47 years have passed since Maradona’s debut in Argentinos Juniors

On October 20, 1976, Diego Armando Maradona He made his debut in the First Division with the Argentinos Juniors against Talleres de Córdobaon a day that began the break that the Argentine star generated in the history of football.

Millions of Argentines maintain that they were present that afternoon, but in reality they were 7,736 spectators who attended that Wednesday to see the La Paternal team at the old stadium of Boyacá and Juan Agustín García.

That day, Maradona He entered in the second half of the game, ten days before turning 16: “Come in and play how you know how. If you can, throw a pipe“, the Argentinos Juniors coach told him, Juan Carlos Montes, when at halftime he told him that he was going to have his debut in First Division.

Maradona He did not disappoint and did a tremendous job on Cordoba midfielder Juan Cabrera to anticipate just a hint of everything that would come in the following years.

“I listened to him. I received the ball with my back to my marker, who was Juan Cabrera, I feinted and threw the ball between his legs; it passed cleanly and I immediately heard the ‘Ooooole’ from the people as a welcome,” said the player himself. Maradona many years later.

When Diego He came in with shirt number 16 instead of Ruben GiacobettiTalleres already won 1-0 with a goal scored by the midfielder Luis “Hacha” Ludueña.

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The former defender of the national team and Talleres de Córdoba player Luis Galvan He said years later that that match was calmly dominated by the “T” until the “Ten” entered, despite the fact that the result was maintained.

“From there everything changed. Diego put the team on his shoulder and they cornered us in our goal. We ended up defending the victory. We couldn’t believe what that boy with an immense mane of hair full of curlers was doing,” he said. Galvan.

Maradonawho at that time was moving from his native Villa Fiorito to Villa del Parque where the club had rented him a house for the whole family, found out the day before that he would be on the team’s substitute bench for the first time, in the new date of the National Tournament.

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“40 years have passed and I remember that I left the house at ten in the morning with the only pants I had, which were made of cordy. Since it was incredibly hot, everyone was looking at me on the train, on the street and on the bus. But hey, it was the only one I had,” the star said in 2016.

So, Diego began to write its rich history. The rest of his career is already extremely well known: scorer, the National Team, Boca, Europe, the world title, the rise from hell, death, life and eternal glory.

“My dream is to play in the first team, play for the national team and be world champion”a very young man had declared Maradona when he was just beginning his career in football. And that October 20, 1976 he managed to fulfill his first.