CelebritiesWith a biography that could be used in several movies, Maradona leaves behind an extensive line of offspring, specifically, 11 children from nine different women. But not all of them he recognized at the same time.

By Nuria Hernandez

This November 25, 2020, the world of soccer mourns the loss of Diego Armando Maradona. Less than a month ago, the Argentine turned 60 and a few days later he was admitted to a Buenos Aires hospital to be operated on for a subdural hematoma. After his return to his home in the Buenos Aires town of El Tigre, Maradona has died as a result of cardiac arrest. His football career will go down in the annals of the history of the beautiful game along with that of Johan Cruyff and Pelé, but his busy personal life was also the subject of rivers of ink.

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With a biography that would make for several films, the man from Lanús leaves an extensive line of offspring, specifically, 11 children from nine different women. But not all of them he recognized at the same time. Diego Jr (35) is the oldest of them. The young man was born in 1986, the same year his father became world champion at the Mexico Olympics. It is the result of the relationship between the soccer star and the Italian Cristiana Sinagra with whom the footballer lived a passionate romance during his time at Naples.

Until 1995, he was not recognized by Diego in public and he did not do so legally until 2016. Following in the footsteps of his very famous father, Diego Jr is a soccer player although in his sports career he has not gone beyond playing in teams of the sixth Italian division. In addition, he was part of the Italian beach soccer team that participated in the 2008 World Cup in Marseille, France, in which he was runner-up. He has been married to the Italian Nunzia Peninno since June 11, 2015 with whom he has two children Diego Matías (born in April 2018) and Indiana Nicole (born in October 2019).

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A daughter is an actress and another is a designer

Then Dalma Nerea (34) arrived, coincidentally just a few months after her stepbrother Diego. She is the eldest of the two daughters that Maradona had with his wife Claudia Villafañe from 1984 until her divorce in 2003. Dalma is an actress and has succeeded both in cinema and on Argentine television. She is married to the well-known rugby player Ariel Caldarelli.

Three years later, Gianinna Dinorah (31), also the daughter of Villafañe, was born. The young woman is passionate about fashion and five years ago she created her own clothing line called Catarsis. Gianinna is well known in Argentina as well as being the daughter of the god of the ball for having been married from 2008 to 2012 with fellow footballer Kum Agüero, with whom she had her son Benjamín, with whom she made Pelusa a grandfather for the first time. His daughter Dalma gave him another granddaughter, little Roma, for whom Pelusa was devoted.

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Jana, his great ally

Although she was not recognized by her father until 2014 after an arduous fight in court, Jana was born in 1995, the result of the Argentine's brief love affair with Valeria Sabalain. When Jana came of age, she decided to look for her father. She found him in a gym in Palermo and from that moment, Maradona did not want to be separated from her anymore. The young woman is a model and has posed for some lingerie firms and also for curvy size firms. Although her relationship with her father has never been entirely close and she met him as a teenager, she has always come out to defend him publicly. "I know that there are many reprehensible attitudes and that he had mistakes, even with me, but in recent years he has been mending them," he said in The Sun.

She has never gotten along with her two sisters, Dalma and Gianinna, and after their fight in 2019 with Maradona because of his girlfriend, Rocío Oliva, Jana became the great ally of the world champion. It all happened just a year ago when Gianinna assured that her father was dying. “He is not dying because his body decides, they are killing him inside without him realizing it. I don't believe in the normal parameter but that is very far from the reality that he deserves. Pray, please," he explained. At that time, Maradona wanted to respond to his daughter's statements with a YouTube video in which he made it clear that he was "more alive than ever" and in which he announced that he would not leave anything to his children and that he was going to donate everything he had achieved in his career to charity.

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One year before Maradona recognized Jana as his daughter, Diego Fernando was born. The child came into the world during the relationship of more than ten years that the player had with Verónica Ojeda. Maradona abandoned the boy's mother when she was pregnant, shortly after making his courtship with Rocío Oliva official. His story was full of comings and goings for several years. Although they were away for a while, a little over a year ago they regained contact and it was common to see Diego Armando playing Play or soccer with his son at his home in Buenos Aires.

Six unrecognized children

There are also several young people whom Maradona never recognized as his children, despite the fact that those closest to him have always said that he would never have any problems doing so. This is Santiago Lara, born in 2001. He is the son of Natalia Garat, a beautiful model who met the footballer when she was barely 19 years old. The young woman died when she was only 23 years old and before dying she confessed to her then husband, Marcelo Fabián Lara, who was the real father of little Santiago who grew up thinking that he was his father. One day, when he was 13 years old, he found out from a magazine that he could be the son of the former player. Having already reached the age of majority, he decided to start a filiation lawsuit. The story was not made public until 2016 when the young man himself spoke about it on Argentine television.

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Last year, the lawyer and right-hand man in Maradona's last years, Marcelo Morla, revealed that the Argentine star was willing to recognize three children he had had in Cuba. They were twins, Joana and Lu, whose mother is Adonay Fruto, with whom Diego Armando had a relationship during his stay in Cuba from 2000 to 2005 to try to cure himself of his recognized addictions. In addition, the lawyer gave the name of another young man, Javielito, 18 years old and resident in Varadero, although he did not want to reveal the identity of the mother, and dropped the existence of one more of which no further details were given. According to Morla, the soccer player gave them a pension for a while but he only saw them on a few occasions over the years.

In addition, the name of Magalí, another alleged daughter of Diego, also came to light in 2019. The young woman, who was adopted as a baby, was reunited with her biological mother a few months before and, according to what she told on Italian television, the woman confessed to her that in 1995 she had had an affair with Maradona from which Magalí was born. Although he initiated the legal procedures for the Argentine to undergo a DNA test, it is unknown if he did so in the latter period before his death.