An alltime soccer great has fallen
Fans carry a banner of Diego Maradona in downtown Buenos Aires on Wednesday after the death of Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona. Considered one of the best players of all time, he led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup title. See story,
BUENOS AIRES — Diego Maradona, the Argentine soccer great who scored the “Hand of God” goal in 1986 and led his country to that year’s World Cup title before later struggling with cocaine use and obesity, has died. He was 60.
Maradona’s spokesman, Sebastian Sanchi, said he died Wednesday of a heart attack, two weeks after being released from a hospital in Buenos Aires following brain surgery.
The office of Argentina’s president said it will decree three days of national mourning.
One of the most famous moments in the history of the sport, the “Hand of God” goal came when the diminutive forward/attacking midfielder punched the ball into England’s net during the 1986 World Cup quarterfinals. No penalty was called.
Maradona also captivated fans around the world over a twodecade career with a bewitching style of play that was all his own.
Although his reputation was tarnished by his addictions and an illfated spell in charge of the national team, he remained idolized in soccermad Argentina as the “Pibe de Oro” or “Golden Boy.”
“You took us to the top of the world,” Argentine President Alfredo Fernandez said on social media. “You made us incredibly happy. You were the greatest of all.”
The No. 10 he wore on his jersey became synonymous with him, as it also had with Pele, the Brazilian great with whom Maradona was regularly paired as the best of all time.
Pele said in a statement he had lost “a dear friend.”
“There is much more to say, but for now, may God give his family strength,” Pele said. “One day, I hope, we will play soccer together in the sky.”
Bold, fast and utterly unpredictable, Maradona was a master of attack, juggling the ball easily from one foot to the other as he raced upfield. Dodging and weaving with his low center of gravity, he shrugged off countless rivals and often scored with a devastating left foot, his most powerful weapon.
“Everything he was thinking in his head, he made it happen with his feet,” said Salvatore Bagni, who played with Maradona at Italian club Napoli.
A ballooning waistline slowed Maradona’s explosive speed later in his career and by 1991, he was snared in his first doping scandal when he admitted to a cocaine habit that haunted him until he retired in 1997, at 37.
Hospitalized near death in 2000 and again in ’04 for heart problems blamed on cocaine, he later said he overcame the drug problem. Cocaine, he once said famously, had proven to be his “toughest rival.”
But more health problems followed, despite a 2005 gastric bypass that greatly trimmed his weight. Maradona was hospitalized in early 2007 for acute hepatitis that his doctor blamed on excessive drinking and eating.
He made an unlikely return to the national team in 2008 when he was appointed Argentina coach, but after a quarterfinal exit at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, he was ousted.
Maradona was the fifth of eight children who grew up in a poor, gritty barrio on the Buenos Aires outskirts where he played a kind of dirtpatch soccer that launched many Argentines to international stardom.
In 2001, FIFA named Maradona one of the two greatest in the sport’s history, alongside Pele.
“Maradona inspires us,” said thenArgentina striker Carlos Tevez, explaining his country’s everyman fascination with Maradona at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. “He’s our idol, and an idol for the people.”
“He leaves us,” current Argentine forward and Barcelona star Lionel Messi said, “but he is not gone because Diego is eternal.”
Maradona’s crowning achievement came in the 1986 World Cup, captaining Argentina in its 32 win over West Germany in the final and decisive in a 21 victory against England in a feisty quarterfinal match.
Over the protests of England goalkeeper Peter Shilton, the referee let stand a goal by Maradona in which, as he admitted years later, he intentionally hit the ball with his hand in “a bit of mischief.”
Maradona’s impact wouldn’t be confined to cheating. Four minutes later, he spectacularly weaved past four opponents from midfield to beat Shilton for what FIFA later declared the greatest goal in World Cup history.