Diego Maradona: brilliant, excessive, destructive

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Photo: Andy Cantillon / eyevine / INTERTOPICS

The devil knows why Diego Maradona, already very close to his end, landed in Culiacan two years ago.

But the devil is a pretty good screenwriter.

Ironically, Culiacán, the capital of the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Culiacán, the city of Joaquín Guzmán, whom everyone just calls »El Chapo«, boss of the Sinaloa cartel, who has been in a US prison since 2017.

The city in which Guzmán built one of the largest drug rings in the world and from which he supplied the USA and Europe with cocaine and heroin.

Guzmán, the billionaire and murderer.

Culiacan, the city of drugs and violence.

Maradona, the football god and former junkie.

A bold idea, back in September 2018. Maradona's life was drawing to a close, but it had actually been for decades.

Icon: enlarge Photo: Alejandro Pagni / afp

Diego Maradona had coached a club in the second division of the United Arab Emirates a few months earlier.

During the soccer world championship that summer in Russia, he celebrated a not entirely drug-free party at a game of the Argentines, which ended in collapse.

A few days later he suddenly appeared in Belarus in a military-style monster truck to show himself to the fans.

The Dinamo Brest football club had made him honorary president there.

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