SAN FRANCISCO, November 03, (THEWILL) – Argentine football legend Diego Armando Maradona was admitted to the hospital on Monday for medical checks, his personal doctor announced. “It’s not a serious situation and we didn’t come for an emergency,” Leopoldo Luque informed the media outside the clinic in La Plata, south of Buenos Aires.
Without supplying details of the 60-year-old’s condition, Luque said his patient was there to undergo a series of medical check-ups. “He’s an elderly patient with many pressures in his life. It’s a time when we must help him. It’s very difficult to be Maradona,” Luque said of the icon, who became 60 last Friday.
The Argentine doctor ruled out coronavirus as the cause of Maradona’s hospitalisation. The pandemic is presently ravaging the South American country with much of the population still under confinement.
Maradona will fall into the category of the high risk of coronavirus complications should he be infected, especially given his history of drug and alcohol abuse and poor health. The football maestro has survived two previous heart attacks and contracted hepatitis.
However, his doctor’s tone was upbeat.
“Diego is fine, but he can be much better. I didn’t find him the way I wanted to see him. I had a previous talk with him, I told him: ‘Let’s go to a clinic to improve a little,’ and he said: ‘Well, let’s go,’” Luque explained.
The ex-Argentina football team captain, who led his team to triumph in the 1986 World Cup, is currently the coach of Argentine SuperLiga club Gimnasia.
Along with Brazil’s Edson Arantes do Nascimento popularly known as Pele, Maradona is arguably regarded as the greatest player of all time.
On Friday, the anniversary of his birth, he joined players of his club briefly at the club’s training ground. But, the star had obvious difficulty walking and had to be helped away by his assistants after staying only half an hour.
The next day, Giannina, one of his daughters tweeted, “It breaks my heart to see him like this.”
Outside the La Plata clinic, his doctor said to reporters, “I didn’t go to see him that day, but the day before he was very well.”
THEWILL recalls that Maradona had to self-isolate last month after a bodyguard showed symptoms of the virus, though he later tested negative.
