Diego Maradona. Brief review of his life
ByLeonardo Nicolas Rando
Diego Armando Maradona died yesterday at 60 years after suffering a cardiorespiratory arrest at Tigre's house where he was recovering after his head operation for a subdural hematoma. The greatest soccer player of all time left. Today thousands of people come every hour to say goodbye and say goodbye.
The greatest player of all time of the most popular sport on planet earth has died. A very hard blow for everyone who vibrated, got excited, cried and was happy, even for a moment watching Diego Armando Maradona play.
“In a pasture he forged an immortal left foot…”
From his first games in Argentinos Juniors to the 16 years you could see its quality. a unique player. His own brother Hugo in a report defined him better than anyone when asked if he planned to play like his brother"My brother is a Martian, You can't argue". His first steps in the national team were with the sub 20 directed by Menotti and the memory of many Argentines who got up at dawn to see that team, but mostly to him, who was champion in Japan after defeating the Soviet Union by 3 a 1 in the end.
5 years after doing it in Argentinos Juniors, debuted in Boca Juniors, where he played little, just one year, but it was enough to be one of the top idols of the club. His goal in the classic 3 a 0 River in the Bombonera dragging Filliol along the ground, It will be one of the eternal images of the xeneizes fans.
In the year 82 he would be sold to Barcelona where he spent perhaps his worst two years of his career. with injuries, being criticized, in the middle a disastrous participation in the World Cup in Spain where he would be expelled in the match with Brazil. for those hard times, would start his relationship with drugs, that hurt him so much.
He 5 July 1984, Diego was presented before 70 thousand people in the former San Paolo Stadium that is now about to be renamed under his name, sweatshirt dress and sneakers, was acclaimed by the Neapolitan people in the antechamber of what would be an eternal love, perhaps the strongest between a city and a soccer player. Juice 7 years getting titles of all kinds and color, Scudetto of Italy, Italian Cup, UEFA Cup.
eternal glory
In the middle of his stay in Italy he would achieve the most important achievement of his career as a soccer player in the World Cup in Mexico 86 consecrating himself champion with a very important participation in the entire tournament, but especially in the quarter-final match against England. in the span of 4 minutes he converted the most controversial goal and the greatest of all time. of the famous"God's hand" in the minute 51, to the 10 most frantic seconds in football history after Enrique's pass in the middle of the field until his clenched fist on the side to sentence the 2 a 0 in the minute 55 party. Malvinas revenge? I prefer the fragment of a story by Alejandro Apo that perfectly describes the moment: "and you do well to look at the sky, because I don't know if you know, but there they are all. All those who cannot watch it on TV or eat their elbows. because the rush was fine, but it was little. Because their eagerness was too great. So it was left to humiliate them for good and immortalize themselves for each occasion in which that goal would be seen again and again and forever in every corner of the world ”[1]. He 29 June after 3 a 2 To Germany, Argentina would lift its second world cup at the hands of a brilliant Maradona.
in the world of 1990 played as he could, with a swollen ankle he showed moments of good football, the most remembered would be the pass to Caniggia for the definition against Tafarell and the pass to the quarterfinals leaving out nothing more and nothing less than Brazil. His enmity with northern Italy was seen on his lips, although it was not heard, We also found out what he was saying to him in the face of the whistles and insults that flooded the Argentine anthem prior to the final.
An end to the tumbles, of a successful career
In the year 92 He would have a brief stint at Sevilla in Spain where he was directed by Carlos Salvador Bilardo, a coach with whom he won everything in the national team.. In 1993 decides to return to Argentine soccer wearing the Newells Old Boys shirt, he played only 5 matches and did not score any goals. He entered a standstill until Argentina lost 5 a 0 at home against Colombia and Basile, the coach of the national team at that time, He asked him to play the playoff against Australia to qualify for the US World Cup. Argentina managed to pass that instance with their participation and Diego decided to train to get to the World Cup in the best way. The rest is known history. A great performance against Greece with a goal celebrated in front of the camera, the victory against Nigeria and the last image of Diego Maradona with the light blue and white. Sue Ellen Carpenter, She is the nurse who entered the Boston Foxboro playing field to look for him to carry out the anti-doping control and to be remembered for that image. Then the positive doping for ephedrine and he“they cut off my legs” that hurt millions of Argentines. Finally, in the year 96 and after having served the sanction, he played some games in Boca to retire permanently from football on 25 October 1997 after victory 2 a 1 before River in the monumental, days before turning 37 years.
a sad ending
His most critical moment occurred in the 2000, two years after his retirement, when a cocaine overdose led to a heart attack in January of that year while on vacation in Uruguay. The doctors later detected a severe heart disease and he went to Cuba to be admitted to a clinic for months for an extensive rehabilitation process.. He 10 November 2001 He held his farewell match against 65 thousand people in the field of Boca with soccer figures. That day he immortalized the famous phrase"I made a mistake and paid, but the ball does not stain", putting his love for football before anything else.
In 2004 he relapsed into his addiction and suffered a severe cardiorespiratory crisis. First, he spent a week and a half in a hospital in Buenos Aires and then returned to Cuba for another prolonged hospitalization.. In 2005, underwent a successful gastric bypass in Colombia, an operation that made it possible to reduce the size of his stomach. Maradona's most recent problems had to do with the severe osteoarthritis that he suffers in both knees and that in recent times has prevented him from walking well.
His life and contradictions
In the midst of these problems, he distanced himself from his daughters Dalma and Giannina, He separated from his wife Claudia Villafañe and surrounded himself with an environment that loved him more for the Maradona product than for the person or the footballer. So after his time with the Argentine team as coach in 2010 He went to direct the United Arab Emirates and Mexico as businesses to be explored by that environment. He 5 September 2019 decided to lead Gimnasia de la Plata, A year later, in the match against the Board of Trustees in the return of post-pandemic Argentine soccer, on the day of his birthday, an image of Diego was seen in a very deteriorated state..
In the first days of November he underwent surgery to present a chronic subdural hematoma on the left side of his head and finally passed away this Wednesday. 25 of November, due to cardiorespiratory arrest.
In their life, off the pitch, has had sometimes reprehensible behaviors, contradictory with daughters and sons, macho actions with partners and ex-partners, even abuse of power with young people. How a large part of society reproduced the practices that reached it in this system that educates millions in the worst of patriarchy. on another plane, its various and just confrontations with the power of FIFA and the political power of the country, for example, under macrismo, they were not always a coherent line. At other times he also had friendly relations with part of the worst of the power of the day, among others with Menem and other hierarchs of the old PJ, evidencing there political inconsistencies, as a by-product of who gets to the top and doesn't always know how to be on the right side. That is why it is not in his personal and political decisions where he is admired, there are questionable things, but inside the field. In other matters he was supportive, part of the fight against the FTAA in 2005, I support some social struggles, to retirees, human rights organizations and even with Palestine and Cuba. all these actions, good and other bad, they are also part of your life, huge and contradictory, and respectfully deserve an in-depth analysis that exceeds this text. What is certain is that, before his death, we don't need to deify him or make him perfect. He was a human being with many contradictions and problems on his back.. To deny it is to deny reality.
Thousands and thousands here and in other parts of the world, they cry to Maradona, and many have already been going to Plaza de Mayo for hours to say goodbye. They will remember his sporting exploits and the enormous joys that he made us feel in this plane. Others and others will perhaps reflect on some deeper issues of their entire lives. But surely we will not forget that in his, in the wonderful football we love, he was the best of all time, the one who gave us immense joys. Goodbye to Diego.
