In April 2019, the Athletics Andy Mitten was tasked by 4-42 magazine to fly unannounced to the heart of Sinaloa, Mexico, home to the most powerful drug cartel on the planet,

and track down the coach of Mexican 2nd Division side Dorados, won Diego Maradona.

This is the story about meeting Maradona.

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On The Athletic, to pay tribute to Diego Maradonna, Michael Cox has revisited that famous game against England in 1986,

while Amy Lawrence and Oliver Kay reflect on the fantasy football and the

flaws of the greatest player there has ever been. Just go to theathletic.com forward slash

Ornstein and Chapman to subscribe. Right then, Andy, first things first, what was Diego

Maradonna doing in Kulikana, a city home to the most powerful drug trafficking

organisation on the planet?

Diego Maradona was the coach of the city's football team, Dorados.

They're in the Mexican second division.

He'd been brought in to try and get them promotion to the top flight.

It's a very difficult division to get out of.

You need to go through a series of 42 different playoff games, or so it seemed.

And it's also the club where Joseph Guadiole had played about 12 games, but it's not a football city.

It's a city which is better known for Narcos.

And from a sporting perspective, baseball is the far bigger sport there.

I didn't even know that Maradona was in Mexico when I was asked to go there in March 2019.

It was quite the undertaking for you to get there, I understand.

Yeah, it was because I'm used to interviewing footballers all the time and travelling around Europe and even around the world to do so.

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