Diego Armando Maradona: Gone but Never Forgotten..

 

“The most important characters in mythology were (the Greek gods) Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo represented reason and Dionysus represented emotion.

Those who knew Maradona understand that he was the worst of Apollo, but the best of Dionysus.” ~ Luciano de Crescenzo.

Diego Armando Maradona, born on October 30th,1960, was a kid from Lanus, a small town of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The fifth of eight children raised by Diego Sr. and Doña Tota, Maradona grew up in a poor but a joint household. He received his first football as a gift at the age of 3 and quickly became devoted to the game.

At the age of 10, Maradona joined the academy team of Argentinos Juniors, Los Cebollitas, where Diego led Los Cebollitas to an incredible 136 game unbeaten streak. He made his professional debut for the senior team shortly before he turned 16. A precocious talent, Maradona was given the nickname “El Pibe de Oro” (“The Golden Kid”), a name that stuck with him throughout his career.

It was when Diego transferred from Argentinos Juniors to Boca Juniors that managers and scouts from all over the world got to know about this young prodigy. Maradona was the first player in football history to set the world record transfer fee twice, first when he transferred to Barcelona for a then-world record £5 million, and second, when he transferred to Napoli for another record fee £6.9 million.

After a prolific season at Boca Juniors, Maradona joined FC Barcelona in 1982 and spent two seasons there. Maradona played a total of 58 (13 coming off the bench) games and scored 38 goals and gave 15 assists, averaging a goal every 1.4 games or 110 minutes.

While Maradona spent the twilight of his playing career in his home country, Boca Juniors and Argentinos Juniors, we could say that statistics wise, his prime career was the time he spent in Serie A side’s Napoli from 1984 to 1991. During his time with the The Parthenopeans, Maradona played 240 games, scored 115 goals and gave 54 assists.

Despite primarily playing in a creative role as an attacking midfielder, Maradona was the all-time leading goal-scorer for Napoli, with 115 goals, until his record was broken by Marek Hamšík in 2017. Diego had also helped Napoli win the only two Serie A titles (1986/87 and 1989/90) they have won ever since the club’s foundation in 1926 till this date.

A visible descend could be seen in his performance when he left Napoli in 1992 to join the Spanish side Sevilla for one season. His goal contributions were fairly less having scored only 7 goals in 30 competitions. He finally returned to his home country in 1995 and played for Boca Juniors one last time before retiring from the sport in 1997.

The pinnacle of his career came as a member of the Argentinean national team that won the 1986 World Cup. His performance there included two memorable goals in a quarter-final victory over England. The first was scored illegally with his left hand, which Maradona later claimed was the work of “the hand of God” and the second required no supernatural help other than an otherworldly ability to dribble past an onslaught of defenders to find the back of the net. Altogether, Maradona played in four World Cups, and scored an impressive 34 goals in 91 international appearances for Argentina.

Although he is considered to be one of the greatest by almost every fan of the game, they would speak otherwise about his managing career when asked to. He was the manager of the national team of Argentina in 2010 where they lost 4–0 to Germany in the Quarter-Finals. Despite the public disappointments, Maradona remained beloved in Argentina as a native son who rose from humble beginnings to reach the apex of stardom on an international stage.

He has managed teams in Argentina: Deportivo Mandiyu, Gimnasia de La Plata an so on. He even managed a Mexican club named Dorados de Sinaloa, and two UAE clubs called Al-Wasl Fc and Fujairah FC. It’s safe to say that although he did attract an impressive amount of crowd in those areas and increased the fan base of the local teams, he did not win any major trophies with those teams.

Maradona was not only admired by footballers and the fans, but also the players who played other sports. Kobe Bryant considered Maradona to be his role model because of his work ethics. Lewis Hamilton considered Maradona to be the greatest player to have ever touch the football.

Despite his unquestioned brilliance on the pitch, the emotional Maradona became equally well known as a highly controversial figure. He became addicted to cocaine while playing in Spain in the 1980s and received a 15-month suspension after testing positive for the substance in 1991. Maradona endured another high-profile suspension three years later, this time for testing positive for ephedrine during the World Cup. Time and again he was caught doing CBD and other illegal substances on live television.

The problems that plagued Maradona later in his playing career continued after his retirement. He was hospitalized for heart problems in 2000 and 2004, the second time requiring the use of a respirator to breathe properly, and the following year he underwent gastric-bypass surgery.

An internet poll conducted by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association named Maradona the top player of the 20th century, but even that event was marked by controversy. Maradona chafed when a special panel was created to ensure that Pelé would be jointly honored, and then refused to share the stage with the Brazilian legend.

Sadly Maradona, who was recovering from emergency brain surgery, passed away in his Argentinian home from a heart attack on November 25, 2020. He was 60. As the news of his death struck the social media, football players and clubs from all over the world paid their respect and condolences to him and his family, once showing to the world that football itself is more than just a game and he himself was bigger than football.

Diego may not be with us anymore but he is immortal in the world of football and even though he’s left the living legends of the game, he has gone up there and joined the other eternal legends.