“Maradona takes a rifle”: the day Diego shot the journalists who were guarding him

With the first of the series of Coppola, the representative The Adventures of Guillote with Maradona They returned to the surface. Film life, anecdotes and madness. One of those that the narrative touches on sideways, without going into depth, is the day in which Diego shot the press in the room with a compressed air rifle his parents’ house.

Diego didn’t like being followed. Much less that they invaded him, that they stood guard at his front door when he was having “one of those days” where he woke up in a bad mood. This is what happened on February 2, 1994: the 10 exploded and exceeded a limit that could have ended in tragedy. It was a scandal that went around the world.

Maradona had returned to the countryside to play Newell’s after a year inside Seville. However, in Rosario’s team he only played five games and ended up terminating his contract. He arrived in September 1993 and on February 1 of the same year Diego’s story with leprosy has come to an end.

He traveled on the 10th 400 kilometers by the concentration of Newell’s In Mar del Plata, where they played the pre-season, in Moreno to take refuge in their parents’ villa. Mauricio Pochettino, his roommate, said that when he woke up he didn’t see him and this caught his attention.

“We were all together in the pre-season in Mar del Plata and the day before we had shared a room. In the morning, when I woke up, he wasn’t in his bed. When we had lunch, no one knew where Diego was“said the current technical director of Chelsea in an interview for The sun.

The journalists followed Diego’s trail and found him at the corner of Triumvirate AND Plus Ultra. They created a guard who grew up and couldn’t imagine the movie scene they ended up experiencing. Tired of the invasion of your privacy, “El Diego” went crazy and came out with an air rifle: Without hesitation, he opened fire and shot at members of the press.

Maradona he barricaded himself behind a truck Mercedes rural color of Bordo and filming began. The pellets hit the photographers Marcelo Giardini and Raúl Moleon; to the reporter Pablo Talamoni and the sound technicians Norberto Zanni and Rafael Yohai. After the shooting, the former Argentine national team player said: “Who was that asshole who shouted at me? If they don’t go away we will continue“.

Five journalists and photographers were injured. One of them with bloody hands. It could have been worse if one of the pellets had hit the eye.

Police of Moreno 2 police station They arrived around 9pm to search Diez’s house in search of the weapon used against the journalists, but they didn’t find it. Furthermore, the agents took the former player’s fingerprints. Naples.

The scandal, in addition to making the news Argentina, he toured the world. “And Maradona takes a rifle“, is the headline in the Italian media Corriere della Sera. The messenger you put “Last Occurrence” on the cover and say that “Maradona is unemployed after the divorce of Newell’s and once again he is a negative protagonist.”

The first to be killed was Yohai on the night of February 1st, the next day it was the turn of his colleagues. Judge Francisco Lilo classified the case as repeated injuries and minor damage. Six years later, on February 23, 2001, the sentence was pronounced: two years and ten months in prison with suspended sentence.

In 2002 the Supreme Court of Justice made that sentence definitive. Furthermore, Maradona had to pay 15,300 pesos (dollars) to one of the photographers in 2001. As the sentence stipulates did not exceed three yearsthis gave Maradona the benefit of release under Argentine law.

The Telefé journalist, Paolo Trapanitogether with his cameraman, he had boarded a mobile radio Net and they were bathed by the fifth with a hose. As the events unfolded, people came together to insult journalism and chase away the world champion. Maradona He reciprocated their loyalty by giving them national team jerseys.

The fifth of Maradona in Moreno it was registered to Diego Jr after many comings and goings with Cristiano Sinagra in 2005, but in 2012 it was used as a police academy. Today the fifth is still part of the police Dark.

This negative episode in the life of Maradona It was the prelude to United States World Cup 1994. The memory is still clear: Diego was accompanied to the doping control by a nurse after the match Nigeria. It would be the end of the dream and his last match in the national team.