Why do you propose declaring World Football Day?

If you had to choose A World Football DayIt certainly will be November 25. If April 23 is Book Day due to the deaths of Miguel de Cervantes, Garcilaso de la Vega and William Shakespeare, then November 25 is Football Day due to the deaths of these stars. Diego Armando Maradonawhich marks its fifth anniversary this Thursday, and George Best.

Twenty years ago, Best, at the age of fifty-nine, left his liver and entrails ravaged by the one passion he could never overcome: drink. Another November 25, but in 2020, Maradona passed away after being mistreated after a life full of turmoil and vicissitudes that were exacerbated by his addiction to cocaine, which caused the doping at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

That incident devastated the Argentine national team and ended El Diego’s career, just as Best, who went from being a European champion, a Ballon d’Or winner and the best in the world at the glorious Manchester United, insisted on curtailing his career, to gradually losing interest in football and self-destructing.

The fates of Best and Maradona intersected as two parallel lives, and without the Northern Irishman knowing it, His personality served as an example and inspiration for Maradona That often only the strange and addictive part is left behind and the lesson is not learned at the end of it.

Both came to the millionaire and opulent world of football from complex and humble backgrounds. One is from poor Northern Ireland and the other is from Villa Fiorito, in Lanús, Buenos Aires province. They were both born into nothing and became everything.

Loved women are better. His long hair and stellar career soon put him on par with the Beatles, who seemed to be a mirror of his in the music scene. Not in vain, in 2007, GQ magazine named him One of the 50 most stylish men of the last 50 years. He was an icon, a model, a “rock star.”

Maradona was simply Godthe religion in which a city like Naples and a country like Argentina believes. A god capable of making the people of Naples question which team they would support when Italy and Argentina met in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup.

When the young Maradona had to choose his idol, he looked only towards the red jacket of Manchester United.

“George inspired me when I was young. He was extravagant, exciting and had the ability to inspire his teammates. I think we were very similar players, dribblers who created magic.”Maradona remembers when Best died.

How great these two friends could have been if they had coincided in their playing years.But problems arose when the match ended and they both took off their shoes.

Best’s addiction was alcohol. When he celebrated a goal, his liver was already signaling a rough night, and as the years passed and the alcohol became heavier, his involvement in football declined. It was more common to see him in the pub bar than on the sidelines of Old Trafford.

His drinking problems led him to prison over Christmas 1984, where he robbed a woman for drinks in 1981, assaulted an officer, had two arrests for drink driving and had a liver transplant in 2002. Many lives summed up in one life.

Best was the perfect example of how legend helped hide dirty laundry and how it was easier to look the other way when his life was ruined. “He was sick, but the only person who didn’t see him was me.”He said in one of his recent interviews.

Maradona was cut from the same cloth. As Asif Kapadia perfectly depicts in the 2019 documentary about the footballer, his flirtation with drugs was an open secret in Italy.

An addiction that caused a slow death that was camouflaged by his theatrics on the pitch and the constant feeling that there was nothing more important in Napoli than him. If El Diego falls, football and the city will fall with him.

“Do you know what kind of player I would have been if I hadn’t done cocaine? What a player we’ve missed!”Maradona once exclaimed in a more nostalgic tone.

It’s an honest reflection because he himself, over the years, has lamented wasting one of the greatest talents in the history of the sport — and, for many, the best — without any restraint. It’s impossible not to know some of the phrases about Best that made him another football legend, the one crossing the grass.

He said: “I spent a lot of money on cars, women and alcohol. I wasted the rest. In 1969 I gave up women and drinking. That was the worst twenty minutes of my life.” He added: “I had a house near the sea, but to go to the beach you had to pass by a bar. I never showered.”

Words that spark a smile, which are soon faded by the final memory of one of the best people who died in a London hospital and whose final minutes served as a warning to others like him on the covers of England.

“Don’t die like me”he muttered, with the twisted, dying face of a fading star.

After fifteen years, Maradona’s life ended. A heart attack took from the world the man who made it known that everything in this life can be corrupted, destroyed and dirty. Everything except one thing: because the ball doesn’t get stained.