00:02Diego Armando Maradona, the defining footballer of the 1980s, the man who single-handedly won
00:12a World Cup, dominating football's greatest stage like nobody else before or since.
00:22Maradona's destiny was written at an early age. Raised in poverty in the slums of Buenos Aires,
00:27the prodigy was never without a ball at his feet. He was the quintessential street footballer.
00:35His father, Diego Sr., was convinced his boy was special and he formed a junior football side,
00:42Estrella Rojo, to prove it. He was right. At 10, Maradona was scouted by Los Cebolitas,
00:50the youth team of Argentinos juniors. They won 136 games in a row. Maradona's reward
00:57was a professional debut, aged just 15 years and 355 days, the youngest ever in the Primera División.
01:06Barely four months later, he was breaking records for the national team,
01:11coming on in the 62nd minute against Hungary on February 27, 1977.
01:16But Argentina coach César Menotti resisted calls to add the youngster to the victorious 1978 World Cup squad,
01:26with the teenager making only sporadic appearances until his first goal against Scotland in 1979.
01:34By the 1982 World Cup, the now 21-year-old was the talisman of La Albiceleste.
01:42It made him a marked man in an era when defenders were given free reign to commit grievous bodily harm.
01:50In Spain, everything went through him, and that included opposition defenders.
01:56Italy's Claudio Gentile was particularly brutal.
01:59It was no surprise when Maradona lost his temper and was sent off late in his side's final match against
02:05Brazil,
02:06compounding a disappointing second-round elimination.
02:14After the World Cup of 82, Maradona's opponents knew his weakness on the pitch was his temper.
02:23His weakness off the pitch, cocaine, had not yet been exposed.
02:28But together his temper and his addiction conspired to wreck his time at Barcelona,
02:34where he had moved for a world-record transfer of £5 million.
02:41Two seasons of goals and trophies, but also of illness, injury and a furious brawl in the 1984 Copa del
02:48Rey.
02:49When Maradona eventually asked to leave, Barca were happy to oblige,
02:54especially when Napoli stumped up another record transfer fee of £6.9 million.
03:02As Maradona would say on a joyous return many years later,
03:06Napoli was where he played his best football,
03:09where he was most loved,
03:11and from where he launched his 1986 World Cup campaign,
03:16the greatest single performance in World Cup history.
03:24Maradona was named captain of Argentina for the Mexico World Cup.
03:28He played all seven games and scored five goals,
03:31including two against England in the quarter-final.
03:35One is on a pedestal in football history.
03:38One lives on in infamy.
03:42Many of the England players that day have never forgiven Maradona for what they believed was cheating
03:48when he punched the opening goal into the net.
03:51An unrepentant Maradona later admitted the goal was
03:54a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God.
03:59Their complaints extended to still being in shock
04:02when, minutes later, they were on the wrong end of the World Cup goal of the century.
04:09In a mazy dribble from inside his own half,
04:12Maradona waltzed the ball past Peter Beardsley,
04:15Steve Hodge and Peter Reid.
04:20He embarrassed Terry Butcher and Terry Fennec
04:23before ending his 60-metre slalom by slotting the ball beyond Peter Shilton.
04:32It was Maradona's crowning glory.
04:35The high point of a career packed full of individual brilliance.
04:39It was almost as if the cup was fated to him there and then.
04:44Throughout Mexico 86, Maradona created more than half of Argentina's shots,
04:50embarked on 90 dribbles and was fouled 53 times.
04:54He had a part in 10 of Argentina's 14 goals,
04:58including the assist for the winning strike in the final
05:00and claimed the golden ball by a unanimous vote.
05:05It remains a peerless individual performance,
05:08but it would prove impossible to replicate.
05:11In 1990, an ankle injury restricted his brilliance
05:14and Argentina lost to West Germany in the final.
05:18By now, his erratic behavior was impossible to overlook.
05:22In March 1991, he failed a random drug test,
05:26triggering a 15-month ban and ending his time at Napoli.
05:38FIFA pulled strings to make sure the US government would allow Maradona to enter the country for the 1994 World
05:45Cup,
05:46despite his history of drug use.
05:48And he turned up almost too stonelighter,
05:52looking keener and fitter than he had for years.
05:57Maradona led his side in two impressive matches,
06:00even scoring against Greece in a 4-0 win.
06:03But when he failed another drug test for the banned substance ephedrine,
06:07he was tossed out of the tournament in disgrace.
06:11That was the end of his international career,
06:14but in many ways just the beginning of his fame.
06:18Time has forgiven his errors and embellished his genius.
06:23The new world of viral clips and social media,
06:26which may well have destroyed him back then,
06:29have since introduced new generations to his talents.
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