Remembering Diego Maradona, the legendary superstar of world football

Maradona was a professional Argentinian football player and manager. He was raised in Villa Fiorito, a shantytown on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Worth mentioning is that he was skilled in a free-kick and penalty kick taker noted for his ability to bend the ball from corners and straight-set pieces. His style of taking the free-kicks influenced many other experts, including Gianfranco Zola, Andrea Pirlo, and Lionel Messi.

He received his first football as a gift at the age of 3 and quickly became devoted to the sport.

He made his professional debut for Argentinos Juniors vs. Talleres de Cordoba on 20 October 1976 and became the youngest player in the history of the Argentine Primera Division (APD).

Here is the list of his achievements:

He scored his first goal in the APD against San Lorenzo, Marplatense team on November 14, 1976, at the age of 16.

He made his full international debut at age of 16 against Hungary in 1997.

In the year 1981, he signed a contract with Boca Juniors and made his debut against Talleres de Cordoba where he scored twice in the club's 4–1 win.

Maradona played his first Superclasico at La Bombonera stadium against River Plate.

At the age of 18, he played the 1979 FIFA World Youth Championship in Japan and emerged as the star of the tournament.

He played his first World Cup tournament in 1982 in Spain.

The legendary player was transferred to Barcelona in Spain for the then world-record fee of £5 million ($7.6 million) after the 1982 World Cup.

Beating Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona, Maradona won Spain's annual National Cup competition (Copa del Rey) under coach Cesar Luis Menotti.

Maradona scored in the biggest club games in the world, El Clasico, and became the first Barcelona player to be praised by Real Madrid fans.

He Captained the Argentina national team thrice, in 1986, 1990, and 1994.

In the 1994 World Cup in the United States, he played only two games (both at Foxboro Stadium near Boston), where he scored a goal against Greece, before being sent home after failing a drug test for ephedrine doping.

He was won the Golden Ball at both the FIFA U-20 World Cup and FIFA World Cup.

Maradona's ranking list:

In the 2014 FIFA election, Maradona was voted the second-highest number overall 10, and later in the same year, he ranked second in the list of Guardian's "100 Greatest World Cup Players of All Time" Ahead of the 2014 world cup in Brazil.

A British documentary film was made on his life in 2019 directed by Asif Kapadia which was later screened at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

He was ranked first on the "100 Greatest Players" list of FourFourTwo (Football magazine) in 2017 while in 2018, he was ranked first on the list of "Greatest Football Players in World Cup History" by the same magazine. He was also ranked first on the list of "Top 50 Greatest player of All Time" by Jack Gallagher of 90min.com.

Maradona was ranked as the best player who had never to have won the Champions League or European Cup in 2020 by Sky Sports.

The former Napoli, Barcelona, and Boca Juniors player was hospitalized last week and underwent an emergency operation to remove a blood clot from his brain.

The legendary player died on Wednesday (November 25) at his residence due to cardiac arrest.

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