David Arrowsmith

October 30, 1960 Diego Maradona was born in Lanús, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and grows up in Villa Fiorito, a slum on the city’s southern edge. The family lived in a house with a tin roof. When it rained, the children placed buckets under the leaks and emptied them out of the window. There was no running water, and Diego had to carry 20-litre drums from a tap so his family could wash. On his third birthday his cousin gave him a ball. Diego slept hugging it. He played at Estrella Roja, the neighbourhood team that his father ran, and in 1969 a friend, Gregorio “Goyo” Carrizo, told him about a trial at Argentinos Juniors. Carrizo told the coach: “I have a friend who is better than me.” It rained on the day of his trial, so scout Francisco Cornejo arranged an impromptu match instead. He watched the eight year old boy do impossible things with the ball. Cornejo accepted him on the spot. In March 1969, Maradona joined the youth team of Argentinos Juniors, known as Los Cebollitas. The Cebollitas went 136 matches without a loss, and Maradona was the star. At 12 he worked as a ball boy at Argentinos’ first-team games, and at half-time he entertained the crowd with his ball skills. Later, on the TV show Sábados Circulares, host Pipo Mancera recalled that he kept the ball in the air for about 45 minutes, until he was asked to stop. Big clubs soon made offers to his father, but Maradona signed his first professional contract with Argentinos, who rented the family a house in a better neighborhood. On Tuesday, 19 October 1976, during practice, first-team coach Juan Carlos Montes told him he would be on the bench the next day, and that he was going to play. He was 15 years, 11 months and 20 days old.