‘Hand of God’ miracle rests in God’s hands

One of the greatest player to ever step on a football field, Diego Maradona died on Wednesday at the age of 60. The former Argentina captain suffered a heart attack, reported AFP.

He had undergone a surgery last Tuesday to remove a clot lodged between his brain and skull and was recovering in a rented home in Benavidez, north of Buenos Aires. 

In his 91 engagement with his national team, Argentina, Maradona scored 34 goals. Football fans around the world remember him for the World Cup win in 1986, when Argentina humbled England in a match that saw Maradona score the famous ‘Hand of God’ goal.

If his first goal had some doubts, he cleared them with his second goal, which he scored crossing half the field with the ball in a virtuoso dribbling. 

During his celebrated career, Maradona also played for Barcelona and Napoli, with the latter club seeing some of the best years in its history when Maradona played for it. 

The legend helped the Italian club win the Serie A title in 1987 and 1990, and Italian Cup in 1987 and a UEFA Cup in 1991.

The 1986 World Cup winner had a prolific career on the field, while his life off the pitch was equally notorious with constant battles with drug and alcohol addiction.

According to Daily Mail, his drug use began in 1982 during the peak of his career and reportedly grew worse in 1984 when he moved to Napoli and had connections with the Comorra.

He was banned for 15 months by Napoli after testing positive for cocaine in 1991 and was given a 14-month suspended sentence later that year after getting in Buenos Aires for possessing half a kilo of cocaine. 

Maradona moved to Boca Juniors in 1995 but two years later he failed a drugs test for the third time in six years, putting an end to his playing career. He had publicly said in 1995, “I was, am and always will be a drug addict.”

Several surgeries later, he was quoted by a journalist in 2017 saying that he hadn’t taken drugs for 13 years.