Maradona’s image is immortalized on murals in Buenos Aires

The mischievous smile, the diamond earrings, the stubble or the eyes of a child with dreams of a champion, the thousand and one faces of Diego Maradona multiply on the murals of Buenos Aires as a tribute to the streets a year after the death of great idol.

Even before his sudden death, which occurred on November 25, 2020, it was common to find the image of Maradona stamped on a corner of the Argentine city where popular slang made the former player’s surname synonymous with greatness.

But since he left, homages by anonymous artists to the legendary captain of the Argentine national team have multiplied.

In the neighborhood of La Boca, near the Bombonera stadium where Maradona played for the last time in the superclassic between Boca Juniors and River Plate on October 25, 1997, the image of the idol in the blue and gold shirt warns that “Diego lives” there .

Her youthful hair and irreverent smile are reflected in black-and-white street paintings bearing the message “10 Eternal” throughout this populous neighborhood of low-rise homes and cobblestone streets.

With no authors or signatures in sight, the murals are testament to people’s affection for an idol who always proudly recalled his needy childhood in impoverished Villa Fiorito, on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires.

“These (images) we painted ourselves, it’s the block that has the most murals”, points out a resident of La Boca in front of a giant panel of Diego running after the ball.

But in La Boca the largest mural in honor is on the side of a factory. On a 20 meter high wall rests the image of a Diego with a golden halo and a scepter crowned by a ball, a gray beard, diamond earrings and an air of satisfaction. It was made by the artist Alfredo Segatori, who began painting it on the same day as Maradona’s death, and finished 12 days later with the name of “San Diego, patron saint of the La Boca neighborhood”.

In the neighborhood, Diego’s murals are not vandalized, everyone respects these images that they say are protected by Boca fans.

However, a tribute to the legendary football player from the Chacarita neighborhood was covered in gray paint by order of the Buenos Aires city hall, residents said.

It was inaugurated on October 30th on the occasion of what would have been the idol’s 61st birthday and portrayed Maradona surrounded by Peronist symbols, a party he has always supported.

But the most original of all the murals is the one that crowns the interior of the Sportivo Pereyra club in the Barracas district and that imitates the image painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, ‘The Creation of Adam’.

In it, a divine Maradona surrounded by Argentine football figures extends his index finger to a smiling Lionel Messi, both wearing Argentina’s shirt.

“The idea is that every kid who looks up can ask the football gods what he wants,” explained Sebastián García, president of the club where children from poor neighborhoods who dream of being the next Maradona train for free.