30 October 1960 – 25 November 2020
The documentary-maker, who spent nine months in 2018-19 filming in Mexico with the footballer, recalls his shrewd intelligence and gleefully outrageous behaviour
High in the mountains of central Mexico, an obscure second division football team, Los Dorados de Sinaloa, had just beaten another, even more obscure team. Their manager hobbled painfully on a crutch towards a band of 20 ecstatic away fans, a 100-watt smile lighting up his face, a picture of joy. “Diego, Diego,” screamed the fans. Victory and adoration – the adrenaline that drove Diego Maradona all his life. Minutes later in the changing room, he dropped his crutch and, like Lazarus, began to dance freely to his beloved cumbia music, finding an astonishing rhythm with his players.
For the Netflix docuseries Maradona in Mexico, we spent nine months filming him in his unlikely reincarnation there, witnessing that joy, that passion, that excess and wondering whether he wouldn’t suddenly keel over mid-dance. Here was the fiery determination, drama and intensity that had driven him as a player 30 years earlier. Here was the courage to outwit crude attempts to hack him down, combined with the generosity that made team-mates love him. In his dance was a life force, also found in the raw, unapologetic howl he released watching his beloved Boca Juniors score in distant Buenos Aires.
