Spotify Releases "The Last Days of Maradona" Podcast: What Happened To The Soccer G.O.A.T.?

  For those who are not die-hard soccer (football) fans, Pele, the great Brazilian striker, is a name that millions know even if they do not follow the "beautiful game," as it's called by ardent fans and admirers.

Yet one of the greatest players of all time is an Argentine soccer player named Diego Maradona. 

In his international career with Argentina, Maradona earned 91 caps and scored 34 goals. Maradona played in four FIFA World Cups, including the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, where he captained Argentina and led them to victory over West Germany in the final, and won the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player. 

In the 1986 World Cup quarter-final, he scored both goals in a 2–1 victory over England that entered football history by dribbling past five England players, voted "Goal of the Century" by FIFA.com voters in 2002.

On Tuesday, November 23^rd, Spotify released an all-new original podcast series “The Last Days of Maradona” – a new investigation into what happened during the last days of the iconic Argentinian footballer, Diego Armanda Maradona’s life. 

Following his sudden death in November 2020; the series will be a deep and honest investigation into how Maradona died, with never-before-heard interviews with those who were closest to him in the days leading to his death. 

The investigation was led by Mariano Pagella from Adonde Media and accompanied by Spotify Studios. 

Available to stream now, you can listen to the series, exclusively on Spotify here.

 

The series marks the first-ever Spotify launch in 6 markets simultaneously, each with their own host who will work with the investigative team to tell the story for Diego Maradona in their own words. 

Hosts and markets include: French professional football coach and former player Thierry Henry (France & UK), Argentinian journalist Matías Martín (Argentina), former Argentina football player Jorge Valdano (Spain & Latin America), Brazilian journalist Juca Kfuori (Brazil), and Italian actor Salvatore Esposito (Italy).

Below is a description of the show's episodes:

 

 EPISODE 1: THE NEWS: At 1:04pm on November 25, 2020, the first paper published the news that Diego Maradona had died. A media frenzy ensued around the world. Immediately, people began to question the team that had taken care of Maradona, who would ultimately face criminal charges in relation to his death. In this episode, we return to that day, to learn how the news of Maradona’s death broke. We look at the impact that his death had on the world, how it affected people close to him, and how the pain from their loss gave way to anger surrounding the investigation into the way he died. 

EPISODE 2: THE RETURN: On September 6, 2018, a rumor started going around that took all of Mexico by surprise: Diego Maradona was going to be the new coach of Dorados, a second division team in Culiacán, Sinaloa. It  was considered Diego’s return to Latin America, after many years abroad. It was a puzzling move - the club were languishing in Division Two and lacked star players. No one understood what Diego was doing with Dorados. But to the surprise of many, he inspired a revolution in the team.

 

EPISODE 3: THE TRIBUTE: The Argentine soccer club Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata had gone many games without winning when its leadership started to consider hiring a new coach. That’s when, in a meeting, someone said: “`Why not Diego?” This marked Maradona’s return to Argentine soccer, after almost 24 years away. People took to the streets to celebrate, and in each away stadium the team visited,  love from Argentine clubs and fans continued to pour over Maradona. The passion he inspired was unstoppable, on and off the field.

 

EPISODE 4: THE DOWNFALL: On October 30, 2020, the Argentinian soccer league organized a large celebration to mark Maradona’s 60th birthday, as well as the return of soccer since the beginning of the pandemic. The image of a fragile Diego Maradona walking onto the field at the event caught the world by surprise. After a lengthy journalistic investigation, which included the analysis of 4,500 audio messages that are part of the legal case concerning the circumstances around Maradona’s death, we will try to answer the question that was on everyone’s mind that day: How had Diego Maradona’s health deteriorated so much during the pandemic? 

 

EPISODE 5: DIEGO’S LAST HOPE: The news that Maradona had been operated on for bleeding in his brain riled up the whole of Argentina. From that moment forward, media outlets would start to cover Maradona’s health minute by minute, from his recovery in the clinic to his home hospitalization in a rental property  in north Buenos Aires. For many, this was the resurrection of their idol. But behind the scenes, something was happening that had previously been unimaginable: for the first time, Maradona’s children started to come together - among themselves and also with him. Maradona had always dreamt of this, and it ended up happening during his last days. 

 

EPISODE 6: A WORLD WITHOUT DIEGO: On November 25, 2020, at 12:26pm, Colin Campbell, one of Maradona’s neighbors, received a phone call: Maradona is not well, and he is asked  to go and check him out. In this last episode, we will reconstruct minute by minute what happened in the room where Maradona died – the attempts to revive him, the ambulances that arrived one after the other, and the news that shocked the world.