50 years after Maradona's debut 'en Primera' the memory of Argentinos Juniors

"Fifty years since the most awaited debut of all. Nobody can talk about football without mentioning 'La Paternal'". This is the phrase chosen today by the Argentinos Juniors club to commemorate on social media the 50th anniversary of the debut, on 20 October 1976 - in the historic stadium in the La Paternal neighborhood of Buenos Aires - of a fifteen-year-old boy who already aroused illusions of glory for an entire country.

Diego himself recalled in an old audio the circumstances in which he learned of his call up to the first team directly from the coach at the time, Juan Carlos Montes. "Montes came the day before to the pitch where the 'Cebollitas' trained and told my coach that the next day I would be among the reserves of the first team. At that time there was no training camp before the match so I ran with my heart in my mouth to go home and give the news to my father and mother but when I arrived my whole neighborhood of Villa Fiorito already knew it", says Diego in the old recording which resurfaced today on social media.

50 years after that date, the episode then took on legendary tones, as told by Daniel Arcucci, the Argentine journalist who more than anyone else was close to Diego throughout his career: "if all those who claim to have been at the stadium on the day of Maradona's debut had actually been there, then the small Argentinos Juniors stadium, in the La Paternal neighbourhood, would have had the capacity of the Maracaná".

The reality, as Arcucci always reports, is that Argentinos lost that match, "but Diego entered the field in the second half in place of Giacobetti; wearing the number 16 shirt, he passed the ball between the legs of Juan Domingo Patricio Cabrera and distinguished himself to the point of being named the best on the pitch by the magazine El Gráfico". The beginning of an era.