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Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona (in July 2010): "I wish you all the strength in the world"
Photo:
JAVIER SORIANO / AFP
Fans around the world worry about the Argentine football legend after Maradona's brain surgery.
Lionel Messi has also encouraged the 60-year-old.
"Diego, I wish you all the strength in the world," wrote Messi on Instagram about an older photo showing him next to Maradona.
"My family and I want to see you fit again as soon as possible. A warm hug."
Maradona had a subdural hematoma removed on Tuesday.
This is a bleeding between the hard meninges and the brain.
According to his team of doctors, the operation was successful.
"Diego tolerated the operation very well. Everything is very good," said Maradona's personal physician Leopoldo Luque.
The operation, which involved several doctors, took around an hour and 20 minutes, according to Luque.
It was not particularly complicated.
"But it's just a neurosurgical procedure."
Maradona is now under observation in his room and is recovering.
When the world champion from 1986 can be dismissed, he cannot say yet.
This depends on the further course.
First, the drainage should be removed, says neurosurgeon Luque.
"Thanks to everyone who prayed for him"
Dalma Maradona
"Thanks to everyone who has prayed for him," wrote Maradona's daughter Dalma on Wednesday night on Twitter.
Her sister Jana added: "Now life feels a little easier."
The legendary footballer received well-being wishes from all over Argentina and from abroad.
Even Vice President Cristina Kirchner and Venezuela's head of state Nicolás Maduro asked about Maradona, according to his lawyer Matías Morla.
"#FuerzaDiego" (something like: Diego, be strong) tweeted the national team.
Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane also wished Maradona all the best.
"He has just turned 60 years old. A lot of people have dedicated something to him and so do I. I hope and ask that everything goes well because that's what we want for him and his family," said Zidane after the win in the Champions League against Inter Milan according to the club website of the Spanish record champions.
Maradona was taken to a hospital in La Plata south of Buenos Aires on Monday.
Initially, there was only talk of emotional stress, anemia and dehydration.
The bleeding was discovered during the tests.
On his 60th birthday, the idol had already made a battered impression on Friday.
"Diego was very depressed lately," said his lawyer Morla.
"During this time around his birthday he always misses those who are no longer with us - especially his mother."
The isolation in the corona pandemic also makes him difficult.
Before the first game of his club Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata after the Corona break, he came briefly to the stadium to receive congratulations and gifts.
However, he had to be supported by two companions while walking.
Maradona followed the game from home on the advice of his doctor.
Maradona has repeatedly struggled with health problems.
In 2000 doctors diagnosed a heart condition caused by cocaine use.
This was followed, among other things, by withdrawal treatments and a stomach reduction.
Icon: The mirror
sen / dpa / sid