Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
A nation weeps for their hero Maradona
Maradona fans view coffin at palace as city mourns a hero
ARGENTINIANS paid their respects to Diego Maradona as they filed past his body in the country’s presidential palace yesterday.
Fans wept and blew kisses at the legendary footballer’s coffin, draped in the country’s flag and number 10 shirts from the national side and his Buenos Aires club Boca Juniors.
More than a million mourners were expected at the Casa Rosada palace in the capital.
Maradona’s family and former teammates had held a private wake earlier in the day.
The World Cup winner, 60, died from a heart attack at home in Tigre on Wednesday, two weeks after being discharged following brain surgery.
He is survived by five children and ex-wife Claudia Villafane, from whom he split in 2004.
The star is expected to be buried alongside his parents in the city.
Fans also flocked to La Bombonera stadium, where he played for Boca, and some even hugged followers of arch-rivals River Plate.
“Gracias Diego” replaced train information on digital metro signs and a funeral parlour worker was sacked after taking a selfie by his open coffin.
In the Italian city of Naples, where Maradona achieved god-like status with Napoli in the 1980s, the San Paolo stadium was lit up in tribute.
Fireworks exploded as those below, clad in Maradona shirts, chanted and wept.
The Vatican said Pope Francis, an Argentine, would be remembering Maradona in his prayers.
French president Emmanuel Macron provocatively praised the star for defeating “Margaret Thatcher’s England” four years after the Falklands War. In a 600-word eulogy, he recalled the 1986 World Cup quarter-final which England lost 2-1 to Argentina after Maradona’s “hand of God” goal.