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Diego Maradona's death and its meaning for Argentinians: For you it was just a person

2020-11-27T05:22:09.755Z


We Argentinians hit Diego's death hard. It was not unexpected, it was inevitable. We owe him a lot: his game, his language - and the memories he gave us.


Icon: enlarge

Figure of Diego Maradona on a wall

Photo: Fernando Gens / dpa

I first found out about it from my friend Darío.

“Diego is dead, man.

He died! «He tells me in an audio file.

Sobbing violently.

Even if Darío, like me, is a fan of River Plate.

So an opponent of Boca Juniors, Maradona's team.

For once, that has no meaning today.

Perhaps never had it with Maradona and only with Maradona.

To the author

Photo: Maximiliano Luna / Télam

Ariel Magnus,

born in Buenos Aires in 1975, is an Argentine-German writer.

His latest novel "The Chess Players of Buenos Aires" appeared, in which he interweaves the 1939 Chess Olympiad and the story of his grandfather.

He is currently living as a metropolitan clerk in Mülheim an der Ruhr at the invitation of the Brost Foundation.

For him, as for all soccer fans in the country, Maradona is God.

And for everyone else too, only that stupidly they don't believe in him because of the things he's "away from the football field ..." and so on.

Should one measure an artist by his profane biography?

Anyway, our God is dead and all of my WhatsApp groups don't know about any other topic.

Even if Diego has lived for free for years, as they say in Spanish, when someone is long past death, the news hits us hard.

Not like unexpected, more like inevitable.

Can only be imagined as a corollary of the worst year in our history, when the universal supply of shitty news seemed to have run out of stock.

How can you play when the game itself is dead?

What will his funeral be like in the middle of the pandemic?

In normal times it would probably have surpassed that of Eva Perón in 1952 - the greatest in Argentine history, listen and be amazed, that of the German captain of the "Graf Spee" in 1939 - and it would not be a surprise if it were among them Creates circumstances.

I can already imagine the long queues of people who have been pulling miles for days and want to say goodbye to him.

The Boca game, which was due to take place in the Copa Libertadores on the day of his death, has been canceled.

How can you play when the game itself is dead?

We have to be prepared for dramatic scenes.

During Maradona's last brain operation, the hospital near my parents' house was surrounded by fans, and my brother-in-law sent me photos.

"It's unbelievable," he said, "what still moves Diego".

His attraction should be valued more than that of old rock stars, because many of his active admirers have never seen him play, only know him as a trainer, more as a television presenter or father of an increasing number of children.

A cult that is conveyed from father to son and where all digressions of the idol are forgiven or even cheered.

"As a drug addict, I respect Maradona" is a popular saying, "I don't care what he does on the field."

Worshiped like a monument to himself

Even his critics and the people who simply hated him - mainly because of his political sympathies, which ranged from Che Guevara and Fidel, who also died on November 25th, to Maduro - had to put up with it for a lifetime that outside Argentina Diego was simply equated with Argentina, and Argentina with Diego.

It is questionable whether we will still remain localizable on this earth from now on.

I only saw it again last week when the postman here in the Ruhr area immediately commented on the information about where I come from: Oh, Argentina, Maradona, yes, a football genius, but that with the hand was not ok.

Sure, he can question that.

For him, Maradona is just a person.

For us, however, it is a monument.

As such, it is not discussed.

In this regard, one could say that he had died long ago and was honored like a monument to himself. Last year, in 2019, he was solemnly welcomed in the league by every club in the country as the coach of Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata.

Throughout the entire game, cameras only followed his gestures.

He was enthroned on the edge of the field - literally: some clubs have actually built a throne for him.

Hardly anyone was interested in the game itself.

People went to see Maradona live, to sing about him and to thank him.

Maradona brought the country its last great football friends, the Germans know better than anyone else - they haven't forgotten the defeat, even if they made up a lot afterwards.

His bitterest opponents here in Argentina are also grateful for this performance.

The comparison with Messi lags above all in this detail, and it probably will remain so.

And also in the area of ​​language.

He entertained us with his subtle answers to journalists, his puns and his inventions of language.

Unlike other football players, his sentences were not mocked, they became wisdom.

"The ball doesn't get dirty" - an aphorism that he suddenly conjured up from his immeasurable, self-taught vocabulary while tearing in the middle of la Bombonera during his last game - will perhaps even survive the game to which it refers.

With Diego, part of our strange Argentine way of speaking Spanish dies.

What else he had to discover in this area is likely to go undiscovered.

We are grateful for what he gave us.

As I write this line quickly, the message is being forwarded to my friends in all possible languages, including tweets from stars around the world.

The Pope is reprimanded for having still not commented on the state of the Posmaradonian world.

Then everyone spontaneously announces when they saw Maradona play for the first time, whether in the jersey of the national team, in that of Boca or that of Naples, the only city in which one not only understands this personality cult, but possibly even surpasses it.

Hymns to Maradona in all possible musical genres are exchanged, the many documentaries about his changeable life recapitulated, his most beautiful goals (so many, my God!) Viewed for the hundredth time.

The game of memory, it is only just beginning.

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2020-11-27

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