Another month passed, the third since
Diego Armando Maradona
passed away
, and the fans of the Argentine star remembered him in their own way.
Some shared messages on social networks and others, like
Martín Palermo
, wrote emotional letters.
El Loco, who today directs Curicó Unido de Chile, wrote a very moving story in
The Player's Tribune
to remember his teammate in Boca and his coach in the Argentine National Team.
So intense are his words that Dalma Maradona shared only a fragment on social networks that moved all those who read it.
"I don't know when I'm going to face reality. Maybe at some point I'll have to accept that Diego is gone, in the same way that I had to accept the death of my son. I'm going to have to cross that bridge and tell myself:" No He's here. I'm not going to see him anymore. ”But I haven't reached that point yet. It's too painful, too surreal. For me, Diego is still there. God still exists. And somehow, he will always be," was the fragment that the daughter of the Ten shared on her Instagram account, which corresponds to the end of the Titan's letter.
Palermo's letter in The Player's Tribune
The last call
The last time I heard Diego's voice was at the beginning of last year, when I had returned to Argentina after leaving Pachuca, the team I was managing in Mexico.
When the phone rang and I saw who it was, I was honestly surprised, because I didn't think Diego had the time to make those kinds of calls at the time.
I mean, just being Diego Maradona meant doing a 24-hour job, 7 days a week, right? Fans and journalists followed him everywhere his whole life. It must have been exhausting. But now he was directing Gymnastics, in the Argentine First Division.
So even though I always knew Diego had a big heart, I really thought he had enough to take care of.
But I was wrong. Somehow he found the time to call me. We were very close, we had been for a long time, but we had not worked together in almost a decade. But of course, as always, with Diego it was never about work. With him it was always something personal.
He said, “What are you doing, Martín, how are you? How is the family? When do you come to eat a barbecue? ”.
And, well, that's how Diego was. He knew that his presence was important to everyone around him, and he just wanted to show that he was present and available for whatever he needed. It was always like this, always taking care of you, wondering how you were. And it always showed up when you least expected it.
But one thing you have to understand about Maradona is that he wasn't just like that with me. Nerd. Diego was like that with everyone who really cared. The way he made you feel… he had a special warmth that was incredible.
And that's why I still couldn't take in the fact that he's gone.
The news of the death of the Ten
Three months have passed since Diego left us. When I heard the news, I immediately texted a journalist friend who I knew was close to him. "It's true?". He replied: "Yes ...". And at that moment, you don't… you can't believe it. In other words ... one remembers the number of times Diego was in similar situations, in which he was in the hospital and rumors about his death multiplied, and then he thought: “No, it can't be, it's just what they're saying. It's probably nothing. " And in the end it really was nothing. Maradona always recovers. Maradona always survives. It had happened so many times. So you think This is just one more.
But later the news about his recovery never comes.
I got a lot of anxiety as I kept waiting. I even texted Claudia, his ex-wife, to see if it was true. Said yes. And still you can't believe it. Your mind refuses to accept it. For me, Diego was always going to be there. He was sure that he would reach 100 years.
Maradona always recovers. Maradona always survives. It had happened so many times.
And now, as the days go by, I still have that feeling that it's not true.
Diego is still there, better.
You will probably come across it at some point.
Diego, the idol of Martín
I know that I speak for many Argentines when I say that it is still difficult for me to imagine a world without Maradona. Since he was a boy he had always been present, always untouchable. When I saw him at World Cup 86, I realized what he meant to the world, and what he meant to us. Diego changed my perception of what soccer was.
I still see him as the most representative figure of what I feel about football. I don't know if you understand. Let me try to explain. In Mexico 86 I was 12 years old, and I had played ball with my friends in the squares and in the neighborhood courts all my life. There's even a photo of me as a kid trying to take my first steps, and apparently the first thing I did was kick a ball, haha. But I was always very reserved. I didn't talk much about soccer with my dad, or almost nothing, really. I was coming back from a game and he asked me: “And? How did it go?".
And I would say to him: "Well, we won 2-0."
And he: “Good. Did you score a goal? "
And I: "Oh yeah, I did one."
And that was it. It's not that I walked into the living room and threw myself to my knees screaming “WIN !!! AND WITH A GOAL OF MYSELF! ”. I kept it to myself.
And yes, eye, I still felt all these beautiful emotions when I played soccer. And when I saw Maradona in '86, those emotions got bigger. Watching the games in the living room of my house with my parents and my brother, I saw Diego take soccer to a dimension that I had never thought possible. The goals, the glory, the passion. Soccer was that. When we went out to celebrate the title on the street, I understood that this was the greatest expression of satisfaction, of joy, that football could bring. And the origin of all that emotion was Maradona.
Of course, I later found out that soccer could also bring you pain. When you start out as a kid, you play for fun, no one forces you to do anything. But when you join a professional club, you realize that your idea of being a footballer is going to change. For me it was a dream to get to Estudiantes de La Plata, the club of which I was a fan since I was a child, the club of my father and my brother. My whole family is from La Plata. But I also started to suffer injuries, setbacks and frustrations. And again, the feeling of sadness was something that Diego transmitted better than anyone.
The moment I felt closest to him, even without meeting him, was during the 94 World Cup in the United States, when they took him out of the tournament and he came out to say that his legs had been cut off. I was 20 years old and had made my professional debut two years earlier. Seeing him there, feeling his pain, aroused a new kind of affection. When I saw him cry, I wanted to cry too. It is difficult, really, to describe what I felt at that moment. All I can say is that I felt more connected to him than ever before. It was Maradona, it was God, but it was also human, right?
I never thought I was going to get as close to him as close as I finally did. Just meeting him in person was a dream come true. The first time was when I was playing for Estudiantes and we went to play Boca in August 1996. We were both captains, so we got together in the center circle. After the draw, I took courage and said: "Diego, when the game is over, will you give me your shirt?" I must have sounded like a fanatic kid… and I was! And this is what happened: we won the game, I scored two goals, and when the game ended, I sent the prop to find my shirt. Diego sent it to me.
His stage with Diego in Boca
A few months later, Maradona asked Mauricio Macri, the president of Boca, to buy me. It was 1997 and there I had the honor of arriving in Boca. The team was incredible: there were Diego, Claudio Caniggia, Diego Latorre, Navarro Montoya, Néstor Fabbri, the Barros Schelotto twins… but the club was not having a good time when it came to winning titles. So the fans had reason not to be happy. And yet, with Diego there, everything was calm. His presence somehow covered everything.
I still feel like it was a blessing to have been able to play alongside him in the last months of his career. Obviously he was not in the prime of his heyday in the 80s —the Diego del Napoli, well, he was another Maradona. But it still amazed you. He would come to training and it was as if everything came to a standstill, and we just watched what he did with the ball, or we were left staring at him with our mouths open as he nailed another free kick at the corner. I'm not exaggerating at all: Diego could literally put the ball where he wanted.
At the same time, Diego was not just talent. Playing with him, or just being around him, generated a special kind of motivation for you. His last game was a superclassic against River at the Monumental. When we went out to the field, you realized how much I enjoyed it. Unfortunately he had to be injured at halftime, but I had to score the winning goal, so we ended up having a double celebration: for my goal and for his last game. We sang, we danced, we went to eat. Experiencing such a thing with anyone else marks you for life. But doing it with Diego… well, that was very, very special.
All that period with Diego passed very quickly. It was only a few months, and now, looking back, maybe I should have enjoyed it more. Diego knew he was close to retirement, but still he kept fighting until the end. It was provided to the team at all levels. Even when his body couldn't take it anymore, he still pushed himself to the limit. I always wanted to be there for you.
It's like those movies about warriors. The warrior fights against everything and everyone, but he does not fight for himself. He does it for the good of others. I always saw Maradona that way. From the individual he was an artist. As a partner he was a gladiator.
His personal relationship with Maradona
When Diego retired, it was because he had to. She knew she couldn't demand more than that, that her body had already had too much. He had given everything.
After that, we started having another kind of relationship. Boca joined us, and when I was still playing, he returned to the club as sports director. We started to interact more. And that's when we started to have a more personal relationship.
We had gestures that meant a lot to each other. He came to my wedding. When I lost my son, he was there for me.
And when he had difficult moments, I was close to his family.
I never thought we would work together again. Less did I imagine that I would have the possibility of going to a World Cup with him. I had not played for the Argentine National Team since 1999. And in 2008, when I was 34 years old, I injured the ligaments in my right knee. At the time he didn't even know if he was going to play soccer again.
Diego and Palermo in the National Team and the goal to Peru
But I recovered in early 2009, and by then, by one of those rare fate things, Diego had taken over the National Team. And then he began to rely on the players who were in local football, and not just those who came from Europe. And then he called me. I hadn't played for a decade with the Argentine jersey and suddenly Diego started giving me games. That's how we reached the final part of the World Cup Qualifiers, and I realized that I could be part of it.
We fast forward to October of that year and we find ourselves with the match in which we have to beat Peru on the second to last date to keep ourselves with chances of going to the World Cup. It was a moment of crisis for Argentina. Not winning a World Cup is bad enough. But not even going to a World Cup ...? Unthinkable. We were really under a lot of pressure and we had to go out with the knife between our teeth.
So there we are, playing Peru in Buenos Aires, and it pours. It is a biblical climate. We make a goal. Thank God, everything is given to win 1-0. And then comes the draw for Peru before the end. Disaster. We were finished. Game over. World bye. People start to leave the stadium, like crazy, angry. And Diego, who had been widely criticized in the press for his tactics, for calling an old striker that everyone thought finished ... now he's ready too.
But in injury time, we won a corner. The ball reaches the area and is facing me, so that it touches it towards the net. Goal. I start to run like crazy, with all the companions who are chasing me. The stadium explodes. Diego also runs into the field, dives headfirst, and lands on the wet grass. What a moment. What a night!
I like to think that if my life were like a movie, and the first scene were that photo in which I am kicking a ball, the end, when the titles arrive, would be that of that goal celebration in the rain.
That victory brought many things together. Like the friendship between Diego and me, and the faith he had placed in me. Not counting the fact that when Argentina qualified for the 86th World Cup, they had also done so with a goal against Peru near the end, in a very tense tie.
Was it pure coincidence? I do not believe it. I think there was a connection there.
After scoring a goal like that, one begins to wonder what will happen in the real World Cup. I've never been to one. And now Diego was preparing to announce the final squad, and uncertainty had been in the air for months. I had no idea if he was going to take me. Every so often he called me and asked me how I was doing. And just before the call, he called me and said: “Martín, you have to show up on Monday. You are going to the World Cup ”.
I still remember his voice on that call like it was yesterday.
And I could only be grateful. The only thing that said: “Thank you, Diego. Thank you for the opportunity". Always my words to him were of gratitude.
The same when I scored the goal against Peru: a hug and a thank you. This is how it was.
He knew he was not going to make the headlines. I was 36 when I went to South Africa, and there were players like Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez on the squad, so I understood. But in the last group match, against Greece, we were already qualified for the next round, and Diego put me in the last 10 minutes. It was my first match in a World Cup. And I made a goal. I did it with my family on the platform: my brother, my oldest son, my wife. It was one of the happiest moments of my career, and another one that scored a lot of points. I felt as if my career had come full circle.
Playing for Diego was a special experience. What he represented to us, the way he made us feel, was very strong. It went beyond tactics. It just filled you with confidence. When we went to the round of 16, we really thought we could win the World Cup. Because that was how things were with Diego. He had won it as a player. The only thing he lacked was to win it as a coach, and now he was there with us. It made so much sense. It seemed like a thing of fate.
So yeah, the fact that we couldn't win that Cup was one of my biggest disappointments, both in my career and in my relationship with Diego.
Even so, the beautiful moments during that stage with the National Team will always be with me. And I have one little thing to remember. Diego always wore those shiny earrings that seemed to illuminate the place where he was. One day before a game I told him: "Well, if I score a goal, you give me a ring." It was a joke, but the next day I scored the goal and he gave it to me.
I still have it. It is very well kept, like a small treasure.
After that World Cup, Diego's life had its ups and downs. What people have to understand is that it is very difficult to be a professional footballer or a coach. But it was much more difficult to be Diego Maradona. Much more difficult. Any attempt he made to be a normal person was in vain. They followed him 24 hours a day, adored him, annoyed him, attacked him. He couldn't walk down the street in peace. How can you hope to live a normal life like that?
The pain after Diego's death
If I could turn back time, I would do whatever it takes to help Diego in his later years. I would try to help him live a life that was a little more natural, a little more real. I wanted to see him grow old. But helping Diego was not easy, because many tried, too. It is difficult to really know what happened in the last time so that it ended the way it ended. I didn't like how he had to live his last two years. See the figure of him deteriorating so much ... He was not the Maradona that I liked to see.
What I regret most of all is that they left him so alone. He did not take care of it. He was not helped to end a life that was worthy of who he was.
He would never judge Diego. He had his mistakes, sure, but he lived his life and he is. All that interests me is what Diego was to me and what he made me feel. It is difficult to explain, especially in the soccer context, but, for those who believe that God exists, and I believe it… Diego is like that in soccer. God exists in everything he represents. For me, Maradona is the same in football.
I don't know when I'm going to face reality. Maybe at some point I will have to accept that Diego left, in the same way that I had to accept the death of my son. I'm going to have to cross that bridge and say to myself: “It's not here. I'm never going to see him again ”.
But I haven't gotten to that point yet. It is too painful, too surreal.
Diego is still there for me. God still exists.
And somehow, it will always be.