(BUENOS AIRES, Argentina) – Diego Maradona, the wonderful Argentine footballer who was among the most productive players of all time and who took his country to the 1986 World Cup before then batting for cocaine use and obesity, died at the age of 60.
The Argentine president will claim 3 days of national mourning over Maradona’s death on Wednesday, and the Argentine football arrangement expressed his sadness on Twitter.
Maradona died two weeks after being from a Buenos Aires hospital after brain surgery.
Famous for the purpose of “Hand of God” in which he hit the ball in England’s net in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup, Maradona captivated enthusiasts during a two-decade race with a fascinating taste of play of his own.
Although his reputation was tarnished by his addictions and an unfortunate fate at the helm of the national team, he remained idolized in Argentina crazy by football under the so-called “Golden Boy” or “Golden Boy”.
The number 10 he wore on his shirt has become synonymous with him, as he had done with Pelé, the wonderful Brazilian with which Maradona became the most productive of all time.
Daring, fast and absolutely unpredictable, Maradona was a master at attacking, juggling the ball from one foot to the other as he ran through the field. Dodging and zigzagging with his low half-gravity, he has shrunk the shoulders of countless rivals and scored with a devastating left foot, his ultimate hard weapon.
“Anything that occurred to him in his head, he did with his feet,” said Salvatore Bagni, who played with Maradona at Italian club Napoli.
An inflated waist slowed Maradona’s explosive speed later in his career, and in 1991 he was caught up in his first doping scandal when he admitted to a cocaine habit that haunted him until his retirement in 1997 at age 37.
Hospitalized about to die in 2000 and 2004 from center disorders attributed to cocaine, he then said he had triumphed over the drug problem. Cocaine, he once said, turned out to be his “toughest rival. “
But other fitness disorders followed, despite gastric bypass surgery in 2005 that particularly reduced his weight. Maradona was hospitalized in early 2007 for acute hepatitis, which his doctor attributed to higher intake of alcohol and food.
He made an unlikely return to the national team in 2008 when he appointed him coach of Argentina, but after a 2010 World Cup quarter-final outing in South Africa, he was dismissed and eventually took another training position with UAE club Al Wasl.
Maradona, the fifth of 8 young people to grow up in a deficient and rough community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where he played a type of clay football that propelled many Argentines to foreign fame.
None of them came close to Maradona’s fame. In 2001, FIFA named Maradona one of the two largest in the history of the sport, alongside Pelé.
“Maradona us,” Argentine striker Carlos Tevez said, explaining his country’s fascination with Maradona at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. “He is our idol and an idol to the people. “
Maradona won titles at home and abroad, betting in the early 1980s for Argentinos Juniors and Boca Juniors before moving to Spanish and Italian clubs. His coronation won at the 1986 World Cup, captaining Argentina in his 3–2 win over West Germany in the final. and decisive in the 2–1 win over England in a brave quarter-final match.
During the protests of English goalkeeper Peter Shilton, the referee left a Purpose of Maradona in which, as he admitted years later, he deliberately hit the ball with his hand in “a little malice. “But Maradona’s effect on would not be limited four minutes later, he spectacularly faced four parties at war from midfield to defeat Shilton in what FIFA later declared the biggest goal in World Cup history.
Many Argentines saw the adjustment as an adjustment of their country’s defeat to Britain in the 1982 war opposed to the Falkland Islands, which Argentines still claim as “The Falklands”.
“It’s our way of getting ‘The Falklands’ back,” Maradona wrote in his 2000 autobiography “I’m Diego. “
“It’s more than looking to win a game. We said the game had nothing to do with the war. But we knew that the Argentinians had died there, that they had been killed like birds. And that our vengeance. It’s something bigger than us: we defend our flag.
It is also a justification for Maradona, who, in what he later called “the greatest tragedy” of his career, excluded from the 1978 World Cup team – which Argentina won at home – because he is only 17 years old.
Maradona said he won a football in a while after he could run. “I was 3 years old and I slept grabbing the ball all night,” he says.
At the age of 10, Maradona made a call to himself performing at half-time in professional matches, surprising the crowd by keeping the ball in the air for minutes with his feet, chest and head. He also debuted with the youngsters. Argentine Juniors team, leading a team basically formed by 14 years via 136 matches without defeat.
“To see him play with natural happiness, a true celebrity,” said teammate Carlos Beltrán.
Maradona played from 1976 to 1981 for Argentine Juniors club in the first department, then went to Boca Juniors for a year before travelling to Barcelona for a world record of $8 million.
In 1984, Barcelona sold it to Naples, Italy. He made his almost individual fortune against one, taking him to the 1987 Italian League Championship by his first name in 60 years. A year after wasting the 1990 World Cup final with West Germany. Maradona joined Spanish Seville, but his career is in decline. He played five games for Argentine club Newell’s Old Boys in 1994 before returning to Boca from 1995 to 1997, his last club and the closest to his heart.
The drugs overshadowed his last years of play.
Maradona failed a doping control in 1991 and was suspended for 15 months, recognizing his long addiction to cocaine. He did not pass another doping control for stimulants and was expelled from the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
Retired, Maradona attended Boca matches as a solemn cheering segment and participated in charity, sporting and exhibition events around the world, but the already burly forward temporarily gained weight and obviously gasped when he ruined friendlies.
In 2000, in what doctors described as near death, he was hospitalized in a Uruguayan hotel in Punta del Este with a facility that doctors said pumps less than part of its capacity. Blood and urine samples revealed lines of blood. cocaine.
After some other emergency hospitalization in 2004, Maradona was advised for drug abuse and, in September of that year, went to Cuba to be cared for at the Havana Mental Health Center, where he earned a stopover from his friend, Cuban President Fidel Castro.
In Cuba, Maradona started playing golf and smoking cigars. He praised Castro and the Revolutionary Argentine-born “Che” Guevara, who fought Castro during the Cuban Revolution, even sporting a Guevara Tattoo on his right arm.
Maradona said they got rid of drugs there and a new chapter.
In 2005, he underwent gastric bypass surgery in Colombia, losing nearly 50 kilograms (more than a hundred pounds) before appearing as host of a popular Argentine television show. On the night of the 10th, Maradona went to a dance with Pelé, interviewing boxer Mike. Tyson and Hollywood celebrities, and recorded a long verbal exchange with Castro in Cuba.
In retirement, Maradona has also become more frank. He shot former coaches, players, including Pelé, and the pope. He joined a left-wing open-air protest exercise at the Summit of the Americas in 2005, along with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to denounce the presence of then-President George W. Bush.
His helpless prestige made him even more unexpected when he selected him as coach of Argentina following the resignation of Alfio Basile.
He won his first three matches, however, his tactics, variety and attention to detail were called after a 6–1 World Cup defeat to Bolivia matched Argentina’s worst margin of defeat.
Victor Hugo Morales, Argentina’s top popular football announcer, said Maradona will nevertheless be remembered for an exciting taste of play that has never been replicated.
“He was one of the wonderful artists of my time. As wonderful masters of music and painting, he challenged our intellect and enriched the human spirit,” Morales said. “No one thrilled me anymore and left me as inspired as Diego.