It is certainly possible that Diego Armando Maradona, who died Wednesday at age 60, was the finest soccer player ever to draw breath, though that is a subject of hot and unyielding debate. Less contentious is the idea that no other player has ever inspired such fierce devotion
A file photo shows Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona (L), wearing a Boca Juniors club jersey, thanking the more than 50,000 fans that watched his farewell match in the Bombonera Stadium in Buenos Aires, November 10, 2001. Maradona remained in intensive care in a Buenos Aires hospital early April 20, 2004, more than 36 hours after falling ill with heart and breathing problems while watching a game at his former club Boca Juniors' stadium where he made his name.
Image: REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian
The day that Diego Maradona said goodbye, as his voice cracked and the place that had always been home heaved and sobbed, his mind drifted to the mistakes that he had made, the price that he had paid.
In his valedictory moment, he did not seek absolution. All he asked, instead, was that the sport that he had loved and that had adored him in return, the one that he had mastered, the one he had illuminated, the one he lifted into an art, was not tarnished by all that he had done.
The last line of his speech that day — the final time he graced La Bombonera, home of Boca Juniors, the club that held him closest to its heart — became an Argentine aphorism: “La pelota no se mancha,” he told the adoring crowd. The ball does not show the dirt.
It is certainly possible that Diego Armando Maradona, who died Wednesday at age 60, was the finest soccer player ever to draw breath, though that is a subject of hot and unyielding debate. Less contentious is the idea that no other player has ever inspired such fierce devotion.
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