Diego Maradona’s wake knew no borders. Fans held a vigil in his name in Naples. His image lit up the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The New Zealand rugby team laid a jersey in his honor on a field in Newcastle, Australia. His face adorned the front pages of newspapers across the world.

In Buenos Aires, though, the mourning felt personal. The Argentine capital was not just the city where he was born — in Villa Fiorito, one of its most deprived districts — and where he lay in state, at the city’s presidential palace, after his death last week.

It was in Buenos Aires where he became the Maradona the world would know: at Argentinos Juniors, the club where he took his first steps in professional soccer, a teenager of almost impossibly rich promise; at Boca Juniors, the club where he became the brightest star of his generation.

And it was to Buenos Aires that he returned — as a player, as a coach and always, at Boca, as a fan — again and again once his playing career had faded, once his star had fallen. Buenos Aires can feel like a city built around soccer. After the death of the player who defined that culture more than any other, then, it should be no surprise that it was to soccer that porteños turned in their grief.

Source: New York Times

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