Three days of national mourning have begun in Argentina, where swarms of fans chanted Maradona’s name shortly after his death was announced.
“I can’t believe it,” one fan, Francisco Salaverry, told the AFP news agency. “It’s incredible. Everyone ends up being mortal. It feels like a bad dream.”
Fans searching for a place to grieve gravitated towards the Obelisk landmark in the centre of Buenos Aires. Hundreds wore the famous blue-and-white national colours of Argentina.
Many of those who gathered were in tears. “Few times in my life have I felt the pain that invades me today,” one lifelong fan, Mauricio Passadore, wrote on social media.