In the endless novel of his life, Diego Armando Maradona seems to play different characters each time. We have forgotten some. Do you remember the guerrilla Maradona who greets the crowd in a suv-tank in Belarus? The Maradona ultrà, shirtless, very lean, in the Bombonera style? All less known versions of the holy Maradona of Naples, haloed on the walls of the Spanish Quarters; or also the stocky and aggressive Maradona bull of USA 94.
In all these different stages of life, scattered across the five continents, Maradona looks like a different person from time to time. His character is different, so his physicality is different. His body and face seem to deform around the stage needs of the moment. As in the Victorian novels, Maradona absorbed the extreme emotions of her life onto her body. And the story of Maradona’s life is the story of his body. We can put it on the anatomical table, cut it into pieces and make it talk.
My favorite part of Maradona’s body is her hair, in turn characters from her personal history but also from the historical tale in which they are immersed. They tell about the change, the disintegration, the aging of Maradona; but they also tell about its evolution as a style icon. Perhaps an underestimated aspect of his myth.
Here is a story of Maradona through the story of her hair.
Maradona child, hair cut with a knife
For a strange temporal paradox, this is the youngest photo of Maradona, and at the same time the one in which he most resembles his father. It is not clear how this child did to become that man. Her face has yet to go round, and her innocence is expressed in a frightened look. The hair doesn’t even look like hers, as if it were still blooming. They look rough and hard, lifeless, cut with a camping knife by taking measurements with a bowl held over your head. It is the Maradona who seems to have grown up in a pre-industrial context, as Brian Phillips wrote: “We are not talking about being able to pay the electricity bills. We are talking about earth floors. Roofs made of bamboo canes ». To use a definition that he will give of himself at different times, a “cabecita negra “.
Maradona at the debut, an angel
During adolescence, Maradona’s hair explodes and begins to take on the wild movement that we recognize in him. But here they are still soft, light, far from the greasiness they will have later on. They are angel hair, bearers of that original purity that we want to see in the history of Maradona. The child with the divine gift who has yet to allow himself to be corrupted by the world. Maradona in this photo really has that angelic air that Jonathan Wilson described in his book on Argentine football Angels with dirty faces . It’s the looks of the innocent-looking boy and the cunning of a demon. In the first goal scored with Argentinos Jr. he will take the satisfaction of making a tunnel to defender Juan Domingo Cabrera.
Maradona military, Argentina 78
At 18 Maradona, the prodigy, already has several appearances with the Albiceleste. He has just become the youngest top scorer in the history of the Argentine league. Menotti also called him up for some friendlies before the World Cup played at home, that of ’78, the country is seething with expectation, but then he is cut from the final list for reasons that are still considered mysterious today. For some, Daniel Passarella’s antipathy towards him weighed. In the era of military regimes, Maradona kept his hair well disciplined and pinned to his skull. An austere, almost medieval style, which seems an attempt to repress his personality. He looks like someone who wants to go straight, or who wants to communicate to the world that he wants to go straight.
Maradona, Boca 81
In his year at Boca Juniors, in 1981, Maradona’s curls are at their peak. So thick and wild as to paradoxically assume a precise form. They seem drawn, they frame the wide face that recalls that of Omar Sivori, the other great archetype of the Argentine Pibe. The crafty and mischievous kid who goes around the streets of the barrio. In recent years her hair has an almost tactile charm, it makes you want to break the two-dimensionality of the photo to touch them and find out if they are really made of chocolate.
Maradona, Barcelona 82
The Merovingian rulers never cut their hair in their life: it was a sign of their strength and their privileged status. They used combs of ivory or bone to aim them at the head.
In Barcelona, Maradona’s hair reaches its maximum volume. Her curls are wild and seem to grow in any direction, even against the pull of gravity. From above, his head appears giant; his body, short and slender, seems to support the weight of his head. Her hair is a planet unto itself, things can live in it, objects can be hidden there, they seem to have their own internal microclimate. The eyes are increasingly narrow and covered with bangs. From this moment on, the volume of her hair will begin to reduce.
Maradona santo, Mexico 86
In the year in which Maradona becomes a saint, the one in which he seems to have an even more special relationship with the divine, his curls are disciplined, folded back in a carpet effect. Her hair begins to get rougher and loses the tenderness of youth. A hint of mullet begins to appear behind.
Maradona villain, Italy 90
While the Italians whistle the Argentine anthem, Maradona sobilla “hijos de puta” through gritted teeth. His hair is now coarse and frizzy, like a mature and practical man, on the sides and back it remains short and clean. The eyes begin to be tilted down, the beard of a couple of days. His decline, which begins after this World Cup, is also a decline in vitality expressed by a more rough and dry look.
Maradona and the Mullet, Seville 92
The mullet was especially popular in the late 70’s and late 80’s, from Ziggy Stardust to Lionel Richie. Maradona arrived late but his mullet was glorious, anointed, capable of expressing the first tumultuous tail of his career. In Seville , the last year in Europe, Maradona returns after 15 months of disqualification: out of shape, already in decay. His neck has doubled in volume and the gold chains stick to him.
Today the mullet is back in fashion, a gender fluid cut, a symbol of freedom. Maradona took him to different stages of his life, but never in extreme form as in Seville, never with such a marked imbalance in length between the forehead and the nape.
Maradona straight line at Newells, 1993
In 1993 he made his debut with the Newell’s jersey with the giant sponsor Yamaha, the one with which he decided to pay homage to Messi. In the letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes that long hair is a glory for a woman and a shame for a man. This despite the fact that in other classic myths, such as that of Samson, hair represents a myth of strength and virility. Maradona’s moral life is a pendulum between long or whimsical hair and short and military hair, between falls and rebirths. In the photos at Newell’s, her jaw is once again defined, dry; short hair, neat and manly. The tragedy of USA 94 starts with the ferocity with which he puts the pieces of himself back together before the collapse.
Maradona in Korea, 1995
Maradona returned from the suspension following the American World Cup with one of the most unexpected and pyrotechnic looks of his life: a very defined mustache and goatee, and on his head a strange platinum band on the side. A choice that seems whimsical to us even in these times when almost all professional footballers, at some point, have gone blond. The first time that Maradona wears this look is in the match of his return to La Bombonera, against the Colon. In addition to him that year Paulo Caniggia also returns to Boca, also suspended in Serie A for thirteen months. Someone renames that team the “Coca Juniors”: “Caniggia and I were thrown out of football together, and now we’re back together.”
That year they played an eccentric friendly match in Korea between Boca Juniors and the local national team. Maradona is in shape but less reactive, the competitive end is near. Yet during the game he has some glimpses: it is him and at the same time it is not him. On his arm he wears a band with the words “Diego” in a font that seems to come from Captain Tsubasa. With this hair she will also look perfectly at ease on the stage of the University of Oxford, and at some point she will hold them under a touch.
Maradona in Tifosi, 1999
This photo with Massimo Boldi seems to come from a multiverse different from ours. Although we struggle to recognize it really happened, Maradona was on the set of Tifosi with this disheveled forward cut that is starting to be too young for his face. In the film Nino D’Angelo risks jail to take a picture with Maradona, who is carried around like a saint: in a pizzeria a donkey cries when he gets up from the table, before leaving he kisses all the children, one throws him a ball , he starts dribbling and starts “I saw Maradona”.
There are so many moments in his life when someone throws a balloon at him like a trained seal, and he has to please others. It happened to him in the spot of the Sonar Festival in 2002, on the Cannes catwalk in 2008, in the studios of Carramba what a surprise , in the aforementioned episode of the University of Oxford .
Maradona in Cuba, 2000
In 2000 Maradona suffers from a heart attack and his friend Fidel Castro invites him to Cuba to detoxify . Cuba for him is the best place in the world, Che Guevara the greatest person who ever lived. Maradona walks around with a huge belly, the tank tops that show off Che’s tattoo well and, above all, this bleached hair which in some photos is blonde, in others a bright orange, toxic.
The tan makes his skin terracotta color and the contrast between these colors and the jet black of his eyebrows is alienating. For this reason, at a certain point he even bleaches his eyebrows, and at that point it is the size of his face that becomes scary. In 2000 he is a fat man, and he will be for most of the time he has left to live.
Maradona Uncut Gems, 2001
DANIEL GARCIA / AFP via Getty Images
In 2001 Maradona had to play another “last game”: the friendly Argentina-Rest of the World. After a heart attack and a knee operation he says he wants to face the match seriously, like a “real athlete”. At the match presentation conference, Maradona shows up with puffy hair straightened forward, with a short bangs. The mustache and goatee begin to turn gray, he is sweaty, between watches, bracelets and gold necklaces and this pair of tight glasses. It’s Howard Ratner of Uncut Gems .
Maradona operated on the stomach, 2005
Maradona in 2005 weighed 128 kilos and had to undergo stomach surgery. In the photos it doesn’t look like him but a parody statue dedicated to him: huge and grotesque. Her hair also looks like the comical reproduction of her hair from her prime. They look like her urchins from the early years in Naples, but over which a bottle of sunflower oil has been poured.
Maradona CT, 2010
Argentina’s Diego Maradona CT is the only authentically stylish late version, with gray suits broken by silver ties. He has a half-white, half-black beard, sharp around the contour of his face, thick lion-like hair. It is one of the few late moments in his life when its proportions do not give it a grotesque but rather charismatic, almost authoritarian air.
It is also the last time she will have long, lion-like hair, always thick and greasier. In the following decade his hair will return to shorten, to the point of giving way to dangerous shaves in recent years. When the skin on his face becomes thick and stretched from the facelifts, the ostentatiously youthful short hair of the last few years, he will stop being him almost permanently.
Today a lock of her hair remains kept in a reliquary of the Bar Nilo in Naples, treated like a relic, like the hair of the Virgin Mary.
