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He described Cuban leader Fidel Castro as his “second father”, and in his metaphor-filled life, the latest was that Diego Maradona died the same day as the Cuban leader.
He was a friend of Venezuelan Hugo Chávez and played football with former Bolivian president Evo Morales: Diego Maradona’s youth rebellion over time became a fascination for the Latin American left in power. (Read: Mourning in football! Diego Maradona is dead)
“We have always had a great relationship, a great friendship. From the first day you came here with your girlfriend ”in 1987, Castro reminded Maradona in an interview in 2005 that the same football idol did for his TV show“ La Noche del 10 ”.
Castro gave him his olive green jacket and remembered that in that first meeting, 18 years earlier, he had given him his autographed military cap. Maradona showed the tattoo on his left leg: an image of Fidel. “Wow, that’s an honor,” said the surprised interlocutor.
The interview took place a year after Maradona finished a recovery treatment for his addictions in Cuba that began in 2000, with many coming and going. “Fidel opened his doors to me when many clinics in my country closed them for me”, he thanked on ’10’.
They met on July 28, 1987, the year after Diego’s consecration to the World Championships in Mexico-1986, when he was awarded as “best athlete of the year”, chosen in a poll by the Cuban agency Prensa Latina. (You can read: This is how Diego Maradona’s last days were)
The “10” was not a leftist and two Argentine journalists, Carlos Bonelli and Pablo Gionto, had to mediate to convince him to go to the Caribbean country to collect the prize.
There would be other visits and a decade later Diego tattooed Che Guevara on his arm, 30 years after the death of the Argentine-Cuban guerrilla. When Castro died in 2016, Maradona attended the funeral.
“The oldest is dead, Fidel Castro has left us. I got a terrible scream because he was like a second father. I lived in Cuba for four years and Fidel called me at two in the morning to talk about politics or sport, ”Maradona declared at the time. (You can read: The contrast between Diego and Maradona)
“The dawn train”
In 2015, a few days before the arrival of “Pelusa” in Cuba to record the “De Zurda” program on Telesur, the Latin American multi-state network of which he was a commentator in two World Cups, Castro sent him a letter.
“Thanks to my conversations with you in the brightest years of our unforgettable friend (the late Venezuelan president) Hugo Chávez, I deduced that the meeting in Mar del Plata could not be forgotten. Hugo reminded the US that there was another America, “Castro wrote in the January 11, 2015 letter.
He was referring to the IV Summit of the Americas which met in the Argentine city of Mar del Plata in November 2005 and in which Latin American presidents prevented the formation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), promoted by the President of the United States. United. George W. Bush. (Read also: The best goal in football history)
Under the slogan “No to the FTAA”, thousands of militants filled a stadium in Mar del Plata. Many had arrived from Buenos Aires on the “ALBA Train”, including Maradona himself, who was alongside Chávez for the duration of the event. Evo Morales, who was soon to be elected president of Bolivia, also traveled.
Maradona was invited several times to Caracas and had only words of praise for “the commander”. “I am with Chávez to death,” he said.
On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the death of the Venezuelan president in 2018, the former footballer dedicated a message to him on Instagram. “The best memory in the world is when (Chávez) grabbed my hand in Mar del Plata and said, ‘You stay by my side …'”, he wrote.
His support lasted with President Nicolás Maduro. As the coach of Gimnasia La Plata, he was often seen taking the field wearing a cap in the colors of the Venezuelan flag, identified with the chavismo.
Top kick
“Justice has been served today,” the former player wrote in November 2019 when former president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva was released from prison after 19 months in prison. Some time before he published “Lula dear Diego is with you!”. (Read also: “Ciao Diego”, Napoli’s farewell message to Maradona)
Faithful to his friendships, Maradona played a friendly match with Evo Morales in La Paz to support Bolivia’s right to play at 3,600m altitude of La Paz, which FIFA wanted to prevent.
“I am sorry for the orchestrated coup in Bolivia. Especially for the Bolivian people, and for Evo Morales, a good person who has always worked for the humblest. #EvoElMundoEstaContigo ”, he expressed in 2019 on Instagram at the fall of the Morales government.
In Argentina, this “Peronist soldier” as he himself called himself, sided with former president Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015) and current president Alberto Fernández, whose government has decreed three days of national mourning.
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