Drugs, sex, mafia, fraud: The late Diego Maradona did much to destroy his legend. But his myth shines even brighter because of it. He would have turned 65 today.
Born in bitter poverty in a slum on the outskirts of a metropolis of millions. Blessed with a talent that elevated him to become an idol for a community of millions of followers.
Plunged into a frenzy of sin, addicted to drugs, sex, and excess, used by mafiosi and other dubious figures. Loved, hated, despised, revered.
The story of Diego Armando Maradona sounded like a modern biblical tale. And there are not a few who read it exactly that way.
Maradona was a figure detached from life, long before November 25, 2020, when Maradona died shortly after his 60th birthday. Especially in his homeland Argentina and in Naples, the epicenter of his career.
Maradona was not simply the best footballer of his time and perhaps of all time, world champion, hero, idol. He was, no is: “Dios,” God.
As the fifth of eight children of factory worker Diego Maradona Senior and his wife Dalma, he was born on October 30, 1960, in Lanús, a suburb of Buenos Aires, and grew up in Villa Fiorito, a slum. His early discovered talent as a footballer, developed through constant street kicks, showed him the way to a better life.
At nine, talent scouts from the first division club Argentinos Juniors discovered him; Even in the children’s team and as a ball boy and halftime entertainer, his tricks caused a sensation. He got the nickname “El pibe de oro,” the golden boy, was compared to legends like Zico and Pelé, born just over 20 years before him.
At 15, he debuted with the professionals. After he had matured into a championship director at Boca Juniors, FC Barcelona, with then-coach Udo Lattek, brought him to Europe in 1982 – and also learned the dark side of the 1.65-meter-tall wonder child.
Maradona did not shape Barça as hoped; his two years there were overshadowed by setbacks caused by others and himself: a hepatitis illness, the notorious ankle-breaking foul by Bilbao’s Andoni Goikoetxea – but also, even then, extensive participation in nightlife and constant disputes with club officials.
They drew the line when their spirited star, after losing the 1984 cup final against Bilbao, started a mass brawl on the pitch.
Maradona moved on, to a transfer destination that was surprising even then and today probably unthinkable for a man of his caliber.
SSC Napoli, a relegation candidate in the Italian Serie A before Maradona’s arrival, paid the horrendous record transfer fee of 13.5 billion lire (today’s equivalent about 7 million euros).
75,000 fans in the Stadio San Paolo (today Stadio Diego Armando Maradona) welcomed Maradona like the savior, full of pride that not Rome, not Milan, but the often-mocked southern metropolis of millions in the north of the country attracted him.
Rumors that Mafia money from the local Camorra was involved in the deal were indignantly dismissed by club officials around President Corrado Ferlaino.
Maradona quickly realized how fitting the seemingly unlikely connection was: the golden boy from the ghetto as the celebrated redeemer of the ecstatic masses in the economically hard-hit, fascinating yet shadowy Mediterranean metropolis. Diego was the brilliant friend the city had been waiting for.
At the foot of Vesuvius, Maradona reached his peak: Leading the Neapolitans to the Scudetto in 1987, the long-awaited first championship, meant at least as much to him as the even greater triumph the year before.
At the 1986 World Cup, Maradona was captain of the winning team; Even more than the success in the final against Germany, the quarterfinal against England remained in memory, in which Maradona created two eternal moments.
His goal of the century after a 60-meter solo past six opponents and goalkeeper Peter Shilton epitomized his genius. His handball, glossed over as an intervention of the “Hand of God,” became synonymous with his rogue side.
But even while Maradona was at the zenith of his career, the ground on which he walked began to shake.
The sensitive Maradona began to feel increasingly crushed by the personality cult in Naples over the years, asked for permission to transfer – and when he didn’t get it, he intensified his escape into drugs and extravagant parties.
Between games, Maradona partied for days in the city’s clubs, doped himself with cocaine – and was still good enough to celebrate the second championship with Napoli in 1990 and push with Argentina to the World Cup final once again.
After this time losing the final against Germany, in which Maradona despaired against special marker Guido Buchwald, the abyss opened.
According to polls, Maradona was suddenly the most hated man in Italy. He was resentful for crossing the dream of the title in their own country in the semifinal against Italy – of all places in Naples.
But above all, because before that he made some comments that were understood as an attempt to draw the fans in Naples to Argentina’s side and pit them against the rest of the country.
Possibly, Maradona thus favored the avalanche of revelations that began in the following months: He came under the scrutiny of state investigators, wiretapped phone calls revealed that he had cocaine and prostitutes arranged for him by members of the Camorra, with whom he had befriended.
Maradona often associated with high-ranking clan member Carmine Giuliano; the Mafia figure, who died in 2004, repeatedly used Maradona’s glamor for his shady purposes.
Maradona was also caught once by a doping test, after having slipped through the lax system for years.
The fallen superstar was sentenced to a suspended sentence for drug possession and distribution and banned for 15 months.
He came back again, but no longer as the man he once was: Further doping scandals ended both his national team comeback at the 1994 World Cup and his club career, which had taken him to FC Sevilla, Newell’s Old Boys, and back to Boca Juniors until 1997.
Countless other bitter headlines followed: Maradona was plagued by massive, several times almost fatal health problems, struggled with his drug addiction and his weight, which at times was 130 kilos; his private life was as turbulent as his sporting one.
Maradona fathered eight children recognized by him, only two of them – actress Dalma Maradona and Giannina, the ex-wife of Sergio Agüero – with his longtime wife Claudia Villafañe, from whom he divorced in 2004.
Many tabloid pages were filled by Maradona with the 30-year denial of his firstborn son Diego Jr., who at least became a national beach soccer player. From a rehab stay in Fidel Castro’s Cuba at the beginning of the millennium, three more unplanned projects emerged.
Other prominent entries in Maradona’s scandal chronicle: a sentence to 34 months in prison on probation after he shot at intrusive journalists from his villa with an air rifle in 1994 – and a prison party with Pablo Escobar, the imprisoned drug lord from Colombia, whose cartel was responsible for about 5000 murders.
Doping, cocaine, sex and Mafia affairs: Numerous other fallen stars who have done far less would likely be envious of the mild light in which Maradona is still seen despite everything.
How unbroken the fascination for Maradona remained was shown, among other things, by the hype when he was completely surprisingly appointed Argentina’s national coach in 2008 – in the vain hope that his aura would carry Messi and Co. to the 2010 World Cup victory. Most recently, he was active as a coach at the first division club Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata.
In Naples, his noisy departure had long been forgiven: Maradona became an honorary citizen, his jersey with the iconic number 10 is no longer assigned, and after his death, even the stadium was named after him.
So often his life off the pitch became a partly tragic farce: In Maradona’s case, the dark shadows somehow ensured that the memory of his football art shone even brighter.
“His mistakes diminished what Maradona was,” Rory Smith aptly formulated in the New York Times obituary: “But for those who saw and admired him, they polished what he stood for. That such beauty could emerge from such chaos gave it even more meaning. His darkness sharpened the contours of his light.”
The Maradona myth will shine for a long time to come.