News.Maradona dies
Opinion Diego Armando Maradona, the only true god
Direct: Latest news on Maradona's death
I remember. Maradona's best phrases: "Do you know what player I would have been if I hadn't taken drugs?"
Children dreamed of being
Diego Armando Maradona
and Diego Armando Maradona dreamed of being a child.
"Why don't you hurry things up a bit, Lentil?" He wanted to say to
Luis Cuervas
, president, as soon as he shook his hand that Sunday, June 13, just arrived at the San Pablo Airport in the city of Seville.
That same afternoon, he saw Deportivo de la Coruña beat Sevilla, their new team, 1 to 3, in their own stadium, Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán.
He remembered his debut for Napoli against Verona
.
You
They danced, but how did that stage end ... «
We ended up winning two scudettos
He must have thought.
FIFA was already mediating between Italians and Andalusians so that the Argentine could tie his boots again once and for all after a fifteen-month suspension for doping.
A world.
«
The sweet wait
“As Maradona called it, it lasted a week longer than expected.
On September 22, while having lunch with his eternal
Claudia Villafañe
at the hotel
Andalusí Park
, where he was staying, his representative approached him,
Marcos Franchi: «Kid, you're free
", Told him.
The ten awaited him on the shirt, a blank against Bayern Munich and a debut at La Catedral on October 4, against the
Athletic club
, it would already appear in the eleven of Bilardo.
It was not just any starter.
Barely an embers in the heart.
"You have a visitor," they told him from reception the day before his garter baptism.
He was already concentrated with the team in a hotel in the city of Bilbao.
"Who?" He replied with annoyance.
«
Don Andoni Goikoetxea
»They replied.
They talked about football, about their families, about life.
Nothing from that entrance that broke his ankle in 1983. Nothing from that exit on a stretcher.
Those were good times now.
The Beard - that's how he referred to God, the other God, Diego - was on his side.
Hope was disguised in white and red and had an Andalusian accent.
Ziganda gave the lions victory in San Mamés.
Maradona, who was running like a child, was hardly hurt that afternoon by the kicks of
Lakabeg
.
Blessed strokes. «
Today is a black day
.
The death of the greatest footballer in the history of football.
His legend will remain, but those of us who were lucky enough to share a dressing room with him, we must remember what a good partner he was.
He was like that.
He had his out of tune, like everyone who disrespects them, "says Manuel Jiménez, a former partner of the Argentine, to this newspaper.
«Diego Maradona who arrived at Sevilla had started his decline and was dragging his addiction problems, but he gave the club a bonus.
It made us better known and more competitive.
We had the idol of many of us there
.
Playing alongside him was a dream.
His time at the club was positive, economically and sportingly.
From him and Bilardo we learned the desire to win, that faith in victory. ”Twenty-six games, several months, the occasional controversy later, and with five wonderful goals in memory,
Maradona left Sevilla and Spain as he arrived, with a smile
, with a tender roar, with Villa Fiorito, always Villa Fiorito, splintered in the soul.
After facing El Narigón, as he called Bilardo, after escaping to play for Basile's Argentina, after suffering from an old injury that brought him headaches,
after being chased around town by a detective in a vespino
, after kicking a ball of aluminum foil with a stadium overturned in cries of desire, after filling the notebooks of dozens of journalists with anecdotes, the Sevillian Diego faded away. "That year I had a major injury and spent many months without be able to play.
I trained a lot to recover as soon as possible.
And there he met Diego many times.
After one of those recovery sessions, in the showers,
I see Maradona lamenting, I think crying
.
What's wrong with you, I ask him.
And he tells me: «I have always fought to be an example.
I would rather be less admired, less famous, and find myself well, without so many needs, without so many stories.
I was sunk.
That cursed world had him trapped, ”says Jiménez.
And adds: "
Make no mistake.
Maradona was a beautiful person
.
It was.
Many things will be said today, but I want to make it very clear.
Even the oldest are leaving.
We are all passing through here ».
Even Maradona.
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