02/25/2021 16:00
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 02/25/2021 16:00
Martín Palermo wants to go back in time.
He wants to see him grow old.
Help him.
"But it was not easy to help Diego," he answered in his soliloquy.
Three months after his death, Diego Armando Maradona
continues to hurt us.
And much more to a person who had him as close as the Titan.
The former 9 de Boca
wrote a moving letter
in The Players Tribune about his history with the DAM in which he really went through all the issues:
Diego's health
in recent times, the relationship between the two,
the calls at the necessary moments
and
how he experienced that goal against Peru and the World Cup in South Africa with Maradona.
How did you find out about his death
"
I still couldn't assimilate the fact that he is gone. Three months have passed since Diego left us
. When I heard the news, I immediately sent a message to a journalist friend who I knew was close to him. '
Is it true?' . He replied: 'Yes ...'
And at that moment, you can't ... you can't believe it. I mean ... you remember the number of times Diego was in similar situations, in which he was in the hospital and rumors about his death, and then I was thinking, '
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 then 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 find out if it was true
. She said yes. And you still don't finish it. Believe.
Your mind refuses to accept it. For me,
Diego was always going to be there. I was sure that he would reach 100 years. "
Maradona's last stage
"If I could turn back time, I would do whatever I could 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's hard to really know what happened in the last time to make it end the way it ended. I didn't like how he had to live in his last two years.
See his figure deteriorating so much ...
No He was the Maradona that I liked to see. What I regret the most of all is that they left him so alone.
He was not taken care of. He was not helped to finish a life that was worthy of who he was. "
Maradona and Palermo together at Casa Amarilla in 2005.
Diego, the idol of Martín
"
When I saw Maradona in 1986, those emotions were heightened. Watching the games in my living room with my parents and my brother, I saw Diego take soccer to a dimension that I had never thought possible. goals, glory, passion.
That was football. When we went out to celebrate the title in 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".
"The moment I felt closest to him, even without having met 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 debuted professionally two years earlier. Seeing him there, feeling his pain,
sparked a new kind of affection. When I saw him cry, I wanted to cry too. It's hard, really, to describe what I felt at that moment.
All I can say is that I felt more connected to him than ever before. He was Maradona, he was God, but he was also human. "
"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 against 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.
The changing room with Maradona
"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. I still feel that it was a blessing to have been able to play with him at side in the last months of his career. Obviously he was not in the prime of his heyday of the 80s - the Diego del Napoli, well, he was another Maradona. But he still amazed you. He came to training and it was as if everything He paralyzed, and
we just watched what he did with the ball, or we were left watching him with our mouths open while he nailed another free kick at the corner. "
The bond that was born after playing together
"After that, we began to have another kind of relationship. Boca joined us, and when I was still playing, he returned to the club as a sports director. We began 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 marriage. When I lost my son, he was there for me. And when he had difficult times, I was close to his family. "
The call and the goal to Peru in the rain
"I had not played for the Argentina National Team since 1999. And in 2008, when I was 34 years old, I injured the ligaments in my right knee.
At that time I didn't even know if I was going to play football again."
A mythical hug.
AP
"But I recovered at the beginning of 2009, and by then, by one of those rare things of fate,
Diego had taken over the National Team.
And then he began to rely on the players who were in local football, and not only In those who came from Europe. And then, he called me.
I had not played for a decade with the Argentine jersey and suddenly Diego began to give me games. So we reached the final part of the World Cup qualifiers
, and I realized realized that it could be a part. "
Rain, goal, popcorn, hug.
Diego and Palermo on 10/10/2009. A day for history.
EFE
"We fast forward to October of that year and we find the game 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, that's it. pretty bad. 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 against Peru in Buenos Aires, and it rains. It is a biblical climate. We score 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. Bye World Cup. People are starting 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 believed finished ... now it's ready too. "
After the goal against Peru, the National Team sealed its passage in Uruguay.
AP
"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 running like crazy, with all the teammates who are chasing me
. The stadium It explodes.
Diego also runs into the field, throws himself on his head 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."
The World Cup with Maradona
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 present yourself on Monday. You are going to the World Cup."
"I still remember his voice in that call as if it were yesterday. I could only be grateful to him. The only thing I said was: 'Thank you, Diego. Thank you for the opportunity. My words for him were always of gratitude. The same when I did him the goal to Peru: a hug and a thank you. That's how it was. "
The love of TItán and Maradona.
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.
The mouth full of goal.
AFP.
Look also
"Having played Diego was a gift for my life"
"I never wanted or could have made a note to Diego"
Diego's spectacular mural in the hospital where he was born