Esperantisto's Fotothing

Diego Armando Maradona is arguably the greatest footballer that has ever put on a pair of boots. He is born in the slums of Villa Fiorito near Buenos Aires as the fifth of eight children. Maradona enters professional football at the astonishing age of 15. By the time he turns 16, Diego is called in the senior national squad of Argentina. Regardless of his talent, Diego is considered too young by coach Cesar Menotti, who rejects him from his selection for the 1978 World Cup.
He was suspended from football for 15 months in 1991 after failing a doping test for cocaine in Italy, and he was sent home from the 1994 World Cup in the USA for using ephedrine. He always used drugs, but was caught a few times. After retiring from playing on his 37th birthday in 1997, he increasingly suffered ill health and weight gain, hardly helped by ongoing cocaine abuse. In 2005 a stomach stapling operation helped control his weight gain.