Beto Marcico played with but also beat Diego Maradona, in 1986 in the European Cup with Toulouse.
Today an entrepreneur in Argentina, Marcico, 60, goes back in time and tells us about his Maradona, who died on Wednesday.
How did you react to Maradona's death?
BETO MARCICO.
I still don't believe it.
During his last public appearance a month ago, he couldn't walk on his own, he couldn't even readjust his mask.
It was very worrying, and three days later he had to undergo brain surgery.
Doctors' reports were not optimistic.
It is terrible.
How do Argentines react?
It is consternation.
On the sides of the road, in the cities, all the luminous signs started to project “Gracias Diego”
(Editor's note: thank you Diego)
.
On TV, the players, the leaders, nobody realizes.
It will take a long time ... Here, it is more important than the president.
And the shock is even global.
He is the best player in the world that I have seen.
Much better than Messi.
At the time, there were quite a few players.
You had played with him.
Which teammate was he?
He was magnificent.
He defended our interests, he fought for us.
He was a very political person, Diego, he had even created a world union of players.
He had fought against Fifa, against Blatter.
Ten years later, we realized he was right!
If he felt you were in trouble, Diego was there for you.
I had played with him in the selection, in 1985, we went on tour for three months to play all the matches of the World Cup qualifiers.
Then we met for a season in 1995 at Boca Juniors.
It was magical.
But for the general public, the strongest memory between you remains the victory of Toulouse FC against Naples, in 1986, on penalties ...
Yeah, it was pretty amazing to eliminate Napoli.
Diego had just won the World Cup and been voted the best player in the world.
On the way back, we exchanged our jerseys.
I still have it at home.
And it is he who misses the last shot on goal.
With Tarantini
(Editor's note: another Argentinian international from TFC)
, we told our goalkeeper, Bergeroo: “Above all, don't move, stay straight”, because we knew that Diego was always waiting until the last moment to see where the goalkeeper was diving.
If you look at the pictures, we see that Diego hesitates and he hits the post!
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His life has been eaten away by drugs ...
Yes, his life has been very difficult next to football.
We're both 60, and the body reminds you of everything you've done in your life.
In Boca (1995), we saw him leave training and you never knew what he was doing outside.
He left with people we didn't know.
His private life was complicated.