29.10.2020
23:08
Throughout his life, the idol left statements that remained in the popular imagination over the years
By Sergio LevinskyOctober 30, 2020 Share on FacebookShare Share on TwitterTweet Share on WhatsAppShare
The day of his farewell at the Bombonera where he said one of his historical phrases (FotoBaires)
1) “I was wrong and paid, but the ball is not stained” (On the day of his farewell to football, 11/10/2001, before a full Bombonera, he addressed the public from the middle of the field, with a microphone ).
2) “It was with the hand of God” (This is how he referred to the first goal against England in the quarterfinals of the 1986 World Cup, made with his hand) .
3) “They cut off my legs” (In an interview made a few hours after knowing that he had been excluded from the 1994 World Cup for doping).
4) “My dreams are two. My first dream is to play the World Cup. And the second is to be champion with Argentina ” (when he was twelve years old, for the program“ Sábados Cirulares ”by Pipo Mancera, on Channel 13) .
5) “The turtle escaped” (He was referring, ironically, to the fact that the sons of the then US ambassador to Argentina, James Cheek, lost a turtle and the US official sent for the animal in a field of three thousand hectares) .
6) “I feel more alone than Kung Fu” (He said it in his isolation in Cuba, in early 2001, when he was recovering from his drug addiction) .
7) “Coco Basile got drunk with two Copa América” (referring to the fact that he was not summoned by DT to play the qualifying matches for the 1994 World Cup in the group stage).
8) “I thought Berlusconi was coming and I ran into the cardboard worker Báez” (In 1996, referring to the fact that Mauricio Macri, president of Boca, where he had returned to play, did not bring players or accept increases in payments to footballers) .
9) “Grondona lied to me, Bilardo betrayed me” (When he stopped being the manager of the Argentine team after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa) .
10) “Pelé made his debut with a kid and hit the jermu” (He said it in 1997, in the program “El Rayo”. With the Brazilian star he had close-ups and huge dialectical confrontations) .
11) “Segurola and Habana 4310, seventh floor. And let’s see if it lasts 30 seconds ” (Challenging Julio César Toresani after his debut in Boca, against Colón de Santa Fe, on his return in 1995, due to friction they had during the game) .
12) “When I hear Batista say that Messi is now happy, I wonder where he was during the days of coexistence in Pretoria. Lionel with me was happy too. What did Batista do? Did you wear a Fixed Pinion? ” (He did not accept that Sergio Batista, as coach of the Argentine team, said that Messi was happier with him than with Maradona in the previous cycle) .
13) “It’s Mascherano and ten more” (in the previous matches of the Argentine team before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa) .
14) “To play against Australia they gave us fast coffee. Grondona assured us that there was no anti-doping ” (In reference to the two playoff matches to reach the 1994 World Cup) .
15) “You have it inside” (To the journalist Juan Carlos Pasman, at the press conference after the Argentine team qualifies for the 2010 World Cup against Uruguay at the centenary stadium in Montevideo) .
Maradona during his stay as coach of the Argentine national team (Photo: AFP)
16) “To those who did not believe in this team, with the ladies’ forgiveness, let them suck it, let them keep sucking it” (In the press conference after the 1-0 victory against Uruguay in Montevideo, which determined the classification of the Argentine team to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa)
17) “In Cuba I did not see barefoot boys in the streets” (Upon returning from his first visit to Cuba in July 1987) .
18) “I am from the left, all from the left, on my feet, on my faith, on my head. But not in the sense that you give the term political in Europe. I am from the left in the sense that I am for Alfonsín, for the progress of my country, to improve the tenor of life of poor people, so that we all have peace and freedom ” (To Playboy magazine in 1986, after the then president Raúl Alfonsín offered the balcony of the Casa Rosada to the Argentine team to celebrate the world title) .
19) “Beating River is like your mother waking you up with a kiss in the morning.”
20) “The Selection is a Rolls Royce full of dirt. You have to clean it up ” (When he took over the national team in 2008, referring to what they left him) .
21) “Coppola is very lively, he smokes under water” (He thus referred to his former representative in 2000) .
22) “Neustadt is called a sanguchito, because he is always close to the cake” (In the middle of the 1994 United States World Cup, referring to the late journalist, with whom he had many disagreements and had criticized him harshly during that time).
23) “If you throw the ball to Sampaoli, he returns it with his hand” (Irony against the former technical director of the Argentine team during the 2018 World Cup in Russia) .
24) “I want to see the sun and go to bed at night. Before, I didn’t want to go to bed, nor did I know what a pillow was ” (Upon taking over as DT of the Dorados de Sinaloa, in 2018).
25) “Cristiano Ronaldo scores a goal and sells you a shampoo” (In reference to the marketing around the great Portuguese striker) .
26) “I wanted to go to the United States, but Clinton’s thermos head won’t let me in” (It was when he wanted to travel to that country in 1996 and they didn’t give him a visa because of his drug history) .
27) “If I see Duhalde in the desert, I throw him an anchovy” (In relation to his antipathy for the former Argentine governor and provisional president) .
28) “They ask the Neapolitans to be Italians for a day and the other 364 forget them. Now everyone calls them to encourage their team” (In the previous semi-final of the 1990 World Cup in Italy, when the Argentine team had to face Italy in Naples) .
29) “To be left out of a World Cup is only comparable to seeing how your old woman is beaten and you are tied to a chair” (after the elimination of the Argentine team in the 1998 World Cup in France when they fell to the Netherlands) .
30) “It is useless to want to make a leader of a man who goes to the bathroom 20 times before a game” (In reference to Lionel Messi in October 2018, a few months after the World Cup in Russia) .
Maradona had criticism and praise for Messi throughout their relationship (Photo: AFP)
31) “In the clinic there is one who thinks he is Robinson Crusoe, and they don’t believe me that I’m Maradona” (On his drug rehabilitation in Cuba, in 2004) .
32) “The rhinoscopy, the short hair … One day the boys of the National Team are going to scratch an egg and Passarella is going to have them cut” (On Passarella, when he was DT of the Argentine team and Maradona opposed his attempt to impose discipline on the team) .
33) “If I die, I want to be born again and be a footballer. And I want to be Diego Armando Maradona again. I am a player who has given people joy and that is enough for me and I have plenty ” (1992).
34) “They have given me nicknames, but “ Pelusa ” is the one that suits me the most because it brings me back to Fiorito’s childhood. I remember the Cebollitas, the cane arches when we only played for Coca and the sandwich. That was purer ”.
35) “Coming to the area and not being able to kick the bow is like dancing with your sister.”
36) “Playing without an audience is playing inside a cemetery.”
37) “With my illness I gave advantages. Do you know what player I would have been if I hadn’t taken drugs?
38) “Messi does not have the personality to be a leader.”
39) “I grew up in a private neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Deprived of electricity, water, telephone ”.
40) “Passarella has to understand that the history of Argentine football was written with long hair” (Criticism of the then coach of the Argentine team in the Nineties for not allowing players long hair) .
41) “Jorge Valdano has more lies than the trick.”
42) “I’m not talking today, guys. I have fewer words than a telegram ” (In 1997, in his last year as a footballer) .
43) “We heard pim pam, the noise of a stick, a crossbar, Goyco went from one place to another. In my life I suffered so much on a soccer field ” (In reference to the game that the Argentine team beat Brazil 1-0 in the second round of the 1990 World Cup) .
44) “It seemed like a lie to have a piece of history so close. He is a seducer and uses everything to envelop you. They say that he started with twelve men and three rifles in the Sierra Maestra and now I realize why he won: he has an iron conviction. Fidel Castro is a personality impossible to forget ”.
45) “I believe in Hugo Chávez. I am chavista. Everything that he and Fidel do is the best for me ”.
Maradona with Fidel Castro (Photo: NA)
46) “For this thing of being alive I can only thank two beards: God and Fidel.”
47) “I fought with the Pope because I went to the Vatican and saw the golden roofs. And then I heard the Pope say that the Church cared about poor kids. But I sold the roof, beast, do something! ” (2004, referring to Pope John Paul II) .
48) “I had proposed to score two goals against Gatti, but now that he told me chubby, I’m going to score four” (He said it before playing with Argentinos Juniors against Boca in the 1980 Nacional. Argentinos Juniors won 5-3 in the Velez court with four goals from Maradona) .
49) “Havelange played water polo, so he can’t play football” (In reference to the former president of FIFA, with whom he had tough confrontations) .
50) “Neymar better than Messi? Pelé took the wrong pill. Instead of taking the night pill, he took the day pill ” (In 2011, when he found out about Pelé’s statements comparing Neymar with Messi) .
51) “I take an advantage from politicians. They are public. I am popular ” (1996) .
52) “The same thing always happens in this country. It is the same party that is played 40,000 times on a delayed basis ” (Regarding the 2001 crisis) .
53) “The leaders of Boca are more false than a celestial dollar” (1997, when he was about to retire, and Macri was president of Boca) .
54) “If I go to the bank it is to get money, beast” (When in 1996, playing for Boca, a journalist asked him if he was going to the substitute bank on Sunday) .
55) “Riquelme, if you are empty, fill up. You cannot betray the Boca fan. And I say Riquelme and not Roman because he never spoke to me. I am not in a fight with him. He is the one who is fighting with me ” (2008, when Riquelme got angry with some of his statements as coach of the Argentine team and decided not to play with the national team anymore) .
56) “Argentina has to improve. He cannot play as badly as he is doing ” (At the microphone, and for everyone, in the act of the draw for the World Cup in Russia, and meters away from the coach of the Argentine team, Jorge Sampaoli) .
57) “I don’t have to apologize to someone, and if I have to apologize it is to my parents, my daughters, and the Boca fans for missing five penalties in a row. I did not go to apologize to England, brother ” (In reference to the Closing Tournament of 1996, playing for Boca) .
58) “Che is the martyr that I have. For me, neither San Martín nor Belgrano. For me, Che. It’s what I saw, it’s what I felt. It’s what Che spoke, it’s what Che left me. I don’t know if they crossed the Andes Mountains, eh? I dont know. I rent a plane of 40 green lucas to cross the Andes and it moves … And we crossed with donkeys, sick, with snow, and then they could not find the Uruguayans. What is the history? So the real story is Che ” (Registered Television, channel 9, July 2012) .
59) “Everything was manipulated and I have only said the same thing that many others thought”.
60) “I am a rebel with a cause” (1996) .
Maradona said goodbye with Boca’s shirt
