Cosmic kite, what planet did you come from?
Every argument about football eventually arrives at Diego. Born on the southern edge of Buenos Aires and raised in Villa Fiorito, he learned the game on the potrero — the waste ground where invention is a survival skill — and never stopped playing like it.
What made Maradona singular wasn't the trophies, though they came. It was that he seemed to feel the game more intensely than anyone watching him, and the feeling travelled. Naples didn't sign a footballer in 1984; it signed a patron saint.
The moments
1981
Two goals on his official Boca debut
Two days after signing, the 20-year-old scored twice against Talleres in a 4-1 win at La Bombonera. The stadium and the boy recognised each other immediately.
1984
Naples meets its saint
Around 75,000 people paid to watch him wave from the centre circle of the San Paolo on 5 July. Napoli had never won a scudetto. He delivered two, the first in May 1987 — and the south never forgot it.
1986
The Hand of God and the Goal of the Century
Against England at the Azteca on 22 June: the most infamous goal in World Cup history, then the greatest, four minutes apart. A week later he lifted the trophy, having carried Argentina through the entire tournament.
1990
Tears in Rome
He dragged a limited Argentina to a second consecutive final on one working ankle. West Germany won it late from the penalty spot; Diego's tears were the image of the tournament.
2020
Three days of mourning
When he died on 25 November, Argentina stopped. The queue to pass his coffin at the Casa Rosada stretched for more than twenty blocks.
He was flawed in ways no one bothered to hide and brilliant in ways no one has matched. Beauty first, victory second, joy above everything — nobody ever embodied the creed harder, or made the contradictions look so much like dancing.