Of king, there was only one on the planet football.
His Brazilian name is Pelé and, despite failing health, is heading happily towards his 81 spring.
Twenty years his junior, Maradona, who died on Wednesday, nevertheless occupies a special place in the hearts of lovers of this little leather sphere with sometimes so capricious bounces.
Brain operated in early November, the Argentinian hospitalized eight days, has since been recovering in a house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
He passed away this Wednesday at the age of 60, following a cardiac arrest.
At the announcement of his disappearance, a whole country, a whole grieving people who entered into a three-day national mourning.
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The child of Villa Fiorito, a poor neighborhood in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, became legendary in the summer of 1986 at the Mexican World Cup.
From an early age, in the clubs of Argentinos Juniors and Boca, he was known to be a virtuoso.
All dumbfounded, we discover, in full light, a true genius, with a left foot as skilful as a hand, a bow, a feather, a Stradivarius.
With the ball, he makes, in this month of June, a real score, a hymn to joy.
Light and fog
Everything Diego is summed up in this tournament, where, on his sole talent, from the top of his 25 years, he brings his country to the roof of the world.
Angel and demon.
Light and fog.
The qualifiers abound and collide.
The time of a quarter-final against England, on June 22, he begins his recital by marking with his hand, "that of God", in his own words before putting the cover back after a breathtaking slalom where the subjects of his graceful majesty are reduced to the rank of vulgar plots, simple lamp-keepers.
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"A dribbler and everything changes", used to say Raymond Kopa, the architect of the 1958 Blues. Maradona was one of the most beautiful jewels, in the acceptation of the term.
This Wednesday, Gary Lineker present that day on the lawn, greeted his executioner for a day: “(He is) by far, the best player of my generation and probably the greatest of all time.
After a blessed but troubled life, I hope he finally finds some comfort in the hands of God.
"
Even if, of this little man (1m69) inhabited by grace, Argentina made a sun that she perhaps did not deserve completely, it would necessarily be reductive to limit her career to these few Mexican weeks.
But the numbers are banging and bluffing.
During the tournament, he is decisive ten times (five goals, five assists) in seven games.
Respect!
In Naples, he is more than a player, an icon
“I have two dreams: to compete in the World Cup and to win it.
Asked at the age of twelve by Argentinian television, the raven-haired kid had this premonitory sentence.
Without knowing it yet, this magician of the dawn has just experienced the peak of his career.
Four years later, he is on the verge of sewing a third star on the Argentine jersey.
But the Germany of Andreas Brehme turns out to be a last insurmountable pitfall (1-0).
This failure in Rome, on this Italian land, where he put down his bag of tricks in 1984 in Naples, turning his back on a painful experience in Barcelona (1982 to 1984), marks his swan song.
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From his 30 years, the Pibe de Oro has forged in Campania a real record in club.
He who said he was so proud to be a “villero”, of that contemptuous name given to the inhabitants of the slums of Buenos Aires, installs Naples, the rejected, the rebellious girl of the peninsula, in incandescent letters on the map of Italian football.
With Careca and a few “water carriers”, entirely devoted to his cause, he took the pawn, in passing, to the rich clubs of Piedmont and Lombardy.
From 1987 and 1990, he thus took all his opponents from one foot to the other to the ball of disillusion, won the 1987 Cup-Championship double, finished top scorer in the 1988 Serie A, won the UEFA Cup 1989 against Stuttgart, then another Scudetto in 1990.
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In Naples, he is more than a player.
An icon.
His sky blue jersey, stamped with 10, has the value of a sacred relic, with a Holy Shroud.
The rest of its history is revealed, much less brilliant.
We still have in mind these images dated April 26, 1991. Hirsute, thick, unshaven, gazing absent, Maradona leaves her home in Buenos Aires surrounded by two police officers who came to arrest her for possession and consumption of cocaine.
A sporting retirement with a sometimes pathetic image
This sad episode coincides with the beginning of his descent into hell, excesses of all kinds, satiety slips, ephemeral returns to the foreground.
He will now alternate detoxification cures and relapses.
The image tarnished by scandals, under suspension by his federation for a new positive test in the heart of the 1994 World Cup, he bowed out 3 years later, on his 37th birthday.
Then making contact with sulphurous Cuban or South American politicians (Castro, Morales, Chavez…), his sporting retirement will send back a sometimes pathetic image of him.
Surrounded by the Italian tax authorities and pursued by paternity tests, we will see him more on television sets than on the pitches where his coaching career has left no notable trace (less than two hundred matches in total with notably the Argentine selection, Al Wasl, Dorados de Sinaloa, or Gimnasia la Plata his last club).
Unlikely clubs.
Unworthy of its excess.
Today we prefer to remember his flashes of light, his gaiety of heart, this aptitude for happiness.
His and ours.
“I hope that one day we can play together in heaven.
The tribute is from Pelé.
Among the stars, Diego Armando Maradona could not claim a more beautiful epitaph.