The night Diego Maradona’s Argentina came to Australia to play the Socceroos in Sydney

It was late October in 1993 when the Golden Boy came to Sydney.

Diego Armando Maradona may have been 33 years old by then, but on the pitch he still had almost all the energy and ability of his younger, all-conquering self.

That alone was enough to convince nearly 44,000 people to head to the Sydney Football Stadium on a Sunday night to watch the first leg of Australia’s 1994 World Cup qualifying play-off with Argentina.

The stakes may have been high for the Socceroos with a first World Cup since 1978 nominally on the line, but the drawcard was undoubtedly Maradona.

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“The whole of Australia really got behind Australian football for one of the first times because of the interest in Diego Maradona,” said Graham Arnold, who played in the…