I've heard some say that he's of Calabrese descent, but a look at gens.labo.net shows that the name Maradona doesn't come up. I've also seen posters here say that he's of Italian descent, but I found nothing to confirm that. He doesn't quite look Italian, and his parents look more like native South Americans than Italians. Just a curiosity, nothing more...would be interested in knowing.
It should come up since his son Maradona Jr. lives in Italy! but yeah I think he has some Italian descent on his mother's side. I read his autobiography but he didn't mention anything.
I read in another similar thread in BS a year or so ago his mother had Calabrese blood in her. Its pretty difficult to not find anyone in Argentina that is not of Italian descent
Isn't Maradona a Spanish surname?... I suppose its difficult to tell though because Italy and Spain share some of the same surnames.
I have read that Diego's father is of spanish/indigenous stock and his mother Dona Tota is at least part italian.
A lot of Italians moved to Argentina especially after World War II, so there is a good chance that he has some Italian blood
Sometimes some letters are lost in the travels outer Italy, so it could be that Maradona came from Maradonna, which is quite a common surname in Italy.
What makes Maradona Croatian? Because his grandfather was Mateo Karioli from Korcula?He sounds Croatian to me as much as Marko Polo.
I didn't know what his grandfather was called, just heard that he was from Croatia. I take it hes quarter Dalmatian Italian then. At the end of the day I don't think it really matters since he will only ever be seen as "Argentinian" by the entire world since he won the World Cup with them. Rather than the other parts of his ethnicity such as Spanish, Italian, etc. The azzurri has the legacy of Roby Baggio anyway... and Omar Sivori (well Argentina has him too). Maybe if Maradona was a couple of decades earlier he would have played for Argentina then later Spain or Italy too, when that was allowed.
Well, I believe about 70% of Argentina's population have at least some degree of Italian descent. For example, Claudio Caniggia clearly is of Italian descent. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if Maradona has indeed some degree of Italian descent. He's a mix of a lot of things and I think Italian descent is probably one of them. By the way, interesting theory about the "letters lost." As it was mentioned, that happened quite a lot in the USA. So it's not impossible that Maradona actually comes from Maradonna. But isn't Maradona also a possible Italian last name as well? It sounds Italian to me, but I'm not an expert on this. And people from Italian descent are not very rare anyway. I'm from The Netherlands and even I have also some degree of Italian descent (and my last name is Carli).
http://ethnicelebs.com/diego-maradona http://net.hr/sport/tenis/maradona-...l-oni-su-budale-uzeli-su-me-zdravo-za-gotovo/
Not sure why this thread was resurrected but he clearly is Spanish, he may be from a Spanish line that lived in Italy for a while. That's not important though, what is important is that now half of Calabria is descended from Maradona!
His height says that he could be of Galician origins. But their surnames remind on Portuguese surnames. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Galician-language_surnames Atanancio Ramón Edisto Franco Franco usually reminds on Italian origins. Trinidad Creole Ferreira Ferreira could be of Portuguese, Galician origins, but also from Brazil and they mostly came from Portugal. Dalma Salvadora Franco Cariolichi Dalma came from the region called Dalmatia. I know that for sure. His Croatian origins are probably from island of Korcula. Some historians mention this island as birth island of Marco Polo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Southern Italy and Sicily have also Greek influence. http://www.cannitello.it/cognomi_greci.htm Footballers Anastasi, De Ascentis, Cesare Bovo, Alfio Basile, Cannavo (Cannavaro), basketballer Delfino, Stefano Eranio, Floccari, football coach Pizzi, Bernardo Romeo, Squillaci, Versace. Kanavaros exists in Greece in original form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Graecia Maradona is better than Pele. Pele played in different, more ancient football era. Maradona belongs to contemporary category. Napulitan language https://nap.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Armando_Maradona For me, it's understandable. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Armando_Maradona La sua famiglia ha origini italiane, spagnole, croate e nativo americane.
I think it's folly to really compare guys from different eras, even if I enjoy it. Maradona is definitely the best I've ever seen, though, among attackers.