The flamboyant footballer waved the final goodbye
It has been proved once again that the year 2020 is really the most sinister one. The world experienced another shock yesterday on November 25, 2020, with the death of Diego Armando Maradona.
The messiah of millions of football lovers across the world expired at his own home at Tigre, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The veteran footballer passed away at the age of 60, and the attending doctors confirmed that the legend succumbed to massive cardiac failure.
As confirmed by Leopoldo Luque, the personal neurologist of Diego Maradona, the footballer had a blood clot in the brain after he met with an accident. Hence, he had shortly undergone brain surgery.
The millions of fans of Diego Maradona have got incredibly grief-stricken because the news came not less than a month after the legend celebrated his 60th birthday on October 30. Since he came into contact with a person with COVID positive symptoms, Maradona was in his home quarantine near his elder daughters' residence after his birthday celebration.
Diego Armando Maradona, the name that creates doldrums in the football fraternity of the world, made his debut through club football with Argentinos Juniors in 1976 against Talleres de Cordoba. He was less than sixteen years old during that time. With this initial appearance, Maradona became the youngest player ever in the history of Argentine Primera División.
In the match, Diego Maradona attracted the attention of thousands of onlookers with the history making nutmeg strategy while tackling the ball with Juan Domingo Cabrera.
In international football, Maradona played as a striker for Argentina from 1977 to 1994. The greatest footballer of all times, as he was popularly known, played in the classic number 10 jersey for Argentina.
Diego Maradona played in four FIFA World Cups, with the 1986 World Cup being the most significant in his career. He captained his team Argentina and won over West Germany at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City by making two winning goals. One of the goals became famous as ‘Hand of God.’ The other goal of the same match was identified by FIFA.com voters as "Goal of the Century” in 2002. This World Cup of 1986 made Maradona the best player of the Tournament, and he was rewarded with the prestigious 'Golden Ball'.
His career brought Diego Maradona many prestigious awards and acclamations, including Top Goal Scorer of the Metropolitan League with Argentinos Juniors in 1978-80, "Olimpia de gold" in 1979-80, and "Olimpia de plata" in 1988, 1993 and 1998. He was also felicitated as Best Soccer Player of the Century in 2000 by FIFA Internet voting.
Besides international football, Maradona also participated in club football through clubs like Boca Juniors, Barcelona, Napoli, Newells Old Boys, Sevilla and Argentinos Juniors. He has created a further mark in the history of football for charging transfer fee between clubs two times. During his first time transfer to Barcelona, he took a record fee of £5 million. In the second time transfer to Napoli , Maradona again charged a whooping fee of £6.9 million.
Throughout his career as an active footballer, Maradona made 91 appearances in international tournaments from 1977 to 1994. These include Copa America tournaments, Friendlies, FIFA World Cup tournaments and FIFA World Cup qualification.
The football Messiah scored 34 goals in his career, and is counted as the 5th highest goal scorer of Argentina. From 2008 onwards, Diego Maradona became the coach for the national football teams from Argentina, Mexico and UAE. From 2019 till his demise, Maradona was the coach of club Gimnasia de La Plata of Argentina.
The people of Argentina consider Diego Maradona 'El Dios' in their colloquial tongue, which means ‘The God.’ Perhaps, it will be better said that he was the God of all the football lovers of the world who have grown up loving and looking up to Argentina as their favourite football team.
Diego Armando Maradona is among those people who leave strong presence in the memories of people that transcend their death.
By
Apara Bhattacharya