Diego Maradona

• 1. Introduction

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  Diego Armando Maradona was born on the 30th of October 1960 in a polyclinic hospital in Lanús, Buenos Aires Province, and raised in Villa Fiorito, a shantytown on the southern outskirts of the city. He died on the 25th of November 2020, and in the sixty years between those two dates he became one of the most celebrated and disputed figures in the history of sport. He received his first football as a gift at age three. At age eight, a talent scout spotted him at a local club. By age twelve, he was performing ball-juggling tricks at halftime breaks for Argentinos Juniors first-division crowds, and grown men were asking to see his ID because no child should play like that. Those early glimpses of Maradona contained everything that would follow: the staggering ability, the outsized personality, the controversy, the love poured onto him by people who saw their own struggles reflected in his path from a corrugated shantytown to the centre of the world's most popular sport. How did a boy from Villa Fiorito come to captain Argentina to a World Cup, score the most famous and the most reviled goals in tournament history on the same afternoon, and transform a whole city in southern Italy into something resembling a religious experience? And how did that same man spend decades at war with his own body, his relationships, and the institutions that claimed to govern the game he mastered? Those are the threads this documentary follows.

• 2. The Boy from Villa Fiorito

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  Diego Maradona Senior, known as Chitoro, was born in 1927 and worked at a chemicals factory. His wife, Dalma Salvadora Franco, known as Doña Tota, was born in 1929. Both parents came from the town of Esquina in Corrientes Province, on the banks of the Corriente River, and moved to Buenos Aires in the 1950s. Their son Diego was the first boy after four daughters, and he would be followed by two younger brothers, Hugo and Raúl, both of whom also became professional footballers. The family's Indigenous and Galician roots on his father's side and Italian and Croatian roots on his mother's side placed Maradona at a crossroads of migration that was typical of mid-century Argentina. Villa Fiorito, where Diego grew up, was not a neighbourhood of comfort. It was a shantytown on the urban fringe, a place of improvised housing and scarce resources, and it shaped Maradona's self-image for the rest of his life. His footballing heroes as a boy were the Brazilian playmaker Rivellino and Manchester United winger George Best. In March 1969, a close friend and football rival named Gregorio Carrizo, who had already been selected, recommended Maradona to Los Cebollitas, the junior team of Argentinos Juniors. The coach who made that selection was Francis Gregorio Cornejo. Maradona arrived for trials and the coaching staff were so convinced he was older than he claimed that they asked him for his ID card. When they confirmed he was telling the truth, they committed themselves to him entirely. Between 1973 and 1974, the young Maradona led Cebollitas to two Evita Tournament wins and an undefeated run of 141 consecutive games, playing alongside Adrian Domenech and Claudio Rodríguez in what is regarded as the finest youth team in Argentine football history.

• 3. A Professional Before Sixteen

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  On the 20th of October 1976, ten days before his sixteenth birthday, Maradona made his professional debut for Argentinos Juniors against Talleres de Córdoba wearing the number 16 jersey, becoming the youngest player in the history of the Argentine Primera División. A few minutes in, he nutmegged a defender named Juan Domingo Cabrera. Cabrera recalled it thirty years later: he went to press Maradona, Maradona didn't give him a chance, made the nutmeg, and when Cabrera turned around, the boy was far away. After the match Maradona said, "That day I felt I had held the sky in my hands." His first professional goal came on the 14th of November 1976 against San Lorenzo, two weeks after his sixteenth birthday, and he scored twice in that game. By the 1978 season he had scored 26 goals in 35 matches, and the whole of South American football had noticed. Despite this, coach César Luis Menotti left him off the Argentina squad for the 1978 World Cup on home soil, feeling Maradona was too young at seventeen. Two days after being dropped, Maradona scored twice in a victory. The rejection did nothing to slow him down. In 1979 he scored 26 goals in 26 games and finished top scorer in both the Metropolitan and Nacional tournaments. In 1980 he scored 43 goals in 45 appearances and was top scorer in four consecutive tournaments. By the time he left Argentinos Juniors in February 1981, he had scored 115 goals in 167 appearances across five seasons. His transfer to Boca Juniors cost US$4 million. On the 10th of April 1981, in his first Superclásico against River Plate at La Bombonera, he scored after dribbling past Alberto Tarantini and goalkeeper Ubaldo Fillol, and Boca won 3-0.

• 4. Two Worlds at Barcelona and Napoli

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  After the 1982 World Cup, Barcelona paid a then world record fee of £5 million to sign Maradona. Under coach César Luis Menotti, the club won two trophies that season, the Copa del Rey and the Copa de la Liga, both against Real Madrid. On the 26th of June 1983, Maradona scored at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu and became the first Barcelona player to receive applause from Real Madrid fans. He dribbled past goalkeeper Agustín, paused as a defender slid into the post, then slotted the ball into the net. Only Ronaldinho in November 2005 and Andrés Iniesta in November 2015 have since received a similar reception from Madrid fans at that ground. Injury and controversy defined the rest of his Barcelona tenure. A broken ankle in September 1983 caused by a tackle from Athletic Bilbao's Andoni Goikoetxea, nicknamed the Butcher of Bilbao, threatened his career. A violent brawl at the 1984 Copa del Rey Final, played in front of the Spanish King Juan Carlos and a stadium of 100,000 fans with more than half of Spain watching on television, left sixty people injured and effectively ended his time at the club. A Barcelona executive said afterward that he had realized they could not go further with Maradona. During two injury-hit seasons, he scored 38 goals in 58 games. He then moved to Napoli for another world record fee of £6.9 million. On the 5th of July 1984, Maradona arrived in Naples and was presented to 75,000 fans at the Stadio San Paolo. Sports writer David Goldblatt described the response: the fans were convinced the saviour had arrived. A local newspaper captured the feeling in extravagant terms, writing that despite the lack of a mayor, houses, schools, buses, employment and sanitation, none of it mattered because they had Maradona. The city was southern Italy. Prior to his arrival, no team from south of Rome had ever won Italy's top league, which was dominated by Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Roma. Maradona inherited the captain's armband from veteran defender Giuseppe Bruscolotti and in 1986-87 led Napoli to their first ever Serie A title. The celebrations ran around the clock for more than a week. Mock funerals were held for Juventus and Milan in the streets. Murals of Maradona appeared on the city's ancient buildings, and newborn children were named after him. Napoli completed a double that year, winning the Coppa Italia against Atalanta. Maradona scored seven goals in ten matches during that campaign, including a brace against SPAL. Napoli won a second league title in 1989-90 and the UEFA Cup in 1988-89, beating Stuttgart in the final. Maradona was the Serie A top scorer in 1987-88 with 15 goals and Napoli's all-time leading goalscorer with 115 goals until Marek Hamšík surpassed him in 2017. AC Milan's central defender Franco Baresi, when asked who was the toughest opponent he had faced, named Maradona, a view his Milan teammate Paolo Maldini shared.

• 5. The Hand of God and the Goal of the Century

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  At the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on the 22nd of June 1986, Argentina and England met in the quarter-final of the World Cup. The match was played against the backdrop of the Falklands War between the two countries. In the 51st minute, Maradona punched the ball into the net with his left hand and the goal was not penalized. He described it afterward as scored "a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God," and that phrase became the name by which the goal is known. On the 22nd of August 2005, on his television show, Maradona acknowledged that he had struck the ball with his hand deliberately, that no contact with his head was made, and that he knew immediately the goal was illegitimate. The England players' wrath was still in the air four minutes later when Maradona received the ball in his own half. What followed was eleven touches and more than half the length of the field covered at speed, dribbling past five English outfield players in sequence: Peter Beardsley, Steve Hodge, Peter Reid, Terry Butcher and Terry Fenwick. He left goalkeeper Peter Shilton on the ground with a feint and slotted the ball into the net. Not once during the run did he use his right foot, despite being on the right side of the pitch throughout. In a 2002 online poll conducted by FIFA, this goal was voted Goal of the Century. England striker Gary Lineker, reflecting on that goal, stated, "When Diego scored that second goal against us, I felt like applauding. It was impossible to score such a beautiful goal. He's the greatest player of all time, by a long way. A genuine phenomenon." The French newspaper L'Equipe described Maradona after those two goals as "half-angel, half-devil". That same tournament, Maradona attempted a tournament-best 90 dribbles, three times more than any other player, and was fouled a record 53 times. He scored or assisted ten of Argentina's 14 goals, a 71% share. Argentina beat West Germany 3-2 in the final in front of 115,000 fans at the Azteca, with Maradona providing the final pass to Jorge Burruchaga for the winning goal in the 84th minute. Azteca Stadium authorities later built a statue of him scoring the Goal of the Century and placed it at the entrance.

• 6. The Body Against Itself

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  From the mid-1980s until 2004, Maradona was addicted to cocaine. He allegedly began using the drug in Barcelona in 1983. By his Napoli years, the addiction was fully established and disrupting his ability to play. He received US$70,000 in fines from the club for missing games and training, ostensibly attributed to stress. He was banned from football in 1991 after failing a drug test, and again in 1994 at the World Cup in the United States, where he tested positive for ephedrine and was sent home after just two matches. After leaving Napoli under a ban, he moved to Sevilla for a year, then played for Newell's Old Boys in 1993 and returned to Boca Juniors in 1995 for a two-year stint. His weight fluctuated severely. At one point he weighed 280 lb. He underwent gastric bypass surgery on the 6th of March 2005, in a clinic in Cartagena, Colombia. His training regime as described in a 2019 documentary was structured around a match on Sunday, going out until Wednesday, and returning to the gym on Thursday. The film's director, Asif Kapadia, observed that Maradona had a metabolism that allowed him to look completely out of shape and then shed it through intensive training before a game. Maradona also employed a personal fitness coach, Fernando Signorini, who combined physical conditioning with psychological support and philosophical conversation, a practice Kapadia noted as unusual and ahead of its time for a footballer. On the 29th of March 2007, Maradona was admitted to hospital in Buenos Aires, treated for hepatitis and alcohol-related effects, discharged and readmitted, and eventually transferred to a psychiatric clinic. Three false reports of his death circulated within a single month during that period. His mother, Dalma, died on the 19th of November 2011 at age 81. His father, Don Diego, died on the 25th of June 2015 at age 87. Maradona was in Dubai when his mother died and tried to fly back in time but did not make it.

• 7. Manager, Icon, Controversy

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  On the 29th of October 2008, the Argentine Football Association confirmed Maradona as head coach of the national team. His first match in charge was a 1-0 win over Scotland at Hampden Park in Glasgow on the 19th of November. He oversaw a 6-1 defeat to Bolivia that equalled Argentina's worst ever margin of defeat, and with two qualifying matches remaining, Argentina sat fifth and faced missing the 2010 World Cup entirely. They won both matches and qualified. At the post-match press conference, Maradona addressed journalists with language that prompted FIFA to impose a two-month ban on all footballing activity and a fine of CHF 25,000. At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Argentina won their group and beat Mexico 3-1 in the second round before losing 4-0 to Germany in the quarter-finals. Shortly after, the AFA announced by unanimous vote that his contract would not be renewed. Maradona claimed publicly that AFA president Julio Grondona and Carlos Bilardo had lied to and effectively sacked him. His club management career ranged across several countries. He took charge of Dorados, a Mexican second-division club, in September 2018 and made his debut in a 4-1 victory over Cafetaleros de Tapachula on the 17th of that month. He resigned from Dorados in June 2019 citing health reasons. On the 5th of September 2019, he was appointed head coach of Gimnasia de La Plata in the Argentine Primera División. He resigned after two months, rejoined two days later after describing political unity within the club, then spent weeks negotiating over the re-election of club president Gabriel Pellegrino, who was ultimately re-elected to a three-year term on the 15th of December. Maradona was still in post at Gimnasia de La Plata when he died in November 2020. Nine days after his death, Napoli renamed their home stadium the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. In 2000, Maradona published his autobiography Yo Soy El Diego, which became a bestseller in Argentina. He won the FIFA Player of the Century internet poll with 53.6% of the vote, a margin that prompted FIFA to add a second award decided by a football journalists' committee and give the same title jointly to Pelé. In August 2024, the AIPS voted Maradona the second best footballer of the past hundred years, behind Pelé.