Buenos Aires, a winter night. 1989.
A black car drives through the city streets. Tinted windows, expensive, imported; the kind that people stare at as they pass by. Inside is the most famous man in Argentina: Diego Armando Maradona. He has just returned from Italy, where he is the king of Naples, where they call him God, where 70,000 people chant his name every Sunday.
The driver drives in silence. Diego looks out the window. The streets are empty, the city asleep, the downtown buildings receding into the distance. They are returning home after dinner. Diego is tired. The trip from Italy was long. His body is begging for rest.
They reach a red light. And then a boy appears. Ten years old. Skinny, too skinny. Torn clothes. Sneakers that are no longer sneakers, just scraps of cloth held together with wire. He walks between the cars with a packet of tissues in his hand.
He taps on the first window. The driver looks away. He pretends the boy doesn’t exist. He hits the second light. The driver accelerates as soon as the light changes. He almost runs him over. He hits the third. Nothing. Nobody wants tissues. Nobody wants to see a poor kid in the cold night.
The kid reaches the black car. He doesn’t know who’s inside. He can’t see through the tinted windows. He knocks. Inside, Diego looks at him and something happens. Something the driver doesn’t understand, something nobody expected, something that will change that kid’s life forever.
Diego says:
“Stop the car.”
The driver brakes. “
Diego, the light has changed. They’re going to honk at us.
” “I don’t care. Stop.”
The cars behind him start to get impatient. Someone honks, another shouts something from the window. Diego doesn’t move. He rolls down the window. The kid approaches with the tissues. He’s cold, shivering a little, but he keeps working because he has no other choice.
“I’ll sell you one, sir. They’re good. Three for…”
And then he sees the face. He freezes. The handkerchiefs fall from his hands. His mouth is open, his eyes enormous, his body frozen. He’s looking at Maradona. At Diego. At God.
The boy wants to speak, but nothing comes out. He wants to say something, but the words catch in his throat. He starts to tremble, but now it’s not from the cold. Diego looks at him seriously. But not seriously angry; seriously with something deeper.
“What’s your name?”
The boy takes a while to answer. His voice comes out broken, strained.
“Rodrigo.
” “How old are you, Rodrigo?”
“Ten.”
Diego nods. Ten years old. The same age he was when he went hungry in Villa Fiorito. When he slept with wet feet because the house flooded every time it rained. When his father, Don Diego, worked double shifts at the factory and even then, sometimes there wasn’t enough to eat. The same age he was when he dreamed of having a leather ball instead of a rag one.
“Where do you live, Rodrigo?”
He points south. Toward the slums. Toward the neighborhoods that people with expensive cars prefer not to see. Toward the places that don’t appear on postcards of Buenos Aires.
The driver looks in the rearview mirror. He doesn’t like the way this is going. He knows Diego, he knows what he’s like.
“Diego, it’s late. It’s dangerous. The slum at this hour isn’t a good idea. Let’s go.”
Diego doesn’t look at him. He keeps looking at the boy.
“Do you have a mother, Rodrigo?
” “Yes.
” “A father?
” Rodrigo lowers his gaze. The question hurts.
“He’s gone.” When I was little. I don’t remember him.
Silence. The cars behind honk louder. Someone yells, “Move it!” They don’t know who’s inside. They don’t care. Diego still doesn’t move.
“Do you go to school?”
Rodrigo lowers his gaze even further. Shame weighs heavily on him sometimes.
“When I can. But I have to work. If I don’t work, we don’t eat.”
Diego feels something in his chest. It’s not sadness. It’s something else. It’s anger. An old anger that never went away. An anger he’s carried inside for as long as he can remember. Anger against a world that lets a 10-year-old boy work on the street, instead of being in school, instead of playing ball with his friends, instead of being a boy.
Because he knows this story. He lived it. He suffered it. The only difference is that Diego had a ball and he had someone who believed in him when no one else did. This boy has nothing. Just handkerchiefs and cold.
Diego opens the car door.
“Get in.”
The driver turns around, his face etched with worry.
“Diego, what are you doing?”
“We’re going to the kid’s house.”
“Are you crazy? To the slums. At this hour. You know what could happen. Do you know how dangerous it is?”
Diego looks at him. That look he has when he steps onto the field, when he knows no one can stop him, when he’s made up his mind and there’s no going back.
“Do you know where I come from? Do you know where I was born? Do you know what Villa Fiorito is like?”
The driver doesn’t answer.
“I grew up in a place just like that. Maybe worse. And if I’m here today, it’s because someone gave me a chance. Someone believed in me.” He pauses. “Now we’re going to the kid’s house. And I don’t want to hear another word.”
The driver knows there’s no point in arguing. When Diego decides something, nothing in the world can change his mind.
Rodrigo gets into the car and sits next to Diego. He can’t stop trembling. He can’t believe what’s happening. Ten minutes ago, he was banging on windows in the cold. Ten minutes ago, he was invisible. Now he’s sitting next to
Maradona, next to the most famous man in the world.
The car starts. The shantytown has no official name, just a number, like all the shantytowns in Buenos Aires, like all the places the government prefers to forget.
Dirt roads that turn to mud when it rains. Houses made of sheet metal, cardboard, and wood. Wires dangling from the poles, stealing electricity because there’s no other way. Skinny dogs scavenging for food in the garbage. The smell of dampness, poverty, and neglect.
Diego’s car enters slowly. The wheels sink into the mud. The driver maneuvers carefully. A car like this has never been in this place. The driver is tense, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He looks around.
“Diego, I don’t like this. We should go back.
” Diego doesn’t answer. He looks out the window. He sees the houses, he sees the poverty, he sees the children playing in the street despite the late hour. He sees his own childhood. He sees Villa Fiorito. He sees everything he left behind but never forgot.
The car moves forward. People begin to come out of their houses. They hear the engine. You don’t hear an engine like that in the shantytown. Who has a car like that here? Someone approaches, walks alongside the car, tries to see through the window… and sees him. And shouts.
“It’s Maradona! It’s Diego! Diego is here!”
The shout spreads like wildfire. It leaves one house, reaches another, and another. In seconds, the car is surrounded. Ten people, twenty, fifty, a hundred. The whole shantytown outside in pajamas, in flip-flops, in whatever they were wearing.
The driver panics. His hands tremble.
“Diego, we have to go. This is getting out of control. They’re going to wreck the car or worse.”
Diego looks at him calmly. He smiles.
“Open the door.”
“What?
” “Open the door. I want to greet my people.”
Diego gets out of the car. The crowd erupts. Shouts, applause, tears. People fall to their knees. People can’t believe what they’re seeing. Maradona in his neighborhood, walking among them, touching the same muddy streets they touch every day.
Diego greets everyone, one by one. He’s in no hurry. He shakes hands, hugs, kisses cheeks, takes photos, signs autographs on papers, on t-shirts, on pieces of cardboard, on anything they hand him.
An old woman pushes her way through the crowd, reaches Diego, and cups his face in her hands. Tears fill her eyes.
“Diego, my son is sick. The doctors say he needs an operation, but we don’t have any money. Can you pray for him? Can you ask God to help him?”
Diego looks at her and hugs her tightly.
“I’m going to do more than pray, Mom. Much more.”
They walk to Rodrigo’s house. Diego in front, the little boy beside him guiding him, the crowd following behind like a procession. The house is small, smaller than small. Sheet metal and wood. A single room where they live, eat, and sleep. A bathroom outside, shared with the neighbors. A skinny dog at the door, its tail twitching weakly.
Rodrigo runs inside.
“Mom! Mom! Come quick! You won’t believe who’s here!”
A woman comes out. Thirty-five years old, but she looks fifty. Life in the shantytown ages you fast. Hair gray before its time. Hands worn, rough, cracked from washing other people’s clothes. Eyes tired from a life that offers no respite, no truce, no hope. She sees Diego standing in the doorway of her house. She doesn’t react. She can’t. It’s too much. It’s impossible. It has to be a dream.
Diego approaches, kisses her cheek, soft and respectful.
“Good evening, ma’am. I apologize for arriving unannounced, and at this hour. Your son invited me, and I couldn’t refuse.”
The woman begins to cry. She can’t speak. Tears stream down her face uncontrollably.
Diego looks around. He sees the house. He sees the corrugated iron walls. He sees the dirt floor. He sees the dampness. He sees the poverty. He sees everything he left behind years ago, but never forgot. He sees his mother, Doña Tota, in this woman’s face. He sees the same weariness, the same struggle, the same love that isn’t enough to change reality.
“May I come in?”
The woman nods, speechless, and steps aside. Diego enters. He sits on the only chair in the house, an old wooden chair that wobbles slightly. The mother offers him water. It’s all she has. She apologizes for not having anything better. Diego accepts the water. He drinks. He smiles.
“The best glass of water I’ve had in a long time, ma’am.”
The woman smiles for the first time. A small, shy smile, but genuine.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Ten years. Since Rodrigo was born. We used to live somewhere else, but we had to move when his father left.
” “And his father?”
The woman lowers her gaze. The pain still fresh after so many years.
“He left when Rodrigo was two. One day he went out and never came back. We never heard from him again. Not a letter, not a call. Nothing.”
Diego nods. He knows this story. He’s seen it a thousand times in Villa Fiorito. Fathers who leave. Families that break apart. Mothers who are left alone with their children and have to perform miracles every day to survive.
“Does Rodrigo go to school?”
“When he can. I try to send him, but we need the money. Handouts don’t provide much, but something is better than nothing. If he doesn’t work, there are days we don’t eat.” Her voice breaks. “I know it’s wrong. I know he should be studying, but what can I do?” Should I let him go hungry?
Diego remains silent. He doesn’t judge. How could he? His own mother made the same impossible calculations when he was a boy. He looks at Rodrigo. The little boy is standing in a corner of the room. He still can’t believe that
Maradona is sitting in his house, in his chair, drinking water from his glass.
Diego gestures to him.
“Come here, Rodrigo. Sit here with me.”
Rodrigo approaches and sits on the floor next to Diego. Diego looks at him and puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you like soccer?”
The boy’s eyes light up. For the first time that night, he seems like a real boy. Not a worker, not a little adult. A boy.
“Yes, I love it. I play every day in the vacant lot with the neighborhood kids.
” “What position?
” “Attacking midfielder. Like you.
” Diego smiles. A big, genuine smile.
“And are you good?”
Rodrigo hesitates. He looks at his mother. He looks at Diego.
“I don’t know. They say I am. They say I’m the best in the neighborhood.” But I don’t know.
Diego laughs. He laughs for real. A laugh that fills the house.
“That’s the spirit. Anyone who doesn’t believe in themselves won’t get anywhere. You know what they told me when I was your age?”
Rodrigo shakes his head.
“They told me I was too short, too skinny, that I’d never amount to anything. That I was a kid from the slums and kids from the slums never make it.” Pause. Diego looks him straight in the eyes. “You know what I did? I ignored them. I kept playing, kept believing. And here I am.”
What happens next changes Rodrigo’s life forever. Diego takes money out of his pocket. A lot of money. Bills his mother has never seen together. More than Rodrigo will ever make selling tissues in a year, maybe two. His mother starts crying again, but this time it’s different. It’s not sadness, it’s not shame. It’s something she doesn’t know how to name. “
Diego, I can’t accept this. It’s too much.” We didn’t do anything to deserve this.
—It’s not for you, ma’am. It’s for the kid. It’s so he can stop working and go back to school. So he can have school supplies, so he can have shoes. So he can be a kid.
The mother tries to refuse. Diego won’t let her.
—Ma’am, look at me. I was born in Villa Fiorito, twenty blocks from here. I know what it’s like to go hungry. I know what it’s like to have nothing to eat. I know what it’s like to sleep cold because there are no blankets. I know all of that. —Pause—. The only difference between your son and me is that someone gave me a chance. Someone believed in me when no one else did. Someone saw me. —Another pause. Diego looks at Rodrigo—. Let me give
Rodrigo a chance. Let me see him.
The mother can’t speak, she just nods. Tears fall uncontrollably. Diego gets up, looks at Rodrigo.
“Listen carefully. You’re going back to school. You’re going to study. And if you want to play soccer, you’re going to train every day. Understood?”
Rodrigo nods quickly.
“But if I find out you’ve dropped out of school, I’ll come and find you myself. Is that clear?”
Rodrigo smiles. A huge smile.
“Yes, Diego. I promise.”
Diego ruffles his hair.
“Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. Now give me a hug.”
The boy hugs him tightly, with his whole body, as if he never wants to let go. As if that hug were the most important thing that ever happened to him. Because maybe it is.
Before leaving, Diego does one more thing. He looks for the old woman who told him about her sick son. He asks her exactly what’s wrong with him, asks her where he’s being treated. He asks her how much the operation costs.
The woman tells him. It’s a lot of money, impossible money for someone from the shantytown. Diego nods.
“Call this number on Monday. Ask for me. Everything will be taken care of.”
The woman falls to her knees, kisses Diego’s hands, and weeps. Diego helps her up.
“Don’t kneel, Mother. I’m not God. I’m Diego. A kid from Villa Fiorito, just like you.”
The car leaves the shantytown after midnight. Diego sits silently, staring out the window. The driver looks at him in the rearview mirror. He wants to say something, but doesn’t know what. Finally, he speaks.
“Diego, why are you doing this? Why are you taking such risks? Why do you care?”
Diego keeps staring out the window.
“Because those people are me. I was born there. I grew up there. I went hungry there. I was cold there.” He pauses. “Money comes and goes. Fame comes and goes. Contracts come and go. But when you help someone, when you change the life of a kid who has nothing… that stays. That never goes away.”
The driver says nothing more. There’s nothing left to say.
Years later, when Diego was gone, someone found Rodrigo. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a man. Forty years old, married, two children, a job, a life. A life he wouldn’t have had without that night. They asked him what he remembered about Maradona. Rodrigo was silent for a moment, his eyes moist.
“I was invisible. Do you understand what that means? I was invisible. Cars drove by and nobody saw me. I banged on the windows and people looked the other way as if I didn’t exist, as if I were a ghost.” —Pause— “Diego didn’t look the other way. Diego rolled down his window. Diego asked me my name. Diego saw me.” —Another, longer pause— “Do you know what I remember most about that night? Not the money. Not the gifts. Not that he came to my house. I remember that he saw me. That he treated me like a person. Not like some annoying kid. Not like a problem. Like a person.”
Silence.
—That’s what Diego was. The most famous man in the world, the best player in history, and he’d stop his car at eleven o’clock at night to talk to a little boy selling tissues at a traffic light.
On November 25, 2020, Diego Armando Maradona died. The whole world mourned. Celebrities posted messages on social media, presidents gave speeches, journalists did television specials. But those who cried the most weren’t the celebrities, weren’t the presidents, weren’t the journalists.
Those who cried the most were the invisible ones. Those from the slums, those from the poor neighborhoods, those who sell things at traffic lights, those who clean windshields for coins, those whom no one sees. Because Diego saw them. He always saw them. He was born in Villa Fiorito. He became the greatest in the world. He had fame, money, glory. He met kings and presidents. He played in the biggest stadiums on the planet. But he never forgot where he came from. He never stopped stopping at traffic lights. He never stopped rolling down his window. He never stopped seeing those whom no one else sees.
There’s a phrase Diego often said: “The ball doesn’t get dirty.” But perhaps there’s something else that doesn’t get dirty: the heart of someone who never forgets where he comes from. The heart of someone who stops the car when everyone else keeps going. The heart of someone who sees the invisible.
Diego made mistakes. He had problems. He had demons. He had dark moments that we all know about. But that was never stained. And it never will be. Diego Armando Maradona, the kid from Villa Fiorito who conquered the
world and who never stopped seeing those whom no one else sees.
If this story made you feel something, tell me in the comments what you would have done in the protagonist’s place.
