It’s a photo the youngster will no doubt cherish for the rest of his life – the final picture of him posing with his beloved father.
In the pic posted on Instagram, seven-year-old Dieguito Fernando, the youngest son of soccer legend Diego Maradona, can be seen smiling at the camera over his dad’s shoulder.
Just two weeks later the retired footballer, who was idolised by millions of fans for his genius on the field, passed away at the age of 60 after suffering a massive heart attack.
Father and son shared a tight bond and just before his death, Maradona recorded a poignant message to his little boy, whose mother is his former long-term girlfriend, Veronica Ojeda.
In it he tells Veronica’s boyfriend, Mario Baudry, to take care of his ex-flame and Dieguito. “Look after her and look after my angel, who is incomparable.”
Maradona is survived by five children, which includes Diego Junior (34) and daughter Jana (23), both the products of short flings; as well as daughters Dalma (33) and Giannina (31) by his ex-wife, Claudia Villafañe (58), to whom he was married from 1984 to 2003.
Maradona died on 25 November at his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, two weeks after being discharged from hospital for bleeding on his brain.
According to a preliminary autopsy report, he died of “acute lung oedema and chronic heart failure”.
However, his doctor is now being investigated over possible medical negligence after Dalma and Giannina questioned whether he treated their father properly.
Police are now treating his death as a possible culpable homicide and were seen raiding the house of Dr Leopoldo Luque on 29 November.
According to local reports, Maradona “fell on the Wednesday of the week before his death. He fell and hit his head, but they didn't take him to the hospital for an MRI or CT scan”, a lawyer for Gisela Madrid, Maradona's nurse, told Argentinian media.
Luque (39) has strongly denied any maltreatment of Maradona. In a tearful televised news conference, he said the only thing he was guilty of was loving the soccer legend.
"You want to know what I am responsible for?" he said, sobbing. "For having loved him, for having taken care of him, for having extended his life, for having improved it to the end.”
He saw Maradona as a father, not a patient, he added.
“I did everything I could for him, up to the impossible.”
Sources: dailymail.co.uk, Instagram, npr.org, si.com
