Fans chant ‘Diego’ as Buenos Aires university hosts first Maradona congress

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — In the main auditorium of one of Latin America’s most prestigious universities, the academic solemnity was interrupted by chants of “Ole, ole, Diego, Diego,” from fans wearing jerseys of Argentina, Boca Juniors, and Napoli.

Three decades after Diego Maradona captivated Oxford University when he juggled a golf ball with his left foot after delivering a lecture, nostalgia for “El Diez,” who died in 2020, generated a similar effect at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.

The scene happened within the framework of the first International Congress on Diego Maradona, where academics began debating from Thursday to Saturday the impact the soccer superstar had on popular culture and beyond the pitch.

“There is no athlete in the world, let alone a soccer player, who can be encompassed and approached from as many angles as Diego Maradona,” journalist Daniel Arcucci said at the opening on Thursday. He’s the authorized biographer of the captain of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup-winning team.

This is the first time the country’s most important public university has dedicated time for analyzing the Maradona phenomenon; not to explain it but to “continue building bridges between his life and ours, between his figure and recent history,” according to organizers.

Some of the themes that will be addressed include “Devotion and Religiosity in the Maradona Universe”; “Maradona and Hegemonic Masculinity: Approaches from Feminisms”; “Approaches to a Maradona Philosophy”; and “Fashion, Tattoos and Maradona Muralism.”

Maradona died on Nov. 25, 2020 at age 60 from cardiac arrest, ending a life marked by excess. He was under house arrest after undergoing surgery for a subdural hematoma.

Seven healthcare professionals accused of negligence will go on trial from March 17.

“Diego lives on through what we continue to tell, like in a church we talk about Jesus,” stated Pedro Saborido, a renowned producer and screenwriter. “Let’s keep telling Diego’s story because we are telling ourselves.”

For fans, it’s another opportunity to remember their greatest idol.

“It’s a way of feeling his presence,” José Luis Carrizo, 52, told the Associated Press at the university. He has images of Maradona tattooed on his right shoulder, including the Hand of God goal against England in the 1986 World Cup. “We can’t leave a flower (at his grave), but we haven’t forgotten him.”

Maradona’s remains lie in a private cemetery awaiting transfer to a mausoleum in downtown Buenos Aires scheduled to open in 2026.

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