Diego Maradona: His career in pictures

Icon: enlarge

1/30

Diego Armando Maradona Franco, one of the greatest, most important, best footballers in history, is dead. He died on Wednesday after a heart attack.

Maradona was only 60 years old.

Photo: Michael Regan / FIFA via Getty Images

Icon: enlarge

2/30

Maradona's death is unlikely to affect few who lived through it.

Because his career and life were not only shaped by exceptional sporting achievements and titles (such as the 1986 World Cup victory, photo).

Maradona always had lows: athletic ones, but especially those that affected his life.

He was addicted to drugs, had alcohol and health problems.

Maradona was brilliant - and fallible.

That is precisely why he hardly left anyone indifferent.

Photo: imago / press photo Baumann

Icon: enlarge

3/30

The photo is from February of this year.

Maradona was last coach of the Argentine first division club Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata, he started at the club in September 2019.

Photo: 

Marcos Brindicci / Getty Images

Icon: enlarge

4/30

As a coach, Maradona has never been able to build on the performances he had shown as a player.

But: That was also difficult to do.

Because hardly anyone celebrated football better and more spectacularly than Maradona, maybe even nobody.

Maradona won the world title in 1986 (photo) for the Argentines almost single-handedly.

Photo: Laci Perenyi / imago images

Icon: enlarge

5/30

The Argentine strategy usually consisted of passing the ball to Maradona - and then covering his back.

With his solo runs, the opponents could hardly stop him.

He scored five goals himself and prepared five more goals.

In the end there was the World Cup victory (including the final victory over Germany) and the award as the best player of the tournament.

Photo: David Cannon / Getty Images

Icon: enlarge

6/30

The quarter-finals against England will forever be associated with the name Maradona.

Argentina won 2-1, both goals scored Maradona - but how was decisive.

On the first goal, he maneuvered the ball past England goalkeeper Peter Shilton.

The referees did not recognize the offense - they gave the goal.

Photo: Getty Images

Icon: enlarge

7/30

"It was the head of Maradona and the hand of God," Maradona would say later.

He wasn't just an artist on the ball, but also with words.

Photo: dpa

8/30

Maradona had an iconic dream goal follow that actually irregular 1-0.

He dribbled over half the pitch and pranced around English defenders as if they were amateur kickers.

The solo run including the conclusion is still considered to be one of the greatest goals in World Cup history.

Photo: imago / AFLOSPORT

Icon: enlarge

9/30

Today's footballers have no idea how many footballers of the Maradona generation had to take.

Dribblers like him were fouled particularly often and brutally.

As a rule, Maradona never stayed long.

He just started dribbling all over again.

Photo: Werek / imago

Icon: enlarge

10/30

Who was the better one?

An idle question.

Few people doubt that Maradona and Pelé are among the greatest in football, oh what, in sport.

Photo: imago sportfotodienst / imago images / Buzzi

Icon: enlarge

11/30

At the club level, Maradona played for the Argentinos Juniors and the Boca Juniors before moving to Europe in 1982.

At FC Barcelona (photo), however, he was not really happy.

After starting a fight on the pitch following a cup final against Bilbao, Barcelona wanted to sell the star player.

Photo: Colorsport / imago images

Icon: enlarge

12/30

Maradona went to SSC Napoli in Italy.

He was received like a rock star.

Photo: Stefano Montesi / Getty Images

Icon: enlarge

13/30

A documentary about him captures the hype that arose around him in Naples.

In its review, DER SPIEGEL wrote: “If you can ever speak of superhuman expectations, then it is those that the city, the association and the people have of this 23-year-old young man.

And the worst possible happens: He lives up to your expectations.

Photo: Alessandro Sabattini / Getty Images

Icon: enlarge

14/30

Maradona shone sportily.

As a key player, he led Napoli to the double in 1987, to victory in the Uefa Cup in 1989, and to the renewed championship in 1990.

Photo: imago images / Magic

Icon: enlarge

15/30

But Maradona also enjoyed the Neapolitan nightlife.

Drugs used.

He was on good terms with the Camorra, organized crime.

Here Maradona poses with Mafia boss Carmine Giuliano.

Photo: imago sportfotodienst / imago images / Milestone Media

Icon: enlarge

16/30

From today's point of view, it is difficult to understand how he was able to maintain such a lifestyle on the one hand and deliver top sporting performances at the same time.

Photo: imago sportfotodienst / imago images / Pressefoto Baumann

Icon: enlarge

17/30

In 1984 Maradona came to Naples, in 1991 he left the club again.

The Neapolitans' esteem for Diego Maradona will probably last forever.

You can still discover them in many corners of Naples today.

Photo: Michael Steele / Getty Images

Icon: enlarge

18/30

The SSC was followed by a station in Seville (photo), then Maradona moved back to Argentina, to the Newell's Old Boys and Boca.

Maradona was never as successful as during his time in Naples.

Photo: J MUNOZ / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

Icon: enlarge

19/30

The 1990 World Cup in Italy.

This time, Maradona did not shape the tournament as it did in Mexico in 1986.

The final reached Argentina anyway.

There Maradona made the acquaintance of Guido Buchwald.

Photo: Frank Kleefeldt / dpa

Icon: enlarge

20/30

Buchwald took the playmaker under cover, and quite consistently.

The result: Maradona barely developed, and if he couldn't shine, the entire Argentine offensive remained harmless.

Photo: STUDIO FOTOGRAFICO BUZZI SRL / imago images / Buzzi

Icon: enlarge

21/30

He had to take a lot, in the end Argentina lost 1-0, Germany were world champions.

Photo: Getty Images / Bongarts

22/30

Maradona, the coach: Even during a doping ban as a player, he tried his hand at coaching for a short time (and with little success).

In 2008 he took over the post of Argentina national coach despite a lack of experience.

Photo: MARCOS BRINDICCI / REUTERS

23/30

"Maradona is 80 percent myth and 20 percent tactic," said sports journalist Luciano Olivero recently to SPIEGEL about the coach Maradona.

Olivero had accompanied him longer.

Photo: PABALLO THEKISO / AFP

Icon: enlarge

24/30

Wherever he went, Maradona was the focus.

This photo was taken at the beginning of 2010 in Pretoria, where the World Cup was held six months later.

Photo: SCHALK VAN ZUYDAM / AP

Icon: enlarge

25/30

Maradona led the selection to the finals in South Africa and there until the quarter-finals.

However, Argentina was surprisingly eliminated against Germany - it was 0: 4.

The association and coach then went their separate ways.

Photo: Mike Hewitt / FIFA via Getty Images

Icon: enlarge

26/30

Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata was his seventh and final coaching station.

Before that, he had taken on a number of seemingly dubious jobs, including being "Honorary President" of Dinamo Brest from Belarus.

His engagement rarely lasted more than a year. 

Photo: Natacha Pisarenko / AP

Icon: enlarge

27/30

In early 2000, Maradona, then addicted to cocaine, suffered a heart attack.

He made friends with Fidel Castro while on rehab in Cuba.

He got tattoos with the likeness of Che Guevara ...

Photo: REUTERS

Icon: enlarge

28/30

... and sting Castro.

He stayed in Cuba for four years.

Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / Soccer Weekly

Icon: enlarge

29/30

Pictures that went around the world: Maradona at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

From his box he supported the Argentine team with apparent fervor.

Photo: OLGA MALTSEVA / AFP

Icon: enlarge

30/30

At the beginning of November, Maradona had to undergo emergency surgery on the head.

He had previously been diagnosed with a subdural hematoma, a hemorrhage in the brain.

He was released from the hospital in mid-November.

Diego Maradona died 13 days later.

Photo: Marcos Brindicci / Getty Images