Diego Maradona, a triva farewell

A farerell to Diego Armando Maradona, one of the greatest footballers ever to play the game, is not easy. Almost everything has been written: Numbers, triumphology obituaries and emotions. We could glean some facts and trivia about him, not publicly known or highly evaluated, but still very interesting.

• Instead of other Argentinian players, Maradona named Brazilian star Roberto Rivellino as his childhood football inspiration. He didn’t choose an Argentinian playmaker, or the glamorous Pele.
• His first goal with a men’s team came only two weeks after turning 16, playing tof Argentinos Juniors, in November 14^th, 1976 against San Lorenzo.
• He won only one domestic title in Argentina, a league title with Boca Juniors in 1981, despite a suspicious relationship with his coach Silvio Marzolini.
• Before the notorious and highly criticized ill-time tackle from Athletic Bilbao defender Andoni Goikoetxea, he had a bout of hepatitis, costing him to lose various matches for the “blaugrana” team.
• Both the transfer fees paid by Barcelona (moving from Boca Juniors) and Napoli (moving from Barcelona) was a world record at the time.
• He was the only Napoli player till now who achieved a leading goalscorer in Italian Serie A (15 goals in 1987-88), despite playing on a creative rather than scoring role. He was the all-time leading goalscorer for Napoli with total 115 goals, a record broker by Marek Hamsik in 2017, but with nearly double matches.
• Maradona and Lionel Messi are the only players to win the Golden Ball award at both the FIFA U-20 World Cup and FIFA World Cup. Maradona did so in 1979 and 1986.
• Though he needed only one touch (with his left hand) to score the famous “Hand of God”, he needed just 11 touches for his magnificent second goal against England in the legendary quarter final match in 1986.
• In his dominating 1986 FIFA World Cup he was fouled total 53 times, a record existing even today, and dribbled 90 times, three times more than any other player.
• Maradona came only fifth in the IFFHS (International Federation of Football History and Statistics) in a worldwide poll for the Player of the 20^th He was surpassed by Pele, Johan Cruijff, Franz Beckenbauer and Alfredo Di Stefano.

Among his other football-related activities, in 2003 he was employed by Al Saadi Gaddafi, the third son of Muamar Gaddari, as a technical consultant of Libyan football.