Diego Maradona, the Argentine who became a national hero as one of soccer’s greatest players, performing with a roguish cunning and extravagant control while pursuing a personal life rife with drug and alcohol abuse and health problems, died Wednesday in Tigre, Argentina, in Buenos Aires province. He was 60.
His spokesman, Sebastian Sanchi, said the cause was a heart attack. Maradona had undergone brain surgery several weeks ago.
News of the death brought an outpouring of mourning and remembrance in Argentina, becoming virtually the sole topic of conversation. Such was his stature — in 2000, FIFA, soccer’s governing body, voted him and Pele of Brazil the sport’s two greatest players — that the government declared three days of national mourning.