Diego Maradona, the hero who died without hugs

An image of Diego Maradona covers part of the balcony of the Casa Rosada, the seat of the Argentine Government in Buenos Aires, on November 26. Marcos Brindicci / AP

It is possible that, in a few years, a series on Diego Maradona's life begins with the moment when the last health personnel assisting him discovered him without vital signs.

A close-up could show the food that Monona, the cook who accompanied him in recent days, had prepared the night before, and that Maradona did not get to taste.

On a night table, as reconstructed by the prosecutors in charge of the case, they also found boxes with the drugs that the star had prescribed, some of them psychotropic drugs.

Having just arrived at the house in the private neighborhood in the north of Greater Buenos Aires that his collaborators had rented at the beginning of the month, the psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov and the psychologist Carlos Díaz knocked on the door of the former soccer player's room.

It was 11:30 in the morning and a couple of minutes later they would see that, as the German philosopher said, God had died.

The little-known nicknames and surnames of the cook and mental health specialists, in a house that Maradona had never set foot in until two weeks ago, suggest that the most loved man in the country lived his last hours in a strange, lonelier environment of the thought, definitely away from most of his closest relatives and closest friends.

The other inhabitants of the house, the last who lived with Maradona, one of his nephews (Jonny Herrera), a personal assistant (Maximiliano Pomargo, a relative of his lawyer Matías Morla), a person in charge of personal security (whose name did not appear) and the nurse on the morning shift (Gisella), feed this paradoxical image: thousands of Argentines would have given what they did not have to be with 10.

In the testimonial statement they gave to justice, his last housemates described Maradona as "a difficult patient, who did not allow himself to be treated."

The justice, which confirmed a natural death while the hero slept, will summon Leopoldo Luque, the doctor who led his medical treatment in the last year and operated on him for cerebral edema at the beginning of this month.

But the last Maradona, described as a "chronic depressive" by his historical doctor, Alberto Cahe, and who had more and more difficulty moving and speaking, not only refused to be treated by his doctors: he was also unlikely to receive several of his closest relatives, sometimes even some of his children.

The man of the crowds chose more and more his confinement.

Although at the same time he received Gianinna, one of his daughters, Diego had been saddened for some months and for long hours he did not want to socialize beyond his small group.

Even his childhood idol, Ricardo Bochini, went to see him a few months ago in La Plata, before a gymnastics training, the team led by Maradona, and did not get to see him.

The doubt that remained for the crack of Independiente in the 70s and 80s was that of many: if Diego knew of his visit or if his relatives did not inform him.

At the same time, the hero faded while some of his partners and children rehearsed a double fight: among themselves and against the so-called environment, the group of collaborators, led by Morla, whom the former soccer player chose as life companions for his later years.

Maradona's last couple, Rocío Oliva, could not access the wake held at the Obelisk due to the prohibition of Claudia Villafañe, Maradona's wife between 1989 and the beginning of the century.

For a couple of years now, the two daughters of Maradona's only legal marriage, Dalma and Gianinna, lashed out on social networks against the company group that their father had chosen, that famous environment.

"For the sake of the bloodsuckers, let nothing happen to him," Dalma wrote at the beginning of the month.

Although distant from each other, the pain after death was a common point.

“I am going to love and defend you all my life because I thank you for the shared life.

I am destroyed but I am going to move forward.

I love you dad ”, Dalma wrote this Friday on the networks.

"The captain of my heart will never die," added Diego Armando Junior, his eldest son, the fruit of an extramarital affair, recognized after many years by Maradona, the hero who died sleeping, in silence, without the usual hugs.