Revisiting the Final Days of Maradona’s Career With His Biographer, Daniel Arcucci | OneFootball

The second half of Diego Maradona’s career is a rollercoaster ride of what-ifs, flashes of brilliance, and wild moments that only he could provide. Daniel Arcucci, Maradona’s biographer, takes us back to the mid-’90s, when Maradona served as the link between the grit of the 1980s and the modern, image-conscious football of a new era. It was also the last chapter of his playing days.

As Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and LeBron James approach the end of their legendary careers, few, if any, athletes have aged as gracefully or stayed relevant for as long as they have.

In football terms, the longevity of Messi and Ronaldo isn’t the norm. Most great players with 20-plus year careers — David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Lothar Matthäus, and even Pelé — showed clear signs of decline by their early to mid-30s. But Messi and Ronaldo are something else: sports icons who’ve defied the clock.

James has been the basketball equivalent of the two footballing icons. In a sport where Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, legends of the court, finished their careers as shells of their peak forms, James has remained a top-10 player in the league into his 40s.

Today, as fans wonder when this trio will ride into the sunset, the answer is clear — it will be when they decide to. Other stars are nudged out or leave quietly. Messi, Ronaldo, and James, like Johnny Carson walking off The Tonight Show, will go with elegance and grace.

That was never going to be the case for Diego Maradona.

Maradona at the 1994 World Cup. (Michael Kunkel/Bongarts/Getty Images)

By the time Maradona suited up for Boca Juniors in 1995, he was more legend than footballer — more icon than athlete. He had just been expelled from the 1994 World Cup for testing positive for ephedrine. His last goal for Argentina came at the old Foxboro Stadium, followed by his fiery “I’m back” look to the camera — lightning in a bottle.

If his prime was filled with ups and downs, late period Maradona was exponentially more tumultuous.

Before Argentina’s ill-fated 1994 World Cup, Maradona left Italy in disgrace after building his legend at Napoli. A positive drug test for cocaine was the final straw, and he left the club for Sevilla in 1992. What follows next is an erratic slate of moves that are consistent with where Maradona was at this point of his career: a five-match run with Newell’s Old Boys, two matches at the ’94 World Cup before being sent home for his positive drug test, managerial stints with Deportivo Mandiyú and Racing Club, and his final two years with Boca Juniors.

There was chaos everywhere he went, but with that chaos came the occasional trademark flash of brilliance.

The Argentina of the 1990s

When Maradona made his return to La Bombonera on October 7, 1995 against Colón de Santa Fe, he looked every bit of the ’90s. The king who ran the 1980s was nearing the end of his reign, but his style was era-perfect. The dark blue OLAN Boca Juniors kit stood out, and Maradona had a dyed blonde streak in his hair that he wore with a goatee that fit the times.

With his short hair and trademark jewelry, Diego was back. It felt like a national celebration, as Argentina’s most beloved sports icon had returned. The man who gave the nation the 1986 World Cup and countless memories was playing again.

Culturally, mid-’90s Argentina was buzzing. Economic optimism under President Carlos Menem’s reforms brought foreign brands into Buenos Aires. The peso was pegged to the U.S. dollar. Rock nacional was at its peak, telenovelas dominated TV, and a younger, globalized generation was embracing MTV, Nike, and McDonald’s alongside tango and fútbol.

Beneath the surface, however, cracks were forming. Unemployment was rising, public assets were being sold off, and not everything was as rosy as it seemed.

In that landscape, Maradona’s dramatic return to Boca in 1995 captured both the chaos and the nostalgia of Argentine football. Fútbol de Primera, the iconic recap show with NFL-style visuals, was changing how fans watched the game. And there was El Diez, an unpredictable and magnetic sparkplug.

“Diego was never just a footballer, he was a myth, a cultural force, something far bigger than the game itself,” said Daniel Arcucci, Argentinian journalist and Maradona biographer. “So when we talk about Maradona, especially his return to Boca in 1995, it’s not just about a player coming back for one last run. It was a resurrection, classic Maradona. Raw, dramatic, emotional.

“People might say, ‘Oh, but he was out of shape,’ or ‘He was using (drugs) again.’ Forget that for a second. I saw him train. He was locked in, more mature, more cerebral, trying to evolve his game at 33. What made that stretch at Boca so unique is that it packed a lifetime of Maradona into just two years. From September 1995 to October 1997, he went through it all: ups, downs, controversy, brilliance. It was like watching all his footballing and personal cycles condensed into one final chaotic act. That’s why you can’t analyze that period with stats or form alone. It was pure, unfiltered Diego. Football as life, and life as spectacle.”

Maradona and Boca: Lighting in a Bottle

It was a story full of chapters. Maradona only played 30 official matches for Boca between 1995 and 1997, but in that short span, he was purely himself.

He scored seven goals, including a dazzling run and chip against Belgrano at La Bombonera. Another highlight: a stunning free kick against his first club, Argentinos Juniors, which he didn’t celebrate out of respect. On the field were future stars like Juan Sebastián Verón and Kily González as well as future MLS player Diego Soñora.

He also played a masterful Superclásico against River Plate in 1996, a 4-1 Boca win — where the most talked-about moment wasn’t the score but the kiss on the lips he gave goal scorer Claudio Caniggia. An iconic image of 1990s Argentina.

When Diego celebrated, he made it an event. He blew kisses to his wife, received applause from rival fans, and every goal was a tribute to a man who had brought joy to a nation for over a decade.

Of course, there were lowlights too: Missed penalties and a famous on-field shouting match with referee Javier Castrilli that perfectly captured his erratic side.

But there was also the playful Maradona, arriving at training in a pickup truck or gifting González a BMW because he didn’t want him taking the bus back to Rosario. When González kept asking about returning the car, Diego told him, “Keep it.”

He even called out a Colón player during a post-game interview, giving out his home address and saying he’d fight him “any place, any time.”

Party, Training, Media Presence

As Jimmy Burns, author of Hand of God, once said, “A year in the life of Maradona is 10 years for any normal person.”

While preparing for his Boca return, Maradona was everywhere, On TV, in commercials, at events. He even tried to start a players’ union to take on FIFA. He spoke about everything: the national team, politics, the economy, nothing was off limits.

And yet, at the center of it all, was a man trying to recapture the only thing that ever made sense: being a footballer.

“Diego started training again around late August or early September of 1995,” Arcucci said. “Back then, there weren’t as many media outlets as today, but still a decent number of us were camped outside his ranch in Punta del Este, Uruguay, waiting for updates. For the first few days, we heard he was training, but in reality, I later found out he was just in his room, not doing much at all.

“Then one day, this car comes tearing out, kicking up dust. It was Guillermo Coppola (Maradona’s agent and party pal). He spotted me and said, ‘Dani, come in.’ I had a bit of a privilege, and no one really minded. When I got inside, this time Diego was actually training, running hard, pushing himself. After a few laps, he came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. And only then did everyone else, people I’d known for years, come over to greet me. Until Diego acknowledged me, no one else would. That’s the kind of presence he had.

“I ended up staying there for two weeks, watching him train up close. The Diego who came back in ’95, especially that night against Colón at La Bombonera, was something else. You had to be there to feel it. It was another of his many comebacks, pure Maradona.”

Maradona vs. Nike and Mauricio Macri

Even in 1997, Diego found ways to be Diego. When Nike took over as Boca’s kit supplier, Maradona, long loyal to PUMA and famously wary of American political influence, picked a fight. Sort of.

“In many ways, Diego Maradona was ahead of his time, not just as a footballer, but as a media and marketing figure,” Arcucci said. “Long before players became brand ambassadors or social media stars, Diego understood the power of image. He was the first truly mediatic footballer, and arguably the first to master personal branding.

“Take the boots, for example. He always wore them with untied laces during warm-ups. But just before kickoff, he’d kneel down in front of the cameras, pull one boot forward, and tie his laces slowly, deliberately. First row of photographers? Boom. Close-up on the PUMA logo.”

It wasn’t just brand loyalty. For Maradona, PUMA vs. Nike had political overtones. He saw Nike as a symbol of U.S. power and corporate control. His loyalty to PUMA was personal and symbolic.

Even subtle gestures, like altering Boca’s jersey with a white patch, were ways to protest against Nike and Boca president Mauricio Macri.

“Diego needed enemies to thrive,” Arcucci said. “He needed the fight. Comfort didn’t suit him, conflict did. He was fueled by rebellion, by adversity. That’s why he always seemed to perform best when there was tension in the air. And today, when Messi shows a flash of fire, steps out of line, or takes a bold stance, people say, ‘Messi got Maradonized.’ That tells you everything about the shadow Diego still casts, not just in football, but in culture, politics, and identity.”

His rivalry with Macri, who would go on to become president of Argentina, was a battle of opposites: Macri the polished businessman, Maradona the street fighter, the voice of the people.

Mauricio Macri during the 125th IOC Session in 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

Macri wanted to turn Boca into a global brand. He wanted to sign global recognizable players like Jorge Campos and Carlos Valderrama. There were even rumors of interest in Alexi Lalas, who posed with the Boca Juniors jersey after a 1995 Copa America match. The team launched international tours to gain revenue and brand recognition.

Eventually, after a few coaching misfires, Macri hired Carlos Bianchi, who would turn Boca into a continental powerhouse after Maradona had retired. Bianchi wanted to focus on building a good team and not a brand. It would result in Boca Juniors’ best era in club history.

But before that, he had to deal with Maradona.

“That period at Boca was defined by conflict, and Diego thrived on it,” Arcucci said. “He never really liked Macri, but they found ways to coexist. Diego wanted to play for Boca above all else. And if that meant putting up with Macri, he did it.

“Still, their relationship was far from friendly. Diego famously called Macri ‘el cartonero’ — the scavenger. It was his way of criticizing how Macri handled player contracts and treated the squad. Diego saw himself not just as captain, but as spokesperson and defender of the players.”

Yet the two were often spotted at the same parties. There’s even a photo of them smiling together. But it wasn’t friendship, it was coexistence.

Behind the scenes, things were tense. Diego brought fame and revenue. But some of the club’s off-field decisions, like the infamous tour to China in 1996, backfired on the team’s local performance which, due to Maradona’s prolonged absences or bans, was up, down, and sideways.

The End

Diego Armando Maradona played his final professional match on his 37th birthday. It was a Superclásico against River Plate at El Monumental. He played just the first half, before being subbed off for a young Juan Román Riquelme. It was a passing of the torch moment that would read as overly contrived had it been scripted.

Boca went on to win 2–1, and although no one knew it at the time, that would be Maradona’s last official game.

As he left the pitch, he turned to the River fans and flipped them off, one last grand gesture from a man who never did anything quietly.

Maradona wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. The player exited. The myth lived on. Behind him is a legacy of magical goals, skill, and World Cup moments as well as a drug addiction, fights, and an out-of-control lifestyle.

Today Maradona is an icon, the last rebel among rebels, a man who defied power and gave those of lesser resources a chance through the beautiful game. From Buenos Aires to Naples, and India to Miami, Maradona is an image of the beautiful game and an example of what happens when one lives a life of excesses.

A flawed man who captured the world through a ball.

Quotes adjusted for context.