The 25 November 2020 it was a mourning date for football. It was the day of the death of one of the most important players on the world sports scene, Diego Armando Maradona. Loved and hated in equal measure, the golden kid is, definitely, one of the most representative figures in the world of the spherical. Throughout his career he has scored goals, dribbles and plays to remember, but without a doubt the one that we will never forget will be the one with its final brooch.
Maradona's farewell to the world of football it was a cult gift. El Pelusa "hung up his boots" on numerous occasions, but it wasn't until 25 October 1997 when i would definitely. In a classic River and Boca, his latest classic. Although he still didn't know. And just like it has happened all his life, the last steps of the Argentine in the green exceed fiction, verisimilitude and touch the bizarre.
25 October 1997, the day of the Superclásico that fired Diego Armando Maradona from football
Maradona came from a sanction of 18 months after testing positive for ephedrine shortly before the start of World Cup USA 94. During the break, trained Textil Mandiyú and Racing Club, without much luck for both. Then, after the end of his expulsion from the field, returned to his team, to your Boca Juniors. The Argentine's physical condition was not that of a professional and his close relationship with cocaine took him even further away from the playing fields.. Drugs were the last nail in his crucifixion and he knew it. To such an extent that he pronounced, during a drug charity gala in 1996, "I am and will always be a drug addict".
Pelusa saw the end closer and closer and decided that he had to finish with the most important game of all, the Superclásico against River Plate that would be played on 25 October 1997.
There has never been an eve of the most boiling match. Praise and blame for seeing a Diego play who, according to different sources, had not passed the urine test. But it was a historic match, too important. A whole country wanted to see him move on the grass again.
With the 10 behind your back and raising your fists to heaven making the sign of the cross, Armando Maradona leaves the changing room tunnel before an exploding Bombonera. Screams and flashes flood the stadium. And the game begins. El pibe de oro offers a master lesson in orderly play, passing the ball a lot. that if, moving little and having to be helped by colleagues before falls. Just play the first half, then the vulgate decides to replace him with the one who was considered his heir, Juan roman riquelme.
Maradona drives the ball in the Superclásico that fired him from football. PHOTO: The Journal
But, definitely, 45 minutes for the story. Mouth won 2 a 1 and at the end of the game Maradona sentenced: “Boca played like Boca and River was River. They did a great first half but then their pants fell off ". That Superclassic of Buenos Aires, with sixty thousand fans that packed the stands, It should not have been the last game of the Argentine but, with 36 ayears and 364 dyou were... the drugs take it away.
Maradona gave football a new language both on and off the field, le dio alegríindescribable ace and devastating tragedies. Definitely, I changed the world of this sport. In 2001, four years after that last game, disputed his official farewell in a friendly, where he made one of his most famous statements: “Soccer is the healthiest and most important sport in the world. I made a mistake and paid, but the ball is not stained ".
