Rome (AFP)

Argentina's Diego Maradona Junior has always had it in his blood and heart.

In the name of his father and the "joy" he transmitted, he has now also espoused its citizenship and fighting, supporting the campaign to find the babies missing under the dictatorship.

Neapolitan he remains, of course.

"I have always lived in Naples, the Neapolitan always thinks differently from the Italian", launches the son of Diego Armando Maradona, aged 34, met by AFP on Thursday at the Argentine consulate in Rome after receiving nationality Argentina.

But he was already Argentinian a little, "because my father has always transmitted to us this great love for Argentina, his people".

"I am totally grateful to him. It was a pleasure to see him talk about the country, the people, the politics," he explains in Spanish with an Argentinian accent.

Diego Junior, who looks so much like his father with his charming smile, his jovial face and his earring, was born in 1986, when the brilliant N.10 was in the heyday of Napoli, from an extramarital relationship with the Italian Cristina Sinagra.

It took 29 years for Maradona, who died on November 25 at the age of 60 of a heart problem, to officially recognize it.

- Stadium?

"Pride" -

Sports journalist and football coach Diego Armando Maradona Sinagra, 34, officially expressed his wish to acquire his father's nationality.

A possibility offered by Argentine law for Argentinian children born abroad.

“My father was always that person who was able to bring joy to people. Not just on a pitch. He had a charisma that left you speechless. Sometimes you would sit next to him and froze, like if he was the greatest of all ", describes the son, invited to tell" his "Maradona, four months after the death of the star.

"He was sometimes described in the press as a monster. He was not like that. When we were with the family, we were very happy, he liked to make jokes, we laughed a lot", continues the son.

"Today, it is very difficult to find, even among the greatest footballers, someone who transmits this joy", adds the one who could not go to Argentina for the funeral because he suffers from Covid-19.

His "pride" is also to see his name now inscribed on the pediment of the Naples stadium: "I am almost 35 years old, I have been going to this stadium for 31 years! My children and my children's children are going to see Naples at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium ... "

- "Identity is a right" -

The Naples club which has also adopted, for certain matches, an "Argentinian" jersey with the famous blue and white stripes.

"Di Lorenzo (Napoli defender, editor's note) gave it to me, it's one of the jerseys that will always hold me most dear."

From Argentina, Diego Junior also chose to take on the battles, as the citizen he is now: he supports the international campaign to find the babies who disappeared under the dictatorship (1976-1983).

Some 500 girls and boys were taken from their parents and grown up under a different identity.

Some have been identified, thanks to genetic tests, but some 350 remain to be found, who may have grown up outside Argentina.

This campaign, launched on social networks, aims to encourage people - aged between 40 and 45 years old - who have doubts about their origin to contact the Argentine authorities.

"I believe that identity is a right. I fought a lot for that, although in a different way," said Maradona Junior, father of two young children.

"It is clear that by supporting the political campaign of the government (Argentinian, center-left, editor's note), I support their political ideas", recognizes this man of "left, and even more".

Who, like his father, tattooed the portrait of Che Guevara on his arm.

© 2021 AFP