I have a confession to make. Despite the fact that he played for a nation that was not fondly thought of in my own country, as a result of the Falklands Conflict just four years previously. Also, that he blatantly cheated against England in the quarter final. While watching Mexico 86 on TV, the footballing genius that was Diego Armando Maradona, so completely captured my imagination, that I simply idolised him as a player.

So much was his impact on this 13-year-old, utterly obsessed with football, that I saved up my pocket money and after the tournament bought myself a sky blue (azzurro to give it its official Italian name!) Napoli jersey with the name of food company Buitoni across the chest. (Even for me purchasing an Argentina shirt was just a step too far!).  It was just a shame that the retailer didn’t offer the option of printing numbers on shirts in those days, otherwise there would have only been the one option for yours truly: ElD10S’ number 10.

As a result of my youthful obsession with El Pibe de Oro, which I have no shame in admitting I still carry to this day (a piece I wrote on his passing in November 2020- Football Nerd Weekly Ramblings: Remembering El Pibe de Oro: the one and only Diego Maradona.), I have read a number of books on Maradona (including his own idiosyncratic autobiography: El Diego), but David Arrowsmith’s “Killing Maradona” is quite simply the absolute best I have read yet.

While many of us know the story of Maradona’s career and his ultimate self-destruction through his rather questionable lifestyle, the brilliance of this book is the fictionalised narrative sections at the start of each chapter. Arrowsmith does a brilliant job in putting you inside Maradona’s head for the most epic moments of his career and indeed his life. These include: his exploitation by the Argentine military junta and later the Camorra, a bizarre encounter with a certain Pablo Escobar, the failed drugs tests, his arrest in Buenos Aires, his ongoing battles with injury and later his drastically declining health, and so much more.

It is often said that modern players are boring and lack the maverick qualities of the great characters of football history. That is most definitely not something that could ever have been said about the curly haired genius from Villa Fiorito.

If, like me, you hold a certain fascination for the phenomenon that was Maradona and all that went with him, or if you simply want to learn more about one of football’s true greats, then you simply have to read this book.