“I want to be reborn and be a footballer”: what Maradona said about his death

The sports idol even imagined the epitaph he wanted to put on his gravestone.

Diego Armando Maradona became a legend long before his death. His sporting achievements, his unrivaled way of playing football and his overwhelming personality have made many, including him, wonder what it would be like on the day Argentina’s greatest sports idol left this world.

The health problems of the “10” after leaving the sport, as well as his constant excesses, have put his life in danger several times. Eventually, when he seemed to be recovering smoothly from a head operation due to cerebral edema, Maradona died at the age of 60, plunged into a severe depression that had plagued him for months, and that forced him to drink alcohol. and pills. .

“If I die, I want to be reborn and I want to be a footballer. And I want to be Diego Armando Maradona again. I am a player who has given people joy and this is enough for me and I have it in abundance, “Diego said in an interview with an Argentine media in 1992.

Thanks to the ball

As if it were a science fiction story, the star was also consulted on the subject by himself, in a television play admitted to his program, ‘La noche del Diez’ (2005), in which Maradona was interviewed by Maradona.

“If you had to say a few words to Maradona at the cemetery, what would you say to him?“It was the question of a Diego Armando who wore a jacket to another, who wore a sweatshirt.

The answer was simple, and speaks of his eternal gratitude for the sport that has given him countless joys and which has allowed him to get out of the poverty he went through in his childhood, both him and his family.

“Thank you for playing football, because it is the sport that has given me the most joy, freedom, it’s like touching the sky with your hands. Thanks to the ball. Yes, I’d put a headstone: thanks to the ball“He answered.

In the same “self-interview”, Maradona asked himself what he wanted Claudia Villafañe, his ex-wife and mother of his first two daughters, Dalma and Giannina, to tell him the day of his death. “Even if you are dead, I still love you“He answered.

Although unhappy, he also referred to how he envisioned the end of his legendary life. “Let me live my life, I don’t want to be an example. Nor would I find dead peace. They use me in life, and they will find time to do it while they are dead“, he foreshadowed.