Maradona`s Story 6

He was suspended, it was like an Italian vendetta that forbid him to play football for fifteen months. It was too much time for such a talent. He needed to run, he needed to shout a goal, he needed to be happy.World Champion with Argentina, he won everything down in Italy. He had reached the top, heaven. He was God. He tried to become earthly again. Sevilla was the ideal destiny for that. The idea was to play and have fun.Endless negotiations with Napoli, that insisted on counting on him on his return after the suspension, were clear signs that he had no rest. He was once again the center of attention.Worth worshipping, the endless love of the people in Napoli longed for his feat. It was Latin blood that wouldn’t accept resignation. But Sevilla Football Club, with Carlos Salvador Bilardo as the coach and Cholo Simeone playing, waited for him. After 86 days of negotiations he managed to get his freedom. He cried while he held his daughters in his arms. As Juan Marcos Franchi, his manager, would say in that moment: "Boy, you’re free. Really free…"The 28th September, 1992 he stepped on a field again. Sevilla welcomed him with a party. Thirty thousand people expected him at Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium. The guest, the partenaire was Bayern Munich, with his friend Lotthar Matthaus. A free shoot to the crossbeam showed his talent remained untouched.He really had to keep on showing this at San Mames Stadium against athletic Bilbao. As the time hadn’t pass, the cathedral of the basque team had been the stage of the eternal battles of the time he played at Barcelona. But this time, the 4th October, 1992, the story was somehow different: it was his official presentation. Other things, of course were the same. The supporters of Bilbao with his unique welcome cry: "Goyko. Goyko!", Diego heard. The man who almost a decade before had turned his ankle into broken wood, had finally apologized for that the night before at the Sevilla Hotel.The truth is that if there was something the rivals hadn’t lost, was the respect they felt towards him. Real Madrid and Barcelona had seen the best of his talent. The National Team tempted him once again. The trips returned, the pressures, too. Troubles…began.The trips to Argentina to represent the light-blue and white t-shirt, wore away the relationship he kept with Luis Cuervas, the president. Nothing would be as it had been.The 12th October, 1993 meant something to Diego. It was the end. He burst. He had been hit in one of his knees and was in pain. During the halftime of the match against Burgos, Bilardo asked him to get in. Eight minutes after the beginning of the second half, the coach ordered the substitution. He felt they were using him. He stared at his eyes, boasted him and left. No one still knew where he was heaidng to.