Diego meridana was born in the slums of Buenos Aries but by the age of 21 he was known as the best football player in the world he became the most expensive player ever when he signed for Barcelona he took Napoli to their first ever Seria up and he single-handedly won Argentina the World Cup but despite the Legacy he left his career was a constant battle against discipline drugs and alcohol which saw him forced out of Barcelona Napoli and eventually the Argentinian national team so how did all this happen how did Diego meridana become the greatest
and also the most controversial football player of all time this is the beautiful tragedy of Diego maradana on the 30th of October 1960 Diego Armando maradana was born and he was deal a very unfortunate hand to begin with he was raised in Via fioro which is a very poor area on the outskirts of Buenos Aris Argentina Diego was the fifth child to join the meridana family having four older sisters and after him came two younger brothers and to make matters worse this seven child household had to be supported by a single salary from his father
who worked at a chemical Factory whilst his mother focused on raising the children meaning money was not something Diego saw much of growing up at just 3 years old something would happen that would change the course of the little boy's life forever as he was gifted his first ever football and that was the day the obsession began as Diego started to fall in love with the game he started playing for his hometown Club then at the age of eight he went for trials at Argentino Juniors and he performed so well that the coaches didn't believe
he was only 8 years old so they made him bring his passport to prove that he wasn't lying after this the coaches at the Academy realized they had a gemm on their hands and they decided to devote themselves to training him to become the best player possible as even from just 8 years old it was very clear that maradana had magic in his boots as Diego Grew Older he started to get more eyeballs on him as he soon became a local celebrity leading his youth team to over 140 victories in a row he was so
good that by the age of 12 the senior team would call on him to perform skills and tricks at halftime of their matches as he would leave The Spectators mesmerized by this point it was very clear that Diego was well on his way to the top of football and was going to escape the poverty that he was born into because at just 15 years old he became the youngest player ever to play in the Argentine first division as he officially became a professional football player 10 days before turning 16 meridana made his debut for Argentino
junors and was handed the number 16 Jersey just a couple minutes after entering the pitch he put the ball through the legs of his opponent Juan Domingo Cabrera which was a symbol of the greatness the world would witness over the course of his career after this meridana said that during the game he felt the sky in his hands and things only got better from there as he continued to grow in the team he was soon given the nickname LP bodoro which directly translates to the Golden Boy and less than one year later after his senior
debut he got a callup to the argentinan national team where he made his debut at just 16 years old to put this into perspective Lionel Messi was 18 when he made his debut for Argentina but despite getting better and better playing in Argentina meridana wasn't called up for the 1978 World Cup which Argentina went on to win leaving Diego with a feeling of anger and frustration but he would just use this as fuel to work harder over the next few years meridon went on to create a legacy at Argentino Juniors as he went on to
play a total of 167 games and scored 115 goals but despite his individual Brilliance he was unable to lift any silverware during this time with them but this was all about to change as the biggest clums in Argentina were after the now 20-year-old Superstar signature maradana had the choice between River plight who were dominating Argentinian football and bokeh juniors who were struggling but like you'll see throughout his career Diego preferred to play with the odds stacked against him and opted for a $4 million move to the club he supported as a child bokeh Juniors maradana
scored twice on his debut and carry this momentum through the season where he went on to score 28 goals in 40 appearances leading B Juniors to the league title meaning Diego meridana finally conquered Argentinian football and now he was ready to coner World football as the upcoming summer had a World Cup to play and this time he got the call up but even more than that he was being looked at as the man who could carry Argentina to Glory as he was now considered a football Superstar but this wouldn't go quite to plan as this
tournament would end in tears and a brutal red card [Music] now the story of maradon is one of the craziest roller coaster stories of any football player and it's about to start getting really wild but before that I want to make a deal with you because I really want to hit 100,000 subscribers this year so if you think meridana is one of football's greatest ever players subscribe if not wait until the end of this video and trust me I'll change your mind sounds fair okay now let's get into Diego meana's first World Cup which would
end in a serious heartbreak the 1982 World Cup was played in Spain which added fuel to the rumors that meridana was signing for Barcelona but at this point these were just rumors Diego meridana played in every game of this world cup and one consistent theme throughout was that he was being targeted tactically to try to nullify his effect on the game and this would result in many fouls on him which would cause meridana to get severely frustrated Argentina lost the opener to Belgium won the second game against Hungary where meridon picked up two goals and
then beat El Salvador 2-0 to progress to the second group stage a loss to Italy meant that everything rested on the fifth game of the tournament where Argentina faced off against Brazil the issue for Diego was that this was a Brazilian super team with ziko at the Forefront of it and by the 75th minute Argentina were trailing 3- n at this point Diego had enough of the constant fouls on him and in the 86th minute he retaliated against Batista resulting in him getting sent off marking the end of his first ever World Cup but after
this heartbreak Diego didn't need to fly back to Argentina because he was just announced as Barcelona's latest signing for a world record fee of5 million so at only 21 years old meridana was ready to take over La Liga but things wouldn't go exactly to plan as within his first season he contracted hepatitis which ended up sidelining him for 3 months but despite this meridon returned and would manage to end his first season with one of the most iconic performances Barcelona fans have ever seen during the El Classico Spanish football's fiercest rivalry meridana put on such
a masterful performance and scored such an amazing goal that for the first time in history Real Madrid fans applauded a Barcelona player as all they could do was sit back and watch in awe this is something that has only ever occurred once since then with Ronaldinho which shows the magnitude of this moment meridon and Barcelona finished the season strong lifting the copad Del Ray and managed to play 35 games and register 23 goals for the season so heading into his second season at Barcelona he was hoping to remain fit and get even better but this
is where we are introduced to a villain in the story of Diego meridon who goes by the name of anon gucha also known as The Butcher of Bill ba at the start of the Season Barcelona faced athletic bbow in the league where go coocha went into Bardon with an extremely Reckless tackle and ended up breaking his ankle this tackle could have ended his career on this spot and gooa still showed no remorse in fact he keeps the boot he used on display in his home as a memory of when he injured the best player in
the world after months of treatment and Recovery meridon returned back to football and was hoping to have a good second half to the season meridon was only able to play 23 games where he registered 15 goals but this season came down to a single match where meridana and the butcher would come head-to-head one last time it was the Copa del Reay final where Barcelona were playing against Athletic bilb and this game was dramatic to say the least after receiving a brutal tackle from the butcher being racially insulted with comments related to his father and then
right after losing the match 1- n he was provoked by Miguel Soma and meridana snapped he started started to aggressively talk with the bill bow player which sparked emotions in both teams and this resulted in an allout brawl maridon headbutted Sola elbowed another player in the face and then kneed a third player in the head knocking him out cold this brawl was played out in front of a crowd of a 100,000 Spectators the Spanish King and more than half of Spain watching from home at a total of 60 people were injured including players coaches fans
and even photographers now this wasn't Madonna's only controversy at Barcelona as he had behavioral issues throughout his two years but this was definitely the biggest at this marked the end of his time in Spain as the club now wanted him out despite this sour ending meridana still played some mesmerizing football at Barcelona and still left a great legacy behind but this was nothing compared to the Legacy he was about to create as he was heading into the prime years of his career along with heading into his greatest controversies after this Barcelona Brawl on the 5th
of July 1984 meridana made a second world record transfer to Italy where he signed for Napoli for 6.9 million pounds now this move didn't make much sense from the outside because Napoli were not a big Club at all they had only ever won two Copa Italians in their entire history and had never won a league title the season before this they just survived relegation finishing a point above the drop zone at this time the Syria was regarded as the toughest league in the world with the northern clubs dominating the league and this North versus South
battle in Italy was very significant as the northern and Central cities were richer and the people felt a sense of entitlement over the southern workingclass cities so why did meridana move to Napoli well he saw a city and a team that went through the same struggles he went through growing up it was a dysfunctional but passionate City they suffered from Mass poverty unemployment and organized crime and meadon felt a connection to this on his first day he said I want to become the idol of the poor children of Naples because they are like I was
when I lived in Buenos AAS the connection meridana felt with the city was a two-way connection which was really highlighted during the negotiations of this transfer Barcelona and Napoli had agreed on a fee but at the last minute the Barcelona president demanded 500,000 lb more Napoli couldn't pay this fee so the people of Naples decided to go around the street streets collecting money and this poor workingclass area was able to raise the 500k necessary to complete the signing when meridon finally arrived in Naples he was presented to a stadium full with 75,000 Spectators as the
fans were convinced that their savior had arrived a local newspaper wrote a lack of a mayor houses schools buses employment and sanitation none of this matters because we have Diego meridana this was quite literally a match made in heaven but now it was time for badon to prove his Worth to the city and he definitely delivered in his first season at the club he took them from a team fighting relegation to a respectable eighth place finish in the league chipping in with 14 goals in all competitions and then in his second season he stepped up
once more driving Napoli to a third place finish in the city a they were getting close meridon was able to inspire hope in the city as he was playing at a level Napoli had never seen SE before nobody could dribble like him nobody could take a free kick like him and it seemed like nobody could stop him especially heading into the 1986 World Cup as he carried this momentum to almost single-handedly win his country the World Cup the 1986 World Cup has gone down in history as Diego meridana was able to produce some of the
greatest and also some of the most controversial moments in football history in a single tournament this was hosted in Mexico and meridon was clearly the best and most dynamic player throughout it in the opener against South Korea Argentina won 31 where meridana recorded all three assists they drew the second group game to Italy where meridana scored the only goal and they defeated Bulgaria 2-1 in the third group game where maradana assisted the winning goal a 1- nil victory in the round of 16 against uguay meant that Argentina would face England in the quarterfinals and this
game went down as one of the most iconic in World Cup history if there was a single game that could sum up the life of Diego meridana it would be this one as he scored both goals to beat England 21 the first goal is known as the hand of God where he hit the ball into the net with his hand in a moment of blatant cheating that wasn't caught and then just 5 minutes later he scored what was later voted as the goal of the century where he dribbled from his own half beating five England
players and then put the keeper on his backside to slot the ball into the net this controversial goal against England carried more weight than just football as there was the fauland war going on at the time between England and Argentina so this really meant Diego became the villain for the English but he didn't care he was on to the semi-final to face Belgium where he scored both goals in a 2-n victory and then to round the tournament up Argentina faced West Germany in a thriller of a final where Argentina won the game 3-2 with a
later winner assisted by none other than Diego meridana meaning he was lifting the World Cup as the captain of Argentina now this tournament performance from meridana has to go down as one of the greatest individual performances in any International Tournament as he attempted a tournament best of 90 dribbles three times more than any other player he was fouled a record of 53 times and he scored or assisted 10 out of 14 of Argentina's goals securing him the golded boot and cementing himself as a national hero and one of the greatest football players to ever grace
the pitch but despite cementing his Argentinian Legacy maridana still had a city to save and as he headed back to Naples and was ready to conquer Italy once and for all Diego meridana now 25 years old and captain of Napoli returned from the World Cup in the 8687 and did The Impossible with Napoli as he led them to their first ever syia OD title and n only this because they also won the Copa Italia meaning in a single season Napoli doubled the amount of trophies in their club's history and won their first ever league title
this title was so significant because no Southern Italian team had ever won the league until now and the City of Napoli truly enjoyed this Victory it was like all the problems they had disappeared there were weeks of Street parties murals of meridana were painted around the city and many newborns were being named in his honor in the next season Napoli finished second place and maradana finished as the League's top scorer despite his position being that of an attacking midfielder in 1989 Napoli finished Runners up in the city offer a second time in a row but
this year they achieved European Glory as they lifted the UFA cup and maradana scored a penalty in the final then in 1990 Diego maradana did it once again as he CT in napoi to their second City OD title whilst chipping in with 18 goals for the season this meant that for 5 years in a row Napoli finished in the top three in the city a which really shifted The Narrative that there was on the southern Italian clubs these years in Napoli are really looked at as the best years of his career with moments of Genius
that would live on forever like the 40 yd volley against Verona the hattrick against Lazio which included a beautiful chip and a goal directly from a corner the one-step free kick to secure their first win over Juventus in over 12 years and so many more every opponent meridon had faced had the same thing to say about him Paulo Maldini said he was the best opponent he had ever faced the Brazilian Legend ziko said he was the best of the lot no question I saw meridon do things that God himself would doubt were possible and Michelle
platini the French Legend has even gone as far to compare zidon to maradana by saying what zidon could do with a ball meridana could do with an orange really highlighting the Lev which Diego played at by this time he had truly become the king of Naples a place where football is religion and meridana became God but this went beyond just football because he was a man of the people as he had come from a poor background himself he was politically active and never hid away from defending the poor which is why he became well known
for his off- the- pitch acts of Charity as he often supported local causes and underprivileged kids but as much as meridana had this Perfect Image there were lots of cont controversies going on in his life which to this point hadn't been too public but heading into the 1990 World Cup meridana would make one mistake that would cause his career to spiral and he would just jump from one controversy to another eventually receiving a 15mon ban from football so how did this happen well meridon Captain Argentina heading into the 1990 World Cup hosted in Italy and
as the current world champions they were hoping to make it to in a row but this time round meridana was suffering with an ankle injury which meant he wasn't able to play to the level of 4 years prior Argentina lost the opener against Cameroon they then beat the Soviet Union 2-n where yet again meridana used his hands to save the day and yet again got away with it this time it was to prevent a goal not score one they then Drew against Romania to advance to The Knockout stages they beat Brazil in the round of
16 and then won both the quarterfinals and semi-finals on PES against Yugoslavia and Italy placing them in the final for the second time in a row they faced off against West Germany again but this time the Germans got the better of Diego and thanks to a controversial penalty meridana was left with his silver medal but the significant moment in this tournament was what happened before the semi-final match against Italy you see maradana wanted to try and get the edge over Italy and conveniently this game was being played in his own City Naples so in an
attempt to get the stadium to support the Argentinian meridana called out to the people of Naples telling them that they should support Argentina and not Italy because of the way that north of Italy has treated Naples over the years this might have worked on the DAT to progress to the finals but this did not sit well with the Italian press overnight meridana lost all political protection from the press the Judiciary and even Napoli football club as it had been the case that meridon had been living a life full of controversy but this was being kept
out of the public eye up until this point it had been made public that meridana had been a frequent drug user and loved to party as a result of this lifestyle he lived he would often miss or turn up late to training he would return from holidays late and out of shape and he would sometimes even miss matches it had also come out that Diego had links with the Italian mafia which further fueled the issues up until this point these issues had all been kept relatively quiet but heading into the 9091 season this had become
public knowledge in November of this season right before round of 16 European Cup match Diego decided to go out partying and then refused to travel to Moscow for the team's match he instead hired a private jet and flew in late arriving just the night before the game for once meridana was punished for his bad behavior and was placed on the bench for this he came on as a second half substitute but was unable to take Napoli through as they ended up losing on penalties later on this season meridana was drunk tested and the results came
back positive resulting in a 15 18mth Bann from football and once these results came back he knew his time at Napoli was over he was no longer protected by the club or the media so he fled and flew back to Argentina marking a sad end to a legendary time in Italy but unfortunately for Diego the controversy did not end there after serving his 15-month ban from football in September of 1992 Diego meadon announced his return by signing for the Spanish Clum Sevilla but this wasn't the same Diego meadon he was now 31 years old and
the lifestyle he lived had taken a toll on him he played 30 Games For sevila That season and scored seven goals before transferring back to Argentina to sign for new's old boys now it was 1994 and maradon received the call up to what would be his final International Tournament for Argentina as the World Cup was taking place in the United States meridon scored in the opening Victory against Greece and picked up an assist in the second game which was a 2-1 Victory against Nigeria but after this game he was called in for a drug test
and to little surprise he tested positive meaning he was sent home from the World Cup and received yet another B from football this ended up being the last game he would play for Argentina finishing his International career with 34 goals 91 appearances and one World Cup after this ban he did return to football and rejoin boa Juniors for a 2-year stint playing 32 games but he was dealing with a variety of issues by this point no notably struggling to control his weight on the 20th of October 1997 the day finally came where Diego meridana decided
to finally hang up his boots and announce his retirement from professional football now since his retirement a number of things have happened in Merida's life in 2000 Napoli retired Merida's iconic number 10 Jersey in his honor also in 2000 meridana was named as the player of the century garnering 53% of the total votes whereas P only received 18 % in 2003 Argentino Juniors renamed their Stadium after the legend in 2008 meridon had a 2ear stint as the Argentinian national team manager taking them to the World Cup quarterfinals in 2010 and then on the 25th of
November 2020 at 60 years of age Diego meridana suffered a cardiac arrest and died in his sleep at his home in Buenos Aris this was a moment that sent a shock through the world of football as the sport lost arguably its best ever player and and a player who left a legacy like nobody else after this Napoli officially renamed their Stadium to sto Diego Armando maradana as a tribute to their Legend and it's safe to say that no matter what Diego meridana will live on forever in the hearts of football fans he is eternal
