There is something about Maradona that will remain forever. And not only the series of images and goals with which he dragged his Napoli to the roof of Italy and Europe or Argentina to the world title. But something more. Something that has to do with all of us and with the spirit and soul of those who love football. Maradona is a legend that accompanies you throughout your life. With the smile and enthusiasm, almost always cheeky, of those who know their strength but are on the weakest side of history. It had arrived in our latitudes on a hot day in early summer, when Corrado Ferlaino had placed the 'coup of the century' in the mid-eighties. As an inimitable champion he immediately entered into symbiosis with an entire population, the Neapolitan, to whom in a few years he had given two championships, the Uefa Cup, the Italian Cup and the Italian Super Cup. It is easy to imagine how much he had become the symbol and leader of a season that seemed to never end, dancing with ruthlessness an all southern rhythm that grinded victories and opponents.
He launched Naples and a modest Argentina on the roof of the world into orbit, with the irreverence typical of a boundless talent, of a man who had meanwhile become an immense football monument. Golden balls, unforgettable challenges and goals, fans in raptures for him and for the naturalness with which he gave magic, whether he played in the largest stadium in the world or on a muddy pitch in the suburbs.
Thinking about it today, on the day of his death, the parables of life are just like those he had explained on the pitch, with the ball between his feet: they vibrate in the air, seem to touch the sky and then, higher or lower , find a place in that corner of the door that only the eternal champions can reach. It is difficult not to forgive him the sins of a dissolute life that have shortened his career and perhaps his life. He was eccentric and controversial, but a revolutionary like him never dies. And Maradona will always illuminate the imagination of all those who have loved football with the loyalty of a unique champion, his enchanted feet and his arms turned to the sky. And it will be up to us to imagine him like this again, as he dribbles yet another opponent and runs towards the goal, with the amazement of his eyes and the charisma with which we have lived indelible emotions and believed that life was always as he had made us imagine it.
Thanks to the article Sante Roperto
