5 to watch about Diego Armando Maradona

On November 25, 2020, 15 years after George Best and 4 years after Fidel Castro, the world is forced to mourn the death of Diego Armando Maradona. Football has experienced a tragedy for this disappearance, and the city of Naples as well. Naples, in fact, was the place where El Peluda created the true myth of himself. In its streets, with its nightlife, and inside the São Paulo, with the balloon between its feet. Like all the great characters of history, in Maradona, everything was dedicated: streets, statues, films, documentaries, books. Everything.

In these weeks, due to the coronavirus, for those who do not live in Naples or Buenos Aires it is difficult to be able to organize a pilgrimage to see the places of Maradona: it would be a way to feel its presence, see with their own eyes what it left in the places it attended. Fortunately, there are other types of testimonies. Documentaries and films, interviews, stories, virtual objects that allow you to understand the meaning of a character who influenced the world of sport and characterized the nineties. On this particular day, somewhat historical, nss sports has chosen the 5 best things to see to understand, celebrate and appreciate Diego Armando Maradona. 

Diego Maradona by Asif Kapadia 

Where to watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video 

Telling Maradona in 2019 is not easy: you arrive after another 3 great titles between films and documentaries. So, the characteristic of Asif Kapadia's Maradona, amy's director among others, was to work on the details of Diego Maradona's life. Combine the field and the extra field in the best way, talk about the nightlife in Naples together with the images of while playing in the stadiums of Italy. The personal dimension is very strong, and above all, it is even more interesting because it is focused on the Neapolitan period, on the eight heroic and controversial years of São Paulo. The personal side dominates the sports side despite the fact that in the documentary both coexist in an exceptional filmographic repertoire, made even more special by the digital work that has made period films in high quality.   

Maradonapoli by Alessio Maria Federici

Where to watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube 

Maradonapoli talks about Maradona without Maradona. Focused on interviews with various citizens of Naples that tell the creation of the Neapolitan myth of Maradona, the Pibe de Oro is heard everywhere, but is never seen. The words in dialect ("L'acchittam") of the people express Maradona's relationship with Naples on the side of the fans, between the disbelief of having a footballer who left Barcelona to go to Naples and the genesis of his chaining with the reality of the city. It is the personal story of the people who grew up seeing Maradona, and who testify how his presence in the city has characterized people's lives and moments. 

Interview by Gianni Cinà 

Where to watch: YouTube 

In one of the first two episodes of the new podcast by Massimo Callegari, DAZN's commentator, we talk about a topical moment in Maradona's career in Naples: the private flight to reach the team away to Moscow. Maradona was followed in those years by RAI journalist Gianni Minà, an historical Italian reporter to whom Pibe de Oro allowed an interview on the most delicate topic of his career: the cocaine addiction. Maradona, in fact, was as honored as he was demonized for his subordination to drugs, and the testimony he left in '91 to Minà is the most essential to understand the nefarious relationship between the footballer and drugs. Minà, by the way, was among the most pedissed journalists in Maradona who had made a special bond with the reporter. This unique relationship between journalist and footballer makes Minà's phrases an exceptional source to understand the real Maradona. 

Maradona "Live is life"

Where to watch: YouTube, Vimeo

On Youtube there are at least four videos with more than a million views depicting maradona's warm-up with Napoli in 1989. During the pre-match of Napoli-Bayern Munich, the UEFA Cup final, Maradona is filmed balling and does what we would call tricks with the ball today on the notes of Live is Life by Opus, played by the speakers of the Stuttgart stadium. Mixing hipsteria and memorabilia, the video is one of diego maradona's three most sympathetic, original, representative and football films. Inside is his passion for football, understood as a bond of life. Not being able to do without having fun with the ball that binds to a historical song.  And as a result, to a historical video.

Maradona by Kusturica

Where to watch: YouTube (2,99€)

The first great documentary about Diego Armando Maradona. Serbian director Emir Kusturica, as Kapadia did with another biographical moment, followed Maradona's life by chasing the Diego that the cameras never saw. The political Maradona, anti-American, its link with drugs and, above all, the Maradona pater familias. Diego's family difficulties in his relationship with his children are highlighted by the moments taken up by Kusturica, who follows the protagonist as a myth but trying to reveal the most human aspects. A docu film that gave the world perhaps the most suffering side of Maradona, who told the director, during the shoot,: "What a great player I could have been, without cocaine".