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The Maradona I knew: 'There were always a lot of people around him and too many voices in his ears'

Careca - team-mate at Napoli People say that he’s a God in Argentina, but it’s the very same thing in Italy – everybody loves him there, especially in the south, for obvious reasons. It’s no different in Brazil, too. After the 1990 World Cup, he came to my house in Campinas to get some rest. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do that in Buenos Aires. It didn’t work out exactly as we planned, however – we couldn’t even walk the streets after somebody found out that he was around. We usually remember him from what he did on the pitch, but I got to know him outside of it. He was a family guy, a team player, someone who would demand that the kit men got the same prize money as the players after wins. In 1986, England were well beaten and their cry-baby response was a travesty How Maradona's life spiralled to leave him a hobbling, arthritic shadow of his former self He was a warrior in life. Our daughters were almost the same age, so we got along very well. Sometimes, we would go out to dinner around 2 in the morning – restaurants were already closed, but it only took him a phone call for them to open up for us. And if we wanted to go to this popular nightclub, Mela, we had to get there by 3 or 4am. Otherwise, it would be impossible to get in. He was a spectacular man – no one expected him to leave us this soon. I had been in touch with his ex-wife, Claudia, after his last surgery, and he was getting better, so to hear that he’s now gone, I can’t even describe how it feels - I’m shocked. He was like a brother to me. We dreamed of winning together and, in the end, we managed to do it.