'He was beyond extraordinary' - Ossie's tribute to Maradona

The football world was left reeling yesterday after the news of the sudden passing of Diego Maradona at the age of 60.

Regarded by many as the greatest player to ever grace the game, Maradona captained Argentina to World Cup glory in 1986 and scored 34 goals in 94 caps for La Albiceleste between 1977-94.

He played for Boca Juniors and Barcelona before his peak at Napoli in Italy, 1984-91, where he took the underdogs from the south to two Serie A titles, including the club's first ever Scudetto in 1986/87. After a short spell at Sevilla, he returned to Argentina and Newell's Old Boys in 1994 before retiring back at his first club, Boca Juniors, in 1997. He had a number of managerial posts after that, and led Argentina to the World Cup in 2010.

At the peak of his playing powers in the summer of 1986, just before dominating a World Cup like no other player, Maradona was a little closer to home for us here at Spurs, as he joined over 30,000 fans in paying tribute to his friend and team-mate Ossie Ardiles at Ossie's Testimonial against Inter at White Hart Lane on 1 May, 1986.

Here is Ossie's tribute to his friend, Diego Maradona...

"It was a massive shock when I heard the news about Diego. I felt incredible sadness. I couldn’t react, I was like a zombie for a few hours. I have to say, I was kind of expecting that, one day, I would receive this news. It was incredibly sad.

"Diego was an incredibly important person in my life. Obviously, to have played with him, to have been on the same pitch as him, was very lucky for me. He was my partner in crime! It was an incredible honour. I played with some extraordinary players in my life, but Diego was beyond extraordinary, he was like a God, he was so good, completely different to the rest. It was a pleasure to play with him. But when I remember Diego, I remember so much more outside of the pitch. We played together, yes, but after that, I would see him every time I went to Buenos Aires, we would have a coffee, have dinner, just have a chat. He was with me three or four times here in England, I met him in France, Spain, Italy. We were very close.

"I first encountered Diego in the Argentina national squad. He played for the Under-18s. Cesar Luis Menotti was the national team manager. We had a squad of 22 players and nearly every day, Menotti wanted to play 11 against 11, the first team against the reserves. There were always two or three players injured, so you don’t take risks, and he would bring in players from the youth team. One of those players was always Diego Maradona. So, we all got to know him.

"Immediately, you could see he was extraordinarily special. Yet, at that time, when he was 16, 17, we’d seen so many players who were so skilful, but somehow, they didn’t make it. At the time, he was maybe in this category. The big question was ‘yes, absolutely, he is out of this world, but will he make it as a player or not?’ Every day he was getting better and he was very humble, always wanting to learn. If I did a trick with the ball, for example, he would say, ‘show me how you did that’, and I would show him, and, of course, five minutes later he would be doing it much better than me! It was frightening at that stage to see how good he was becoming.

"To play with Diego... it was brilliant. All you had to do was win the ball, give it to him, and relax! He would do everything else. He was so skilful, but apart from that, he had extraordinary courage, heart. He wanted to win at all costs and, sometimes, he was in certain places where it wasn’t easy to play, in teams where it was difficult for a talented player to play like that all the time, up against defenders who I called ‘the bad guys’, and they were really nasty. He played his football, and he was fantastic.

"Of course, for me, for Spurs fans as well, we have the memory of Diego playing at White Hart Lane for my testimonial in 1986. It’s one of the games I remember more than any other. It was a fantastic night where you felt such an honour that he played for us, he pulled on our famous, special white shirt. I remember he arrived, and he hadn’t brought anything with him, nothing! He needed boots, so we asked what size, seven-and-a-half. I remember asking, ‘who is seven-and-a-half?’ and eventually it was Clive Allen. Diego played the night before for Argentina in Norway and the next day, he was travelling to Israel for another international, the last before the World Cup. So, I said, ‘Diego, you play 15, 20 minutes, maybe half-hour, whatever you want’, but he went out and played the 90 minutes! He enjoyed it so much. He was so happy when he ran out onto the football pitch, so happy. There, he was alone, no-one around him, he’d just go out and play football, that was his real happiness.

"I’m very happy to say that I was his friend. When I finished playing in 1987, I went to see him. He was champion of Italy with Napoli - another extraordinary achievement. To play in Serie A, it was so tough in so many ways, the Catenaccio, the way they marked and how they destroyed players who tried to create. He was in the south in Napoli up against the teams from the north like Juventus, the teams in Milan, and he did it. Champion. Extraordinary.

"I was always in contact with him. We would have long conversations, talking about anything. He had a wonderful sense of humour, funny all the time, a very special Argentinian sense of humour. Yes, he was special, Diego. The world has lost one of the greatest footballers of all time, maybe the greatest, but I’ve lost a great friend. He was very special."