30 km from the center of Buenos Aires yesterday was christmas eve. A yard full of junk welcomes home where Don Chitoro and Mrs. Tota they raised six children in a room without ox and mule but with straw. “When it rained you got more wet inside than outside,” he remembered Diego Maradona. The House of Fiorito today it looks more touristy. A mural was painted in November to announce that this shack was the home of God. The front door is the same flimsy wood and metal structure where the boy played hitting the ball. Yesterday he would have turned only 61. Year I d. M.
“In Villa Fiorito he was already smoking his joints …”, two fans of Independent in a shelter Paris. It was the year 2000 and I was Interrail. It seemed like a full-blown blasphemy and we started an alcoholic conversation of which I barely remember any Argentine term to add to my vocabulary: bowling, jumbo… and a vomitona. With 18 years my faith was transparent and total in 10. I think my failures had to do with the early mornings watching their games of Mouth in which he wandered on the tall grass of the Candy box. The good one was the 20th, it was called Riquelme. “We are waiting for you to come back …”, was the soundtrack that sounded in song 10 of Brutal honesty.
The Kings brought me a Boca T-shirt and I once again believed in incense and myrrh. And up to here. Since then everything was nostalgia and decrepitude. 20 years of crucifixion, paranoia and pain. “With Diego anywhere, with Maradona not even around the corner,” said Signorini, his guardian angel in the World Cups. Including 94, his last miracle when Judas appeared in the form of a nurse. A year after his funeral they announce a tribute party. On Saudi Arabia. And a publication on their networks with his figure on a barcode warns: “The Maradona brand is registered.” After the prophet is dead, the business, the relics and pilgrimages arrive. A Middle Ages full-fledged maradoniana, but his life as a footballer was real, human and holy. Santa Maradona.
