RIP DIEGO MARADONA

[manpe 10,861]

On 26/11/2020 at 5:04 PM, NikkiCFC said:

Kusturica made a movie about him. Worth watching.

 

Anybody else find it weird when stuff like this is done only AFTER somebody dies? As if they weren't worthy during their life to give that recognition, but somehow death elevates their contribution of the past.

[Laylabelle 9,361]

Doctor being investigated for possible manslaughter...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-55123188

[Vesper 28,886]

2 hours ago, Laylabelle said:

Doctor being investigated for possible manslaughter...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-55123188

A simple look at the physical shape he was in when he died will tell you that his race was run.

When a man perceived to be a god dies, people need to blame something beyond the god.

Let Maradona rest in peace.

[cosmicway 1,328]

21 hours ago, manpe said:

Anybody else find it weird when stuff like this is done only AFTER somebody dies? As if they weren't worthy during their life to give that recognition, but somehow death elevates their contribution of the past.

We do not erect statues to the living.
I know of one or two occasions but people thought it was kitsch.

 

[OhForAGreavsie 5,895]

On 28/11/2020 at 9:31 AM, cosmicway said:

I don't like the new system and it's not as if with the old system we, CFC, could not build a powerful team if we had the money.
 

I'd be interested to read why you don't like the current system. Is it that it gives too much power to players and agents? I agree that there are good points and bad in the 'new' system but I still prefer it to the old because, in the end, the old system treated players, human beings after all, like indentured servants. Their professional lives pretty much belonged to their employers. If they signed a contract with a club they could never play for another club unless the original club agreed and their compensation demand (transfer fee) was met. That was so even if the contract had expired. The system was absolutely immoral and was always going to fall apart as soon as it faced a proper legal challenge. . 

[cosmicway 1,328]

On 11/30/2020 at 4:27 PM, OhForAGreavsie said:

I'd be interested to read why you don't like the current system. Is it that it gives too much power to players and agents? I agree that there are good points and bad in the 'new' system but I still prefer it to the old because, in the end, the old system treated players, human beings after all, like indentured servants. Their professional lives pretty much belonged to their employers. If they signed a contract with a club they could never play for another club unless the original club agreed and their compensation demand (transfer fee) was met. That was so even if the contract had expired. The system was absolutely immoral and was always going to fall apart as soon as it faced a proper legal challenge. . 

Naah. I never seen any professional footballer of the 60s-70s becoming impoverished.
Nowadays they are gold merchants, ranch owners the size of Arizona and what have you.
But with the Bosman system we see the same and the same teams competing for Europe year after year - it's getting boring,
Also the old system would not affect us and did not stop us from winning a European title and we would have won more if those were not lean years for Brian Mears.

 

[robsblubot 3,508]

On 11/29/2020 at 7:56 AM, Vesper said:

Elias Figueroa was a fucking beast

make him 27 now and he would TOWER above all other CB's, huge gap, (yes including VVD)

yes, he was dominant. As a Gremio supporter, I grew up listening to stories about how Figueroa was unplayable and led (gremio's rival) international to glory. Surprised you've heard of him, cool! 

Rumor has it that he wasn't shy about using his elbows either.

[OhForAGreavsie 5,895]

13 hours ago, cosmicway said:

Naah. I never seen any professional footballer of the 60s-70s becoming impoverished.

I'm afraid you simply don't know what you're talking about. You are very wrong about this. Very, very wrong.

 

13 hours ago, cosmicway said:

Nowadays they are gold merchants, ranch owners the size of Arizona and what have you.

I don't know who you are referring to here but yes, of course, some were financially successful. Most needed to take ordinary, low paying, jobs after their careers. Some in England are supported by welfare grants from the PFA,

 

13 hours ago, cosmicway said:

But with the Bosman system we see the same and the same teams competing for Europe year after year - it's getting boring,

Twas ever thus and trending toward the situation we have now. How do you suppose the super clubs became super?

[Vesper 28,886]

Diego Maradona: Wild tales and untold stories from those who knew him best

https://theathletic.com/2277726/2020/12/22/diego-maradona-untold-stories/

“Tell him to slow down, please!”

The test drive had started out tamely enough. The driver of this brand new, 1979 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 had pulled out cautiously into traffic on Slauson Avenue in Culver City, California, hooking a right and coaxing the vehicle up to speed. On a perfect August day, palm trees and lamp posts slowly rolled by as the salesman made his pitch to the 19-year-old behind the wheel. 

Now, that idyllic scenery has become a blur. The car’s low rumble bursts into a nasty snarl as the driver veers off the main drag and into the neighborhood streets surrounding the dealership.  The teenager smashes the throttle wide open, propelling 4,000 pounds of American muscle to double the speed limit in a matter of seconds. The car hulks and heaves as it flies around corners, tires screeching.

Diego Maradona is on a joyride.

Suddenly less concerned with selling the car than preserving the life of its occupants, the salesman swings his head around and casts a panicked look at the other passengers — two men who’ve jammed themselves into a backseat barely big enough for a child.

“Please! He’s gotta slow down!” 

Andres Cantor can’t help but laugh. Fifteen years before he’d gain fame as the voice of the 1994 World Cup, Cantor is a fresh-faced high school senior who had somehow scored a gig writing for El Gráfico, Argentina’s premier sports publication at the time. For the past week, he’d been shadowing Maradona, the Argentine phenom who was already being heralded as the next Pelé. Ahead of the 1979 FIFA World Youth Championship, Maradona had come to Los Angeles to take part in a series of friendlies with Argentina’s U-20 team.

Now, El Pibe de Oro is behind the wheel of this Camaro, whizzing past pedestrians and parked cars with reckless abandon. All 5’5” of him is planted in a low-slung bucket seat, a shock of black, curly hair and a pair of youthful, exuberant eyes the only things visible over the dashboard. 

“Diego,” Cantor says between fits of laughter, relaying the salesman’s message in Spanish. “Slow down. We’re going to end up all over the newspapers, and not even be here to read about it!”

Maradona dismisses the complaints. The car’s fourth occupant, Maradona’s then-agent, Jorge Cyterszpiler, doesn’t seem too concerned, either. 

“Gordo,” Maradona says to Cantor. “Tell him that if I’m going to buy a Camaro, I’m not going to drive it 30 kilometers an hour! I need to know that this car has some bite.”

For years, Cantor has joyously relayed this story. It’s a tale of youthful indiscretion — a fast car, a lapse in judgment, the type of story you retell countless times with your oldest friends. More recently, Cantor’s memories of Diego Maradona — a person he grew quite close to over the years — feel bittersweet. Less than a month after the death of a man some call football’s greatest-ever player, Cantor is still coping with the loss of a friend.

“There’s so much sadness,” Cantor says. “It invades me.”

The weeks that have followed Maradona’s passing have done little to comfort anybody who knew him. There’s been an ongoing inquiry into his death, adding a layer of confusion — and anger — to the grief. But Diego Maradona lives on in the memories, and in the stories, of those who came to know him. Many of those stories have already been told, but there are others that have been squirreled away in the minds of those who crossed paths with him over the years, waiting to be shared.

---

Nearly a New York Cosmo?

Diego Maradona’s professional career spanned 18 years and covered multiple continents. He tasted glory at Barcelona and Napoli, and played to an adoring public in his native Argentina with Argentinos Juniors, Boca Juniors and, briefly, Newell’s Old Boys. Memories of Maradona are vivid and colorful, with the iconic No. 10 decked out in the varying shades of blue of Argentina, Napoli, Barça and Boca. 

But in 1979, just weeks after thundering down the streets of Culver City in that Camaro, Maradona would very nearly join the most high-profile club in the history of American soccer.

Stephen Jay Ross, the founder and president of the New York Cosmos, had his eyes on Maradona. Ross — a visionary who had shelled out millions to bring the likes of Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto stateside — was looking for his next big thing. His Cosmos were at the peak of their fame and fortune, playing to massive crowds at Giants Stadium and, for once, popularizing soccer in the United States. Ross wanted to push the franchise even further into the ether.

Maradona had already been pegged, by many, as the game’s hottest rising talent. Barcelona, Boca, Juventus and a host of other megaclubs had begun exploring the idea of signing him. Ross’ financial muscle was unprecedented — as the founder and president of Warner Communications, the Cosmos were simply a cog in his global media empire. At the time, few, if any, players were unattainable for his club.

There are varying versions of what follows — something that seems to happen a lot with both the Cosmos and Maradona. The lines between fact and fiction get blurry as memories fade and legends grow.

Charlie Stillitano, now executive chairman of Relevent Sports — a man who has had his hands in American soccer in some form or another for decades — tells one version. As general manager of the NY/NJ MetroStars in Major League Soccer’s inaugural season of 1996, Stillitano hired Eddie Firmani to be his head coach. Firmani, notably, had been the head coach of the Cosmos during their glory years in the late ‘70s, winning a pair of NASL championships in 1977 and 1978.

“Eddie told me this story,” says Stillitano with a chuckle. “And to this day, he says he regrets what happened.”

Steve Ross, as Stillitano tells it, sent Firmani to meet with Maradona at an Argentina youth national team friendly. It was ostensibly a scouting trip, but Ross’ instructions were clear enough.

“Steve Ross gave him a blank checkbook,” says Stillitano. “He told Eddie to go down and buy Diego Armando Maradona. This was before there was real money in the game — don’t forget that Beckenbauer, (Giorgio) Chinaglia, Pele, they made more money (in the U.S., with the Cosmos) than they did in their own countries. People don’t realize that.”

As Stillitano tells it, Firmani got stuck in traffic on his way to the game. He caught only the second half, and wasn’t impressed as he watched Argentina’s opponents mark Maradona out of the game. On Firmani’s return to New York City, he told Cosmos brass that he’d come away more impressed with the defenders assigned to mark Maradona in the game than Maradona himself. 

Now 87 years old, Firmani’s recollection of the event is fuzzier. “I do remember going to see him,” he says, working to bring the memories back to life. “For one reason or another, though, it didn’t work out. I do believe I would’ve liked to have had him.”

A New York Daily News article from the time confirms that Firmani did indeed scout Maradona and meet with him in what the paper describes as a “youth all-star game” in 1978. “Cosmos board members say that Firmani didn’t want to acquire Diego Maradona, the 18-year-old Argentine prodigy acclaimed as ‘the next Pele,’” the report reads. 

Firmani says he felt that the Cosmos board members, including record executives Ahmet and Neshui Ertugan, would often foist a big name upon him with little regard for the dynamics of maybe the most complex locker room in the league: a dozen or so different nationalities melding with a sizable crop of young Americans and older journeyman. 

“I am a very simple guy,” says Firmani. “I like simplicity and I thought it better sometimes not to introduce certain players into the organization. The Ertugan brothers, though, they were sometimes very upset with me about that.”

The Ertugans were indeed furious. Within months of his supposed refusal to sign Maradona, Firmani — at the time the winningest coach in NASL history, and one who’d led the Cosmos to a 9-2 start in 1979 — was sacked. 

Yet Firmani has no regrets about not signing one player or another, be it Maradona or any other name. Firmani didn’t concern himself with gate receipts, or any other chunk of Steve Ross’ massive media empire.

“My little piece was just the soccer team, the Cosmos. It was simple to me. I didn’t think certain players would fit in well.”

Firmani laughs.

“We were already winning everything anyways!”

---

‘The way they adored Diego was unthinkable’

Perhaps more than any other soccer player, Maradona’s shortcomings and wrongdoings have been publicly aired, judged and ridiculed. His addictions to drugs and alcohol were vices that will forever be a part of his troubled legacy. Unlike many of today’s stars, such as Lionel Messi, a player endlessly compared to his World Cup-winning predecessor, who are more closely protected and maintain carefully groomed public images, Maradona’s full self was always on display — something that drew people in as much as it pushed them away.  

“He was imperfect like all of us,” says Cantor. “He was as imperfect as the country and as those that govern today and historically in Argentina. They’ve all had their flaws as people. There is no such thing as a perfect individual. And that’s precisely why we felt so close to (Maradona). In spite of everything, he never hid. He always faced the music.”

As unique as Maradona’s talent on the field was, so too was his ability to form deep bonds with people, whether they knew him personally or just admired him from afar — more so than most other globally renowned athletes.

“Something that I noticed about Diego is that everyone really respected him and truly loved him,” says Gustavo Barros Schelotto, who grew up idolizing Maradona, later becoming his teammate at Boca Juniors and friend in their post-playing careers. “Now, there are probably so many people that didn’t agree with some of Diego’s views, but everyone had an enormous amount of affection for him. We all have a special relationship with him. There are no ex-teammates of his that speak ill of him.”

There were also private deeds that helped those who love him preserve that affection through his many failings. 

“There’s a fantastic story about a father and his daughter who were spotted outside of Argentina’s training facility in Ezeiza (Buenos Aires),” says Univision commentator Luis Omar Tapia. “The man had his daughter in his arms and he asked some policemen who were nearby if they could take his daughter to the hospital. She was very sick. Maradona drove up and he put the man and his daughter in his car — he didn’t know who they were. He drove them to hospital and took care of their medical expenses.”

Maradona also found small ways to make personal connections with his fans. Only in Naples, Italy, is Maradona as beloved as he is in Argentina. The 1980s were Serie A’s golden years. It was the league of stars, and Napoli, a small club in a rugged southern port city, featured the sport’s biggest name. Maradona led Napoli to their first-ever Serie A title and lifted an additional four trophies, including a second Scudetto and a UEFA Cup, during his eight seasons there. Cantor was in Naples when they won their two league titles. 

“I still have never witnessed anything like what I saw at Napoli on those two occasions,” Cantor says. “I’ve never seen anything like the adoration that Neapolitans had for one person. I couldn’t believe it. It was crazy. The way they adored Diego was unthinkable. Diego couldn’t go out on the street.”

After Napoli’s first Serie A triumph in 1986-87, Maradona invited Cantor to a party to celebrate the club’s historic achievement. Maradona and his cortège of friends and family members, including his then wife Claudia Villafañe, his parents and his flamboyant then agent Guillermo Coppola piled into their respective cars and headed toward a mansion on the outskirts of Naples. When they stopped at their first toll booth, Cantor observed a massive outpouring of fanatical reverence akin to when the Beatles arrived in America. 

“There was a caravan of about 30 cars that were following us,” says Cantor. “We had to go through a toll booth, and when they identified Diego, the people going north and people going south shot out of their cars to see him. It created a major traffic jam at the tolls. I remember that Diego waved his hand and said, ‘All those cars back there are with me.’ I don’t know how many cars passed through, but the 30 cars that were with us, plus another 50 drove through. Everyone was in shock that they had seen Maradona up close.”

‘Soccer’s worst nightmare’

Like Maradona, Ben Johnson once entranced the world with his feet.

The Canadian sprinter rocketed to fame at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, posting a then world-record 100-meter time of 9.79 seconds. But instead of cementing his place in history, Johnson had only ensured infamy. Just a day after his record-breaking performance, the sprinter was stripped of his gold medal for failing a doping test. Five years later, he was banned from the sport for life after failing another.

In 1997, though, Johnson had a bit of a lifeline. A court case had opened up the possibility of a comeback. And just a couple of weeks before a judge would potentially reinstate him, Johnson got another ray of hope. 

“I was at home, just doing my regular thing,” Johnson says. “One of my friends works at the Ferrari dealership here in (Toronto), and he told me he’d gotten a call.”

The call had come from a representative of Diego Maradona’s. The man said that Diego was looking for Ben Johnson. So, naturally, he called the local Ferrari dealership. 

Like Johnson, Maradona had his own comeback in mind. He would return to Boca Juniors, a club that he’d spurned only months earlier, to win one final championship. But Maradona was badly out of shape and struggling with a back injury. He wanted to deputize Johnson as his personal trainer.

Within days, Maradona was on a plane to Toronto. It didn’t take long for the two men to form an uncommon bond. A pair of wayward souls, they proved to be a perfect imperfect partnership. 

“In Ben Johnson,” Maradona told an Argentine television station on his arrival in Canada, “I found a friend, a wounded man that needed to channel his anguish, his sporting embarrassment, into someone. And Maradona fell to him. And, since I like a revenge story, I’m giving Ben Johnson a chance. Because he’s a great man.” 

Johnson trained Maradona for two months in Toronto alongside Diego’s younger brother, Lalo, who lived there and played for a local semi-pro team, Toronto Italia, a club Diego himself had played for just a year earlier during a memorable, one-game detour.

“He was about 40 pounds overweight,” Johnson remembers. “I had to get him out of bed at six o’clock in the morning, because he had to lose something like 45 pounds in just eight or nine weeks. We trained twice a day. (Afterwards,) I’d say, ‘Diego, it’s time for you to get some sleep and some rest and eat some food.’ After a while, when I’d call him to see how he was doing, he’d still be training at the hotel on a treadmill. He’d just keep training. He was determined to come back at Boca.”

To Johnson, Maradona’s physical rehabilitation was only part of the program. By 1997, the Argentine’s drug use had moved past the point of disgrace — it had become a running joke, just more fuel for coverage of the fallen superstar that often seemed perverse. A headline from the Canadian press at the time sums up what many thought of Johnson and Maradona’s pairing, calling it “soccer’s worst nightmare.” 

In Johnson’s view, Maradona’s comeback would only be successful if he learned to let go of his past failings.

“I helped him mentally and emotionally to accept what happened,” says Johnson. “There are people who will criticize you, but you can show them you’re greater than before. And that was key — we are (professional athletes, but we are) human beings, too. We have feelings, we have emotions. Sometimes we feel, you know, depressed, or anxious. Diego and I are similar in a way — the way people like Diego and I love other people, we expect people to love us the same way right back. But often people want to just take, take, take and take even more. And that’s not right.”

Johnson grew closest to Maradona when the pair moved their training operation to Argentina, just ahead of the start of Boca’s 1997 season. Maradona’s return to Boca for his swan song was a circus in and of itself. Boca’s coach at the time, Héctor Veira, had a front-row seat. Johnson remembers a scene that played out in the weight room at the club’s training facility. Maradona and Johnson, along with a masseuse and another trainer, had taken the doors off its hinges in order to fit a specialized treadmill into the room. After walking in on the scene in disbelief, Veira groaned and offered up his thoughts.

“Ben Johnson and Diego Maradona?” he asked rhetorically. “The only thing missing right now is Don King.”

It was in Argentina, Johnson says, that he learned the most about Diego Maradona as a person. With delight, he recalls being strapped into the passenger seat of a Porsche 911 Turbo with Maradona behind the wheel. Johnson’s story makes Diego’s earlier joyride in the Camaro look like a calm, Sunday cruise.

“We get in the car and he just pulls off and — my god, man, I was like ‘Diego, please, easy, easy.’” Johnson lets out a belly laugh. “My heart was coming out of my mouth. I was so scared. The corners are pretty wide in Buenos Aires because you have these five, six-lane highways. And Diego, I swear, he’s going like 160 miles per hour around these corners, I’m not exaggerating. For days, Diego made fun of me. If I got worried about something, he’d say ‘Ben, easy, easy.’”

At high speed, Maradona took Johnson to his parents’ house in the countryside outside of Buenos Aires. With Maradona’s father behind the grill and his mother at her son’s side, the two enjoyed a barbecue with the entire family. Maradona famously grew up in the slums of Villa Fiorito, escaping abject poverty and pulling his family out of it, as well. Johnson had spent the first 14 years of his life in a tiny Jamaican town and, like Maradona, formed a very close relationship with his mother, who brought him to Toronto as a teenager in search of a better life.

“I came from a small town with only 10,000 people,” says Johnson. “And meeting his parents, his mother and father, it was like meeting my own mother back again. Because we have the same similar background, the same similar upbringing and the same desire to do the best for our entire family. His mother was the biggest symbol of his life. When his mother died (in 2011), it was like part of him died, too.” 

Maradona did indeed return to Boca in 1997, but it wasn’t the glorious swan song he’d imagined. It was an injury-plagued mess and, once again, his drug addiction became a problem. Midway through the campaign, the Argentine government intervened to keep the country’s football federation from imposing another ban on him after traces of cocaine were found in a doping sample. Jorge Cyszterspiler understood why: “A whole country revolves around Diego,” he told an Argentine paper.

Maradona’s final professional appearance was a 45-minute spell against River Plate. He was replaced by his heir apparent, 19-year-old Juan Román Riquelme.

Johnson remained close to the superstar for decades after their training stint in 1997. The two would cross paths and reminisce about old times. Maradona’s death last month caught Johnson by surprise, and he still hasn’t recovered.

“I was emotional for two days,” Johnson says, his voice breaking. “I cried and cried and cried. I told myself — if he’d needed my help, emotionally, I could’ve been there for him and tried to help him.

“The last time I’d seen him, I said to him, ‘If I don’t see you, I don’t call you, just know that I’m still thinking about you and please keep safe.’”

---

An unfulfilled dream

Maradona won the World Cup, earned fame and fortune, had audiences with the Pope and even had a religion founded in his honor. He experienced incredible successes that are reserved for just a chosen few. However, there was one thing that Maradona longed for that he could never fulfill — something he revealed to Luis Omar Tapia during one of the journalist’s recent trips to Mexico. 

“He told me that his sole dream in life was to take his daughters to Disney (World) in Orlando, because he had promised them that when they were little he would take them,” Tapia says. “He didn’t have time to do so during the ’94 World Cup. (Then) the U.S. border was closed on him because of his drug problems (at the 1994 World Cup in the U.S.) and his involvement with the Neapolitan mafia. He was never able to come here. So he died without having been able to keep that promise to his daughters.” 

---

Marking a magician

The United States has had its own share of soccer phenoms and young up-and-comers, though none have even approached the level of hype — and eventual success — achieved by Maradona. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, during Maradona’s ascendancy, the closest thing the U.S. had to a “next big thing” was Ricky Davis, a skillful, industrious central midfielder on the New York Cosmos. 

Davis, a U.S. men’s national team regular by age 17, was plastered all over the covers of soccer magazines and shared a locker room with the Cosmos’ litany of global superstars. Barely removed from high school, the teenager from Colorado found himself lining up in a midfield alongside two-time European player of the year Franz Beckenbauer.

Under Firmani, Davis’ job with the Cosmos, as he tells it, was often to man-mark the opposing team’s most threatening player. On a spring evening in Buenos Aires in 1980, under a torrential downpour, Davis — a player who’d faced off against George Best, Johan Cruyff and a host of other greats — received his toughest assignment to date: mark Diego Maradona for 90 minutes during a friendly against Argentinos Juniors.

“What Eddie Firmani or (his successor) professor Júlio Mazzei would say to me,” remembers Davis, “is ‘if he does nothing in this game, you’ve done your job.’ That was it. They never told me to complete a pass, or throw the ball in, or be part of a restart, they just wanted to make sure that there would be nothing people were gonna say that Maradona did in these games. And so my responsibility was for 90 minutes, to shut him down.”

Davis knew of Maradona — even by age 20, the youngster was the talk of global football — but figured that marking the notoriously left-sided player would be a relatively easy task.

“It was… a challenge,” Davis says, laughing.

“Clearly the things I knew and expected was that — for one, he’d be very left-side dominant, so here I am thinking ‘yeah, if he’s got the ball on his right foot I don’t really need to worry so much.’ Well, that didn’t work out so well sometimes. Because even though you heavily defended him to his left side,  he would get you to panic for a second. You’d have that ‘uh-oh, I’ve given him too much opportunity on the right side,’ moment, so then you’d start to move over to defend in that way, and then he’d get it back to his left foot. And that’s when it’s the proverbial ‘oh…. Shit.’”

Midway through the first half, Maradona’s quality truly shone through. At the center stripe, he received a pass, popping it up to himself with his left foot. 

“Imagine this,” says Davis. “I’m putting pressure on him, I’m trying to just knock the ball away and yet he’s holding me off and he’s juggling the ball and he literally juggled the ball all the way down the sideline. It never touched the ground the whole time, all with his left foot and all with me pulling the hell out of his jersey and pushing him and every now and then kind of taking a swipe at the ball. I couldn’t even make the smallest of contact on the ball.”

At halftime, Beckenbauer approached Davis and offered him some stern thoughts along with a pointed question.

“He asked me whether I was a part of this show or whether I was trying to stop it. Because I was like a stagehand, basically, it looked like I was just pretending to try and get the ball. I looked over at Franz and said ‘yeah, dude, I was definitely trying to get it.”

Davis’ most vivid recollection of marking Maradona, though, came in the second half. The Cosmos had turned the ball over in their own third and Davis was caught well out of position. Panicking, he turned to look for Maradona who, much to his chagrin, was 15 yards away. Maradona received a pass 25 yards from goal, deftly maneuvered around his defender, the goalkeeper and calmly slotted the ball home. Davis, still 10 yards away, sprinted to make an attempt at a goal-line clearance.

“He hits the ball into the empty net — but he didn’t smash it in,” Davis says. “He hit it just hard enough to where he kept me trying to run it down. And he did it intentionally, honestly. He only hit the ball hard enough to bait me to keep trying all the way to the very end, only to fail. I smashed into the near post trying to clear the ball off the goalline. There was this massive “SNAP” noise as I hit it and I’m thinking ‘Oh my god, not only did I fail in my job, but now I’ve broken one or both of my legs on the goalposts.’” 

“Turns out I’d just shattered my shin guards,” Davis says. “But, again, he did this intentionally — that shows you his talent and the level which his brain operated.”

It wasn’t the only time Davis and the Cosmos faced the Argentine. They played against him in 1978 and ‘79, and again in 1984. After keeping Maradona off the scoresheet completely in a match against the Argentine national team, Davis received what to this day remains a prized possession.

“I’d been all over Diego the entire game,” Davis remembers. “But the guy obviously doesn’t want a Rick Davis shirt, he obviously wants a Franz Beckenbauer shirt. And so even though I was kind of waiting and/or even hoping that he’d take the jersey off and say, ‘hey, good job’ or ‘you’re a jerk’ or whatever, absolutely not. He wanted no part of my jersey.”

Davis entered the locker room to find Beckenbauer waiting. “Franz tosses the shirt to me and says, ‘Hey, you were matched up with this guy, you should have this.’ And I still have it.”

 

‘Don’t look at me as ‘Diego Maradona’

Argentina’s top newspapers and television stations had heard all about him. A 14-year-old phenom was dominating Argentinos Juniors youth matches. Decades before the advent of social media, Maradona had been identified as the country’s next great via word of mouth and first-hand talent evaluation. Luis Omar Tapia was living in Argentina at the time. Two years younger than Maradona, he was immediately drawn to the budding star.

Their paths would cross throughout Tapia’s 30-year broadcasting career. And, in 2018, Tapia traveled to Mexico to witness one of Maradona’s final adventures, taking on the unenviable task of leading Dorados de Sinaloa from Mexico’s second division to Liga MX. 

“I was able to watch him work,” Tapia says. “I remember talking to Luis Islas, his assistant, and it was like, ‘Wow, Diego came here and changed the players’ mentality, changed the way the front office approached the game. Dorados was an average team. Maradona arrived and he led them to two league promotion finals.”

Being managed by one of the world’s greatest ever footballers can put players in a sort of fog. How do you separate the legend from the coach? How do you perform knowing that you’re being evaluated by a once-in-a-generation former great? That dynamic has been a constant in each of Maradona’s coaching stints.

 

“Diego would tell the players: ‘Don’t look at me as Diego Maradona,” Tapia says, “‘I want you to see me as your coach. When we’re training or playing in an official match, I’m the coach. When the game’s over and we’re hanging out in the locker room or enjoying an asado, we can talk about Diego Maradona.’ 

“I think the players embraced that message. They didn’t feel intimidated by the presence of Diego Armando Maradona.”

It’s one thing to play for Maradona as a second-division footballer in Mexico. It’s quite another to represent Argentina while a national hero is pacing the touchline as your manager. Sebastián Blanco, now playing with the Portland Timbers, was given his first senior national team cap by Maradona in 2009. 

“He was very intense. So intense,” Blanco recalls. “But he was like that his entire life — in the positive sense of the word. He was on top of everything. He yelled, he felt every moment of a match. He celebrated goals like he had created them himself. … Of course he gave tactical talks, but what he truly wanted to communicate was what the Argentina shirt stood for — what it meant to him… it was incredible. It was as if he was wearing it at all times, throughout his life. It was like his second skin. 

“And so, one would go out and defend that shirt in that way because that’s how he did it. He made it known, no matter where he coached, that playing football was a dream and that one had to take advantage.”

According to Blanco, Maradona’s ability to read a room and internalize the stress and anxiety that a professional goes through was his gift. His innate leadership skills as a player became a crucial tool as a coach. 

“Maradona could inspire a level of strength within you that you didn’t even know you had,” Blanco says. “That’s a bit how he was as a coach, too. He didn’t have to tell you what to do. The boys were ready to die for him, figuratively, because of the way he felt about the game. The aura that he had was unmatched. No one else had it. He was always at our level. He knew exactly what a player could go through, so you felt close to him.” 

This held true even after Maradona’s time with one of his players was finished. 

Blanco tore the ACL in his right knee in September after leading Portland to the MLS is Back Tournament title in August. In the midst of his recovery, Blanco received a message from his old coach. 

(Maradona) sent me a message, motivating me,” says Blanco. “He wrote to me via Instagram. He said it was no big deal and that I’d be back in no time at all. I had a connection to him that I never would’ve imagined.” 

‘I did a one-two with El Diego’

In 2008, Maradona was the guest of honor at a charity match between Club Atlético Lanús and Talleres de Escalada. He played one half for each side, delighting the sellout crowd with quick touches and keen vision, despite the mileage on his legs. 

Blanco was a 19-year-old standout for Lanús, wide-eyed at the prospect of playing alongside Maradona. It felt like a dream for the self-professed curator of Maradona’s history. From a young age, he has saved newspaper and magazine clippings that featured his idol. 

“I scored off a give-and-go with Maradona,” Blanco says. “That’s something I never thought would be possible.” 

Blanco received a pass from Maradona at the top of the Talleres penalty area. He threaded a one-time pass through four defenders back to Maradona, who had advanced inside the box. After a quick chop that left a defender on the ground, Maradona found Blanco at the penalty spot. 

Although Blanco initially remembered scoring a goal — such was the euphoria he felt in that moment — after going back and watching the video, he realizes that’s not actually what happened.

“It was a long time ago,” he says. “But that one-two pass is all that matters!”

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‘Where would you eat?’

“It’s been painful,” says Hristo Stoichkov, a noticeable mixture of sadness and anger in his voice. “A true friend has passed away. He suffered a lot and so did we because we saw how he was doing.” 

The Barcelona legend and Ballon d’Or winner was close friends with Maradona. Reached eight days after Maradona’s death, Stoichkov lamented not being there to comfort Maradona during his final moments. “In the end he died alone,” says Stoichkov. “He didn’t have his family around him. That’s the saddest part.”

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Stoichkov’s sorrow quickly morphs into his infamous irritability, though. The Bulgarian’s tone changes sharply when he characterizes the people who Maradona surrounded himself with as he recalls the arguments he would have with Maradona about the life the Argentine was living. Stoichkov calls Maradona’s entourage a group of “freeloaders” and blames their self-interest for Maradona’s mental and physical downfall. 

“I would say it to (Maradona’s) face, and to those vultures he had around him,” Stoichkov exclaims. “’If Diego Armando Maradona weren’t here, what the fuck would you be doing? Where would you eat?’ I didn’t get tired of saying that.” 

Stoichkov says that he’ll choose to remember the good about Maradona, but there’s one lasting image of him that he hopes will remain a part of his friend’s legacy.

“He said, ‘I made a lot of mistakes, but la pelota no se mancha (the ball is never dirtied),” Stoichkov says. “Then he had a message for kids: ‘If you want to play football and enjoy life, don’t fall for drugs like I did.’ That really impacted me. A person that can acknowledge that and help kids avoid that path… to me that’s incredible.”

But for Andres Cantor, Maradona’s death marks more than just the loss of a friend. It marks the end of an era for global soccer, as well. 

“Diego symbolized football in its purest form,” Cantor says. “That’s why, for me, football died. Now a new era of football will begin, one which will not lack the beauty that it’s always had. But the maximum expression of this sport, in my opinion and avoiding any generalizations, was Diego Maradona. With Maradona’s death, and in spite of the fact that he hasn’t played in so long, symbolically, the player who best represented the sport that we love, was Diego.”