BUENOS AIRES – From a bronze statue unveiled in Naples to humble flower offerings in his childhood home in a Buenos Aires slum, people around the world mourned the death a year ago Thursday of the great footballer Diego Maradona.

Fans, players, coaches, clubs and loved ones paid tribute to the man revered for his talent and adored for his awe-inspiring life and legacy.

From Villa Fiorito, a poor neighborhood in Buenos Aires where Maradona grew up, to Naples in Italy, where he spent several years of his brilliant career, and in India, tributes abounded.

On soccer fields in Argentina, players organized themselves into a “10” formation to honor the famous jersey number of the man nicknamed the “Pibe de Oro” or Golden Kid, as fans chanted “Marado, Marado! “

Outside his humble childhood home, bouquets of flowers and messages piled up – a reading: “You gave us Heaven.”

“Maradona was the voice of the Argentinian people. He will be missed and loved for all of our lives,” fan Jose Maria Fernandez said in tears.

At Bella Vista Cemetery, where her remains are located, fans defied the torrential rains to pay homage to a giant graffiti inscription reading: “Here lies D10S” – a play about the Spanish word for god, “Dios”. Only the family was allowed to enter.

In Kolkota, India, a statue of Maradona was decorated with flowers, while in southern Kerala state, supporters gathered at a hotel where the footballer stayed in 2012 and which has become a sort of sanctuary.

“We are all fans of Maradona and we miss him very much,” Ravindran Veleimbra, owner of the Blue Nile hotel in Kannur, told AFP.

“THE GREAT GOD OF FOOTBALL”

In Naples, where Maradona is almost as much of an icon as in Buenos Aires, a bronze statue of the athlete was unveiled in front of the Naples stadium – renamed in his honor after his death.

Another will be unveiled inside the stadium on Sunday so that “players can touch the hands and feet of the great god of football,” said Napoli football club president Aurelio De Laurentiis.

Maradona died of a heart attack a year ago on Thursday at the age of 60, weeks after undergoing brain surgery for a blood clot.

The former Boca Juniors, Barcelona and Napoli star had long battled cocaine and alcoholism and suffered from liver, kidney and cardiovascular problems when he died.

His death shocked fans around the world, and tens of thousands of people lined up in front of his coffin, draped in the Argentinian flag, at the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires for three days of national mourning.

“It’s been a year since the world has been more horrible, because you are no longer there,” Dalma Maradona, the eldest daughter of the star striker, wrote Thursday on Twitter.

‘GOD’S HAND’

The great Brazilian footballer Pelé paid tribute to his fellow legend on Instagram, writing: “One year without Diego. Friends forever.”

And Lionel Messi, who leads Argentina’s 11 as Maradona before him, wrote on social media: “Diego Eternal” with a photo of him wearing the national jersey with Maradona’s face on it.

He may be dead, but in Argentina, Maradona is everywhere – from ubiquitous murals to TV shows about his life and even a “church” named after him.

In a country where football is a religion, it is a god.

Maradona’s two goals in the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals, which saw Argentina triumph over England just four years after the Falklands War, made him an instant hero.

His “Hand of God” goal – which he illegally fell out of hand in what he attributed to supernatural intervention – is perhaps as much remembered as his second in the same game against England, which would later become known as the “Goal of the Century.”

His story of rags to riches, his stellar athletic feats, his complicated life, and his dramatic death anchored his place in the Argentinian psyche.

Murals in Buenos Aires depict Maradona with angel wings, as a patron saint with halo and scepter, or embracing the World Cup.

Maradona’s name also continues to make headlines, with Argentines closely following an investigation into her death in which seven caregivers, including her neurosurgeon, are indicted.

A panel of 20 medical experts concluded in April that Maradona’s treatment was riddled with “deficiencies and irregularities” and said her medical team had left its survival “to fate”.

The investigation competes to make headlines with the lawsuit over an estate dispute involving two of Maradona’s daughters.

Adding to media coverage, this week, a Cuban woman who had an affair with Maradona as a minor 20 years ago accused him and his entourage of abuse, including rape.