“We all wanted to win the game but he more than anybody – he was our leader, by actions and words.” The words are Sergio Goycochea’s, Argentina’s goalkeeper at the 1990 World Cup, and were uttered in his restaurant outside Buenos Aires – named Italia 90 – when we met to discuss that World Cup for a book on that tournament, World In Motion.
One striking detail was the pain Diego Maradona endured in dragging an average Argentina team all the way to the final, despite an ankle problem. “He actually administered his own injection,” Goycochea explained.
“The doctor didn’t want to give him any more. This was before the Brazil game.”
A game, no less, in which Maradona’s beautiful pass set up Claudio Caniggia’s winner.
Team-mate Julio Olarticoechea concurred: “Diego played that World Cup at 50 per cent or less. He virtually didn’t train which was totally different from 1986 when he was perfect. He had [an injection] for every game.”
Yet there were moments of light off the pitch, Goycochea explaining that Maradona “liked to do an asado”, an Argentinian barbecue, with his father.
“They brought the meat over from Argentina and we ate a couple of asados. Apart from the fact we liked it, it was a superstition.”
Another recollection of life with Maradona comes from Pepe Prieto, who was a Sevilla player during the Argentinian’s season there in 1992-93 as he resumed his career in Europe after his drugs ban.
Maradona was “down to earth” and “never looked down at you” and won his team-mates over within with his generosity.
“He had a Ferrari, the kind of car all footballers have now but in our period nobody had a car like that,” said Prieto.
“He took it to the training camp before a game against Real Madrid and after dinner he left the car with us so we could all take it for a drive. We were going out in twos. He got money easily and lost it easily – he wasn’t interested in owning things.”
Prieto identified a “big difference between Diego and Maradona”, adding: “Maradona was more complex, he had this cross to bear of being Maradona and you only had to be with him a few days to realise it was difficult. Maradona was a source of income for the media and a cash machine for a lot of ‘friends’.”
As for Maradona the footballer, Prieto added that “if you knew him in periods away from the World Cup, he himself go. He didn’t like to run – he liked to play, to compete.”
He happily played in games for friends throughout his career, including turning up at White Hart Lane for Ossie Ardiles’s testimonial in May 1986 when Maradona’s presence drew a crowd of over 30,000 – 10,000 more than Spurs’ average gate that season.
“I think it was a four-man midfield of me, Diego Maradona, Glenn Hoddle and Ossie Ardiles so a pretty good midfield there,” remembers former Spurs captain Gary Mabbutt.
“He took the time and trouble to pay his own costs to get there. Even in the dressing room he was fantastic with his tricks with the ball. It was such a special thing that the greatest player in the world at that time was playing for Spurs that night.”
It’s the tricks that have stuck also with Glenn Hysen, the former Liverpool defender who played with Maradona in the Rest of the World team that faced a Football League Select side at Wembley to mark the league’s centenary in 1988.
“When we were warming up he kicked the ball about 300 times – with his shoulders, his head, his feet. I was thinking, ‘What the hell is going on?’ as the ball never touched the ground.”
It was the only time Hysen could relax and enjoy Maradona’s talent give they were opponents in Serie A where the Swede played for Fiorentina.
“If you saw the 10 on his back you had to keep him like that as long as possible as if he turned and ran at you, you were gone.”
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