after a year of absence and there will surely be tears in the eyes of all the devotees when they remember that for the first time, Maradona will be raising a glass of champagne with them from the sky.

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