by Ida Bini (ANSA) - NAPLES, NOV 26 - Naples' love for Diego Armando Maradona, the great champion who passed away, who wore the jersey of the Neapolitan team from 1984 to 1991 and who gave the club two championships, has never been questioned , an Italian Cup and an Italian Super Cup. Even more today, faced with the pain of the Neapolitans for the death of the Argentine number 10, we realize that their bond was, is and will remain indissoluble. The city has lost one of its "sons", "a man who was able to interpret the union between city and team" commented the mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris, who interpreted the thought of an entire city by becoming the spokesperson for a good initiative. «The stadium will be called Diego Armando Maradona. The people want it, unanimously, because Diego has the ability to unite all the Neapolitans ». And it is from the SanPaolo stadium in Naples that a virtual journey begins on the symbolic places of the great football player, where he made a team and a city dream, but also many football fans all over the world, starting from 10 May 1987 when Napoli won their first championship. It was an indescribable party, just like the homage that the Neapolitans paid to the "god of football" to the news of his disappearance, gathered on a pilgrimage in front of the Fuorigrotta stadium with candles, flowers and blue scarves with the face of their beloved idol. The fans also gathered in via Emanuele De Deo, in the Spanish neighborhoods, where there is the first mural dedicated to the champion, a portrait made on the occasion of the championship.
If the San Paolo stadium was his home as a footballer, Posillipofu the place he chose to live there, one of the most beautiful districts in Naples, precisely in via Scipione Capece. Another place loved by the football player is the Virgilio sports center, in via CarloTito Lucrezio, where he played football with the people of the neighborhood or soccer with friends, and the restaurant "Ciro a Mergellina", where he often went to eat with his family. In reality, each corner of Naples testifies to the passage of the sample and the tributes are countless, but remain immortalized in the memories of restaurants and florists, shopkeepers and artists like Jorit who in San Giovanni a Teduccio dedicated a gigantic mural among the most photographed in Italy. Immortalized and praised also in the cribs of San Gregorio Armeno, which allowed anyone to bring home the Pibe de Oro statuette.
Outside Naples, Buenos Aires is the symbol city of his life and his disappearance. While the Argentines mourn the body at the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace where the burning chamber was set up, there is already a pilgrimage to his most popular places: Lanús, the city where he was born 60 years ago, south of BuenosAires, and the La Paternal district , where Maradona grew up and started playing football with the Argentinos Junior team.
In the stadium that bears his name, the museum with the trophies and awards obtained by the Argentine since 1976, his debut year in the world of football, is worth a visit. The neighborhood, among other things, was recently declared "The Soccer Capital of the World", in honor of Diego. Another must-see is La Bombonera, the Alberto José Armandon stadium in the Boca district of the beloved Boca Juniors team, where the stands, changing rooms and private park of Maradona are located. A pilgrimage destination in Buenos Aires is also the Basilica of the Blessed Sacrament where on November 7, 1989 he married Claudia Villafañe in a famous and extremely exaggerated collective party.
Maradona was also a citizen of the world: he loved to travel and felt at home almost everywhere. Especially in Corrientes, the oldest city in northeastern Argentina: the green heart of the country, on the border with Brazil and Paraguay, became his first retiro, a place to isolate himself from the world and from the stress of being number one, always among the highest and bass. Here he bought a beautiful estate which over the years he enlarged to create an immense ranch. And here he came back whenever he could to fish for idorados, freshwater fish that populate the Parana River. Amavapescare also off the coast of Cuba, which became one of his favorite places: friend of Fidel Castro, he went for the first time to Havana in May 1987 as a guest of the Líder Máximo from which he often fled, driven by his progressive ideas and also to detoxify himself from abuse of alcohol, food and drugs. «He is the greatest in history» commented Maradona of Fidel who, at the time, called him "the Che Guevara of sport". His political beliefs also led him frequently to Venezuela where he was a supporter of Chavez, leader of the ultra-left and president of the Republic until 2013.
Maradona declared himself a "soldier" of the Brazilian leaders Dilma and Lula, supported Daniel Ortega and was a partner of Evo Morales, head of state of the Bolivia. He also had great political and human sympathy with Pepe Mujica, the Uruguayan president, and with Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador.
Often going to Cuba, he bought a house in Miami where he loved having fun "being American" by wandering the streets of the metropolis in convertible cars and having long aperitifs inriva by the sea or by the pools overlooking the ocean. He was a man of the South but he was also very attached to Japan, the country that in the days of great successes filled him with money thanks to the sponsorships he was testimonial: his commercials of cigars, whiskey, cars and telephones were paid in gold. In Tokyoc, he bought a house and opened one of the branches of his company which in recent years had also expanded to Arab markets, and in particular to Dubai, where he had moved his residence and where he lived in the exclusive The Palm district with a breathtaking view of the city's business center, a private beach and the inevitable soccer field because the ball was, he will erect, his true love. (HANDLE).