Diego Maradona’s death sent shockwaves through football – the effects of which were strongly felt at Tottenham Hotspur.
It was not only Spurs’ trio of Argentine players, Erik Lamela, Giovani Lo Celso and Paulo Gazzaniga, who posted tributes in the wake of Maradona’s passing.
Many of those met the legendary number 10 when he was a guest of their former player Ossie Ardiles three years ago.
Maradona even dropped into the Tottenham dressing room that day, on which Mauricio Pochettino’s team were 4-1 winners over Liverpool at Wembley.
It was a happy coincidence, given that he and the former Spurs manager were teammates at Newell’s Old Boys in the early 1990s.
Maradona might never have been an official Tottenham player, but that occasion came 31 years and five months after he pulled on the club’s famous Lilywhite shirt and graced the White Hart Lane turf.
The reason? It was Ardiles’s testimonial.
As recounted on the official Tottenham website, Maradona “turned up without boots, borrowed Clive Allen’s and wowed the 30,000-plus crowd” who witnessed a 2-1 win for a Spurs XI against Inter Milan.
RIP, that man.
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