The feature-length documentary displays all of the chaotic, glamorous, moments of the late’80s soccer superstar with his most infamous moment being minuscule in comparison to the rest.
Diego Maradona follows the life of the famous soccer player with hundreds of hours of footage from the era and is comparable to The Last Dance in that sense.
Maradona is of course known most for his “hand of God” moment where he scored a goal by tipping it in with his hand during the Argentina v England quarter-finals match of the 1986 FIFA World Cup. This moment however is mentioned but barely discussed. Instead, the documentary is aware of the notoriety of this moment and chose to capitalize on the more interesting, less-known stories from his early life and career.
The star’s life is an interesting story even without mentioning the mob ties, adultery and drug abuse. We see he grew up in an Argentinian slum known as Villa Fiorito and when he was 15 years old signed his contract for the Argentinos Juniors team. He then went to play for Barcelona for two years having a successful rookie season. But after injury, fighting on the pitch and gossip of his nightlife activities, he transferred to Napoli in Italy's Serie A. He played on this team for seven years and it is where the majority of the documentary takes place.
A primary theme of the documentary is family and not forgetting where one comes from. When he received a contract to play for Argentinos Juniors, he moved his entire family into the apartment he had been given and his primary goal was to provide for them. After winning the 1986 World Cup against West Germany, a phone conversation is heard between Maradona and his mother. She sobs and the audience reflects on the powerful moment comparing slum life with four sisters and parents to a world cup champion.
The documentary is lacking in some aspects. All of the interviews commentating on Maradona’s life including Maradona himself are overlaid audio and do not feature any on-screen appearances. This was likely a creative choice, but it may have been interesting to see the people featured thirty years later.
These overlaid audio clips however do provide good context and details. They come from sports journalists, and historians, to Maradona’s family and significant others.
Also, it does not feature any footage of Maradona’s later life, only going up to his playing career in the early/mid-90s. He played for three more clubs after Napoli as well as managed more than half a dozen of them. This includes the Argentinian national team, which Maradona played on at the international level where he won the world cup in 1986.
Naples being in the south of Italy was looked down upon by the rest of Italy further north according to the documentary. It shows clips of other Italian team’s fans spectating in Naples with signs that tell players to “wash yourselves”, for example. This segregation and hatred for Naples were not just faint accusations from rival fans. The north was sophisticated, wealthy, and prosperous while the south featured gang activity and economic downfall.
This all changed with Maradona. The banter from the north and the status of the south only made the champion-level team stronger and it showed with two Serie A championships for Napoli.
In 1990, Maradona appeared in his third world cup, still representing Argentina. However this time Argentina had to play Italy in the semi-finals, in the Naples stadium. This conflict that he has to face is an interesting dynamic and the documentary plays it well. Audio is heard of Maradona breaking down the decision he had to make. He had to choose to either represent his country and try to defeat the international team tied to his club, or think more about his club and its fans.
He then wanted specifically Neapolitans to stand behind Argentina, with the logic that the rest of Italy was ignorant toward Naples, so they should root for the Naples star and his international team. Argentina defeated Italy.
This is where the documentary takes a shift that parallels Maradona’s mental state at the time. Throughout Naples, he went from becoming a god among men after winning the two Serie A championships to being deposed and controversial after beating Italy in the world cup. This notoriety gave him no personal time or privacy and it was damaging. His drug use of cocaine got worse and his relationship with the Naples organized crime group known as the Camorra had gotten thinner.
He was trying to escape fame and constant attention by drowning himself in drugs and women. These drugs and women, he ordered from the Camorra. A specific moment of this in the documentary is when Maradona tries to secretly order two prostitutes from the Giuliano clan.
One of the women was on the phone with Maradona, and she insisted he had a quick chat with her son who was a fan. This was at 3:30 am. While trying his hardest to be discreet and distract himself, he still couldn’t fully escape it.
Authorities had tapped the phone call and he was charged with not only cocaine possession but also distribution. The reason behind the second charge is that he offered some to a prostitute. He mentioned in his interview and reflected on the moment and his tone that he still thought that was unnecessary all these years later.
In summary, this documentary is encapsulating. Its use of footage taken from that era almost entirely adds immensely to the story telling. It is both an artistic choice seeing scan lines and 4:3 aspect ratios and adds narrative being such a direct source of content. The story it tells of the soccer player raised in poverty who goes from seeking wealth for his family to being unable to avoid fame is presented excellently.
