Maradona finds peace, quiet coaching lower-division team in Mexico
CULIACAN, Mexico - When he was the world's greatest soccer player Diego Maradona moved with the grace and speed of a jungle cat. Now he shuffles slowly across the lobby of the hotel he calls home, the sandals on his feet never leaving the tiled floor.
He has been asked to walk over and say hello to a group of well-coiffed women who are having breakfast. As he painfully makes his way into the dining room, an aluminum cane provides support for knees ravaged by advanced osteoarthritis.
These mornings, they're the worst.
Maradona offers the women weak handshakes, but he brightens when given attention and poses for selfies. Days shy of his 58th birthday, he could pass for decades older. The flowing black locks that once framed a cherubic face are graying and cut short, leaving a slightly bloated appearance. His speech, formerly playful and confident, is a labored, unintelligible whisper.
"He mumbles," a woman says in Spanish as she leaves the breakfast, imitating Maradona by softly speaking as if she were gargling rocks. She then rubs an index finger beneath her nose, a well-known pantomime for snorting cocaine.
"He's already a little out of it," she huffs dismissively.
What Maradona did on the field
