‘Baggage’ stopped World Cup icon Diego Maradona joining Premier League club – but cult hero signed instead

Teddy Sheringham has revealed Diego Maradona was on his way to Tottenham Hotspur, only for his ‘baggage’ to scupper the deal.

And no, the baggage in question was not his suitcase.

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Speaking exclusively on talkSPORT and Burger King’s Squad Table, Sheringham recounted how then-Spurs boss Ossie Ardiles sought the Premier League icon’s thoughts on a move for the late World Cup winner.

Although Maradona didn’t end up in north London, Ardiles still managed to add some serious star power in place of the maverick attacker.

How close did Diego Maradona come to joining Tottenham?

“We’re going back a few years, and you’re talking about people you’d want to sit down with, Maradona would have to be one,” Sheringham recounted.

“Ossie Ardiles was my manager at Tottenham, he came to me one afternoon.

“He said, ‘I want your opinion on something, Ted. I’m thinking about signing someone, what do you think?’

“I went, ‘Well, go on, who?’ He went, ‘Maradona’. I just erupted and was like, ‘Ossie, just do it’. He said, ‘Okay, it’s in the pipeline’.

“He came back a couple of weeks later and said, ‘Look, we can’t sign him. There’s too much baggage. But we’re going to sign [Jurgen] Klinsmann instead.’

“Five minutes later, Klinsmann was at the club and all was forgiven. But Maradona would have been a good one.”

Jur the one

Klinsmann moved to Tottenham from Monaco for £2million in 1994, although not all Tottenham fans were ready to welcome him with open arms.

The tricky forward endured a difficult arrival due to his role in England’s elimination from the 1990 World Cup.

Klinsmann also had an unfortunate reputation at the time for diving.

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But any Spurs fans who had reservations about Klinsmann had changed their tune come the end of the 1994/95 campaign as the German ace slammed home 20 league goals.

Klinsmann’s remarkable goalscoring haul helped him win the Football Writers’ Association’s (FWA) Footballer of the Year and inclusion in the Professional Footballers’ Association’s (PFA) Team of the Year.

The forward’s stay in north London was short and sweet though as he moved back to his native Germany in 1995 with Bayern Munich.

Klinsmann did squeeze in one final stint with Tottenham though, spending the 1997/98 season in north London on loan.

At the time Klinsmann moved to Tottenham for the first time, Maradona would have been in the twilight of his career at age 33.

By that stage, Maradona had enjoyed spells with Boca Juniors, Barcelona, Napoli and Sevilla.

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He also had a World Cup winners’ medal in his trophy cabinet thanks to Argentina’s triumph in 1986.

In that tournament, Maradona scored two goals in one game, but both are etched in footballing folklore for very different reasons.

Maradona struck twice for Argentina in their quarter-final win over England, the second of which is widely regarded as the ‘Goal of the Century’.

However, his first goal lives in infamy given he scored with his arm as he out-jumped Peter Shilton and prodded the ball into the back of the net with his left hand.

The goal is remembered by football fans as the ‘Hand of God’.

Unfortunate downfall of Diego

Despite the magic he possessed with the ball at his feet, Maradona’s off-field exploits soon overshadowed his wizardry on it.

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While at Napoli, Maradona was hit with a 15-month ban having failed a drug test.

The Argentine was also linked to crime syndicates in Napoli as more and more was made of his troubled relationship with cocaine.

Maradona’s international career with Argentina was brought to an unfortunate end at the 1994 World Cup when he tested positive for the banned substance ephedrine, prompting his expulsion from the tournament.

Even prior to the event, Maradona was at the centre of controversy.

After pulling out of Argentina’s World Cup squad in February 1994, citing difficulty to mentally cope with the pressure and expectation placed on his shoulders by the nation, Maradona fired an air rifle at news crews parked outside his home who wanted further explanation behind his decision.

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Upon retiring, Maradona moved into a managerial career and even led Argentina from 2008 to 2010.

He tragically passed away in November 2020 after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Can Argentina go back-to-back?

Maradona was part of the last Argentina squad to have won the World Cup until Lionel Messi led his nation to glory in 2022, defeating France in a thrilling penalty shootout.

Messi and Argentina will look to repeat their heroics from Qatar this time around, although it won’t be easy given just how good some of their rivals will be this year.

The defending champions get their World Cup campaign underway on June 17 against Algeria, with kick-off scheduled for 2am BST.

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