Successes and excesses: the life of Maradona 5:29
(CNN Spanish) -
Controversial, virtuous, immortal.
Known as the Pibe de Oro of Argentine soccer, the legend is gone: Diego Armando Maradona died at age 60 in Tigre, Argentina.
On November 11, he was discharged from a clinic in Buenos Aires, where he spent several days hospitalized.
The 10th of Argentine soccer, which for many is a legend, scored arguably the most famous and infamous goals in the sport in the same game.
Here some of the most remembered phrases of the Argentine.
Soccer star Diego Armando Maradona dies 6:48
"The hand of God"
On June 22, 1986, Maradona performed one of the most remembered feats in the history of Argentine soccer.
It was in the quarterfinals of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, against England and with the fresh memory of the war for the Malvinas or Falkland Islands.
The Argentine advanced the albiceleste on the scoreboard with an illicit goal that later became known worldwide as "the hand of God."
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"It must have been the hand of God," Maradona chuckled cheekily when asked by the media.
And thus justified the goal immediately after the game.
"They cut off my legs"
Maradona reached the peak of his career in that World Cup in Mexico in 1986. Four years later, the albiceleste was left wanting to lift the cup at the World Cup Italia 90.
Diego's career was reaching its end and fame and money led him to lose his way, and the solemnity that illuminated his image was fading.
In 1991, Maradona lost his first drug test after testing positive for cocaine.
After a long 15-month suspension, the Argentine wanted to resume his career and dreamed of winning the second World Cup of his career.
But his illusion was stopped when FIFA expelled him from the 1994 US World Cup for testing positive for ephedrine, among other prohibited substances.
"I don't want to dramatize, but believe me they cut off my legs," Maradona told Channel 13 in 1994, after his expulsion.
The footballer did not explain why the drug appeared on his body: “I don't know why it appeared.
Perhaps due to our oversight.
But it is not all that can be said or said, as they will already be saying that I took drugs to play.
Maradona swore by his daughters that he did not take drugs, as he said he had no need to "look for a drug" if he trained as he did and assured that his soul was "shattered."
"The only thing I want to be clear to the Argentines is that I did not use drugs," he emphasized.
"The ball does not get dirty"
After a brief return of Maradona to Argentine soccer, with Boca Juniors, in 1997, the star organized a farewell match to his career in which he recognized his failures, but defended football on his mistakes.
«Because you are wrong you don't have to pay for football.
I was wrong and I paid, "said Maradona before a stadium full of fans who cheered him and cried his farewell.
"The ball does not get dirty".
Soccer «was my salvation»
Maradona was born in 1960, in the Villa Fiorito area, a marginal neighborhood in Buenos Aires.
In a crude account of the documentary "Diego Maradona" by English director Asif Kapadia, Maradona said that soccer was his "salvation", as it lifted him and his family out of poverty when he managed to reach professional football.
This is how Diego Armando Maradona forged his image 3:28
"We are chavistas to death"
Maradona was open with his political positions and publicly supported leftist politicians in the region, such as Fidel Castro, from Cuba, and Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, from Venezuela.
In August 2017, he published a message on his Facebook page that gave a lot to talk about: "We are Chavistas to death and when Maduro orders, I am dressed as a soldier for a free Venezuela."
In January 2019, he reiterated his support for the president of Venezuela, in the midst of a political crisis in that country.
«« I am not going to change, today more than ever with President Nicolás Maduro.
In Venezuela the people rule.
I love you! », Maradona published.
With Fidel Castro, Maradona had a close relationship.
Her admiration for the Cuban Revolution sealed her by getting tattoos of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
Maradona said he considered Castro as his second father.
How was the relationship between Maradona and Fidel Castro?
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Diego Armando Maradona