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Diego Maradona profile Argentine star immortalized despite controversy
By Simon Hooper, CNNSI.com Born: October 30, 1960 International record: 90 caps for Argentina (34 goals) Clubs: Argentinos Juniors, Boca Juniors, Barcelona (Spain), Napoli (Italy), Sevilla (Spain), Newell's Old Boys, Quilmas It is testament to Diego Maradona's extraordinary talents that such a controversial figure should be immortalized as one of the greatest players of the century. Maradona, who emerged from the slums of Buenos Aires to play for Argentina as a stocky 16-year-old, achieved so much, yet the feeling remains that he somehow wasted his talent, his later career and retirement having been blighted by drug problems. His finest hour came in 1986 when he single-handedly won the World Cup in Mexico for Argentina. His quarterfinal performance against England summed up Maradona in all his arrogant brilliance as he punched the ball into the net with his hand to open the scoring and then immediately danced through England's defense to score possibly the greatest individual goal in the history of the sport. Maradona afterwards said his first had been "a little bit of Maradona's head, a little bit of the hand of God." The second was pure Maradona. An Italian champion at Napoli in 1987 and 1990, he returned to the World Cup stage in 1990. Argentina reached the final again but its ugly football and graceless behavior meant few shared Maradona's tears after a defeat by West Germany. In 1991, Maradona received a 15-month ban from the game after testing positive for cocaine. An initially spectacular comeback at the 1994 World Cup in the United States also ended with Maradona being banned after failing a drug test, effectively ending his playing career. Maradona recently celebrated his 40th birthday in Cuba recuperating from a near-fatal cocaine overdose in January, a bloated parody of his former glory.
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