Diego Armando Maradona was an Argentine football player and coach, very famous around the world. Of course, it´s one of the most famous figures in the world. As a player, he served as an attacking midfielder or forward, and is recognized as The Best Player of All Time by lovers of good football and by numerous specialists, ex-footballers and international personalities as “one of the best footballers in history ”. He has also been cataloged by some media as the“ best player in the history of the World Cup ”, of which he was designated as the best player in its 1986 edition.
For his legendary figure in the sport, that earned him the nicknames Pibe de Oro and D10S, as well as for his extravagant, temperamental and charismatic personality. Maradona is considered one of the figures historical figures of the Argentine Republic, and one of its greatest representatives in the rest of the world. Likewise, his person has been the subject of the most varied references in Argentine and Neapolitan popular culture
Diego Maradona: The origins
Maradona was born on October 30, 1960 in the Evita hospital, in Lanús Oeste, circumstantially. He was the fifth of eight children, and the first boy, of the marriage between Diego Maradona (1927-2015) and Dalma Salvadora “Tota” Franco (1930-2011). His brothers Raúl and Hugo were also footballers. His family, originally from Esquina, province of Corrientes, was settled in Villa Fiorito, Lomas de Zamora district, a town located in the first cordon of the southern area of the Buenos Aires suburbs. His ancestry is Galician, Andalusian and Croatian.
From the first moments he played ball, he leaned into attacking soccer practice. Although he developed his game in a pasture in Fiorito called “Las Siete Canchitas”, his first contact with the world of soccer occurred in 1969, when he made the test to enter the lower divisions of the Argentinos Juniors club. Los Cebollitas was the name of the 1960 class team, created by Francisco Cornejo to play the Evita National Games in 1973 and 1974, since the teams could not be entered under the name of the institution. The team won that tournament and the 8th division championship in 1974, and the squad stayed with Cornejo until they were 14 years old, the age at which Argentinos could sign them into the Argentine Football Association.
This team, which went unbeaten in 136 games, 41 played tournaments not only in Argentina, but in countries such as Peru and Uruguay. On September 28, 1971, when he was only ten years old, he appeared for the first time in the newspaper Clarín. The note said that “there was a kid with bearing and a kind of ‘crack’, although in the note they called him” Caradona “. He also began to be known by the supporters of Argentinos Juniors, since during the halftime of the matches of The First Division entertained them juggling the ball, and due to this ability, he was summoned to one of the highest-rated television programs of the time, “Sabados Circulares” y hosted by Pipo Mancera.
Diego Maradona: a bit of history
Raised in the Villa Fiorito neighborhood, Lanus, Province of Buenos Aires in Argentina, Maradona was signed to the Argentinos Juniors youth divisions, where he spent five seasons, obtaining the record of being the top scorer in the Argentine championship five times in a row. In 1981, he was transferred to Boca Juniors, 24 where he obtained the Metropolitan Championship, his only title in Argentina. After the 1982 World Cup in Spain, Maradona became the first footballer to achieve the record of being the most expensive transfer in the world twice, being transferred to Barcelona for 7.30 million euros, and then to Napoli of Italy for 12 million euros. In Spain, Diego would win three national titles before ending up in Italy in 1984. There, Maradona became one of the most important public figures in Naples, by leading the team to achieve the scudetto in two opportunities (1987, 1990) and the UEFA Cup, the institution’s only international title. After seven seasons as a Neapolitan, in which he finished as the all-time top scorer, Maradona left Italy after obtaining his first positive for doping in the 1990-91 season. In the final stage of his career, he played for Sevilla and Newell’s Old Boys to end up returning to Boca Juniors in 1995 and finishing retiring in 1997.
With the Argentine National Team, Maradona was champion of the 1979 Youth World Cup, and with the majors of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico as team captain, in which he would star in one of the most outstanding individual performances in the history of sport, by scoring the two famous goals that gave victory to his team in the match against England in the quarterfinals, the first of them known as “the hand of God” and the second as the “Goal of the Century”, designated by a FIFA vote as the best in the history of the 20th century World Cups. In Italy 1990, Argentina would almost repeat the same feat, but would end up as runner-up. After three years of absence due to his doping problems, Maradona returned to help in the classification of Argentina for the 1994 World Cup in the United States, a tournament in which Diego would test positive for drugs once he found ephedrine in his samples, being expelled of the competition, which contributed to the subsequent elimination of Argentina in the round of 16. This would be his last participation at the national team level as a player.
“The hand of God” and “the goal of the century”
With the Argentine national team, Maradona had already wore his magic in the team that won the youth world championship in Japan (1979). In the absolute category, Maradona was part of the national teams that participated in four world championships: those of Spain (1982), Mexico (1986), Italy (1990) and the United States (1994). He won the world championship in Mexico (1986) and the runner-up in Italy (1990). In the United States World Cup (1994) he only played two games; after the second, he tested positive for doping and was suspended.
Where his figure shone with greater intensity was undoubtedly in the World Cup in Mexico, when his ability to drag the entire defense of the opposing team with his impressive facility for dribbling and projection left the millions of fans who followed the championship through a shock. from the television. His performance in the quarterfinals was particularly memorable: four years after the Falklands War, the English and the Argentines faced each other in a match of maximum rivalry, which ended with the victory of the Albicelestes by 2 to 1, with two goals from Maradona.
The first of them should have been annulled (Maradona put his fist in a ball that disputed the British goalkeeper), but it is no less famous for that: when asked later if he had scored the goal with his hand, Maradona replied that it had been “the hand of God “, and with that name he went down in history. The second, justly called the goal of the century, was one of his genius hardly surmountable: starting from his own field, Maradona dribbled, one after another, five English players and the goalkeeper, and scored with a left foot.
Diego Mardona as coach
Professionally, after his retirement he served as a coach, manager of Boca Juniors, sportscaster and television presenter. Despite the numerous scandals and controversies that he starred in during and after his sports career, Maradona continued to be idolized in his country. El Pelusa knew how to excite football lovers and earned a place in the history of this sport. The song composed by Fito Páez (Give joy to my heart) and the tango Mago Diego, by Enrique Bugatti, are some of the tributes that his compatriots dedicated to him.
In 2008 he was appointed technical director of the Argentine soccer team, and his management, as expected, was controversial: despite having figures of the stature of Leo Messi, whom he recognized as his successor, the Albiceleste team did not exceed the quarter-finals at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. His unsuccessful coaching career continued in the United Arab Emirates, Belarus, Mexico and finally in his native Argentina; He was a coach of Gimnasia La Plata when, at the age of 60, he died due to a sudden deterioration in his delicate health.
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