One year since Maradona's death: It's still hard to believe he's gone

It was November 25, 2020, at approximately at 17.30 CET. "They are saying in Argentina that Maradona has died," they shouted in the MARCA newsroom. It was a cold Champions League afternoon, one more day in an office where, at that time, there were not many people. This is how we learned the news of Diego Maradona's death a year ago. November 25 will be an unpleasant day for Maradonians and/or those of us who were able to meet him personally.

Throughout this year, as has happened, surely, to many people, many images have come to us of someone who, we believed, was immortal. I've often repeated it to myself: 'I still don't believe that El Diez is gone forever.'

The same thing happens to the people who were very close to him - who were very few - in the last days of his life. These days are spent with a lot of sadness. He was not a legend; he was not just another person. No.10 was a God to many. And the memory captures it that way.

In these 365 days, there have been countless tributes that have been paid to him around the world in Buenos Aires, Naples... or any football corner which has remembered the figure of a controversial guy, great on the pitch and one who left his mark -in all the senses - in the world of football: Diego Maradona.

Unfortunately - I am not saying this did not exist - many garbage minutes were dedicated on his figure on television. His legacy remains in football, but it is true that the circumstances surrounding his death, and the days before, gave many the opportunity for different analysis. That "acute lung edema secondary to exacerbated chronic heart failure" (the cause of his death) worked against him.

Several ongoing soap operas

For the moment, the case for possible medical negligence of the seven professionals implicated in a possible "simple homicide" is still open in court. Those involved are the nurses Ricardo Almiron and Gisela Madrid; the coordinator of the nurses, Mariano Perroni; the doctor who coordinated his home hospitalisation, Nancy Forlini; the psychologist Carlos Diaz; the psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov; and the neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, Maradona's family doctor.

The other soap opera is about his inheritance - a relentless fight that has just begun between his lawyer Matias Morla, who is holder of the rights of Maradona's brand, the star's own brothers, his only ex-wife, Claudia Villafane, and his five recognised children.

But that will be another chapter. Let us enjoy his sports legacy.