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When Maria Inés Altieri learned of the disaster, she was in the kitchen. The TV was on and the program suddenly stopped. Latest news. Maradona is dead. “I had to sit down first,” says Altieri. He’s 68, with sneakers, shorts and a hoarse voice, maybe for all the tears today, maybe for all the cigarettes. Altieri immediately lights up another trembling finger, holding the handkerchief in the other hand. You have to hold on to something in times like this.
It is now past 4:00 pm and Altieri is on the street a few blocks from his home in La Paternal, a quiet neighborhood in western Buenos Aires. Two-storey houses, car repair shops, narrow supermarkets and, of course, the “Diego Armando Maradona” stadium, home to the Argentinos Juniors first division club, but also home to Maradona. At least that’s what it says on the posters you pinned to the walls: “Paternal, Tierra de Dios” – that is, “Paternal, Land of God” – so you didn’t write Dios with ieo, but with 1 and 0, D10S, like 10 on Maradona’s back. Look proudly from a huge mural a few meters away, lit candles in front, flowers on the floor and T-shirts. Offerings to someone who was immortal before he even died.
He obviously saw Maradona herself at the stadium, says Altieri, when she was still playing for Argentinos Juniors. “He scored four goals in one match – and the one against Boca!” Shortly after, Diego himself wore the yellow and red jersey of Boca, the club had signed him, from that moment on he moved on, Maradona became a world star, Diego, D10S. But now he’s dead, of a heart attack, just weeks after his 60th birthday.
Maradona’s death left Argentina in shock
Of course, the death wasn’t entirely surprising, Altieri says. Maradona had been ill for a long time, sometimes half dead, several times in hospital, the last time just a few weeks ago for a head operation. “Anyway,” Altieri says, shaking his head. “Nobody is prepared for something like this, right?”
Indeed, the news of Diego Maradona’s death left Argentina in shock. For the rest of the world, Maradona may have been an exceptional athlete, a talent of the century and yes, perhaps even the best footballer in the world. But for the Argentines it was more. They camped in front of his house when he was sick, had his likeness tattooed, dedicated songs and stadiums to him or even prayed to him for fun, of course, but at the same time Maradona was always serious.
And so the current traffic situation is no longer on digital billboards that are everywhere in Buenos Aires. Instead: “Gracias Diego”, thanks Diego. For what, everyone can decide for themselves. Argentine shirts and flags hang on the windows and balconies of the city, TV channels have been broadcasting specials for hours and the radio plays songs like “Capitán Pelusa” from Los Cafres: “Your fans don’t doubt you, they don’t get angry and are waiting for you . “
In the center of Buenos Aires, it is said, after the news of Maradona’s death, employees ran through the streets as if an earthquake had just shaken the country. Small altars have been built spontaneously everywhere, in front of the “Diego Armando Maradona” stadium in La Paternal as well as at the Bombonera, where Boca Juniors play. In reality, a match against Inter de Porto Alegre in Brazil would have been on the agenda today. But the game was postponed. Who can think of football when Diego Maradona dies?
In Villa Fiorito, a poor neighborhood in the south of the capital, fans made a pilgrimage to the run-down house where Maradona and his brothers grew up. And in Tigre, on the other side, in the rich north of the city, the cameras huddled in front of the entrance to that noble gated residential neighborhood where Maradona died.
Maradona was a fighter who would not give up. Maybe that’s why his death hits Argentines so hard now: they just might have needed someone like him. Argentina was quarantined for around 230 days due to the coronavirus, much of which was in strict isolation and not even allowed to walk. Now the numbers of the infection are finally dwindling again, but at the same time the economy is experiencing the worst collapse ever in the country’s already crisis-ridden history. 40 percent of Argentines already live below the poverty line, inflation is rising and rising, and now that too: God is dead.
“Diego is not dead, Diego is not dead”
“How am I?” Lucas Andrago asks. What a question! “Shit of course!” Andrago is 36 years old, wearing a black and white jersey of the Argentine national team and a can of beer in his hand. Together with some friends he came to Avenida 9 de Julio, the avenue in the center of Buenos Aires, the splendor and glory of times gone by, when Argentina was still one of the richest countries in the world. Now there is traffic chaos, a few hundred more Maradona fans have arrived with Andrago and the number is constantly increasing. “Diego is not dead, Diego is not dead” they sing, and this continues to fucking live in people’s hearts.
Andrago says Diego has always been there for as long as he could remember. “With my father we saw the games on television, even the old ones, on video, again and again.” For many Argentines, Maradona was just that: not just a footballer, but a part of their life and Argentina’s national identity. Andrago says he knows the quarter-finals at the 1986 World Cup by heart, as he has seen it many times. Maradona shot England of all places off the pitch, the country where Argentina had lost the war for the Falkland Islands just four years earlier. Although he had to help with his hand in the first goal, in the second he played alone half a dozen English players. When Argentina also won the final against Germany, the dark years of the Argentine dictatorship and catastrophic economic problems were forgotten for a brief moment. Argentina was world champion. And Diego became “Dios”.
The fact that he stayed that way, despite all the scandals, drug problems, doping bans, excesses and mistakes, was perhaps his greatest achievement in the end – and the greatest sign of his fans’ love. . “Errors? What errors?” Asks Andrago. “Maradona may not have always done everything right, but we love him even more for it.”
The Argentine president has now ordered three days of national mourning. No public celebration, all flags at half mast. After a bit of back and forth, the body is not placed in a football stadium, but in the Casa Rosada, the Argentine presidential palace in downtown Buenos Aires. Fans can say goodbye to their idol for 48 hours, conservative estimates say that up to a million people could come.
A little away from the crowd on 9 de Julio, a woman is sitting on a wall with a framed picture of Maradona. Her name doesn’t matter, she says, after all, it’s not about her today, but about Maradona. A long time ago he bought his photo in a junk shop. “I’m a fan of Maradona, not for her legs, but for her big heart,” she says and who took the photo with her today to greet her. “Then I’ll hang it up in my kitchen again.” Will he put a candle under the photo now that Diego is dead? Garbage, the woman says, doesn’t believe anything like that. Who needs God when D10S is around?
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