Before Diego Maradona's famous blue shirt became a $9.28 million auction item, it may have had a humbler beginning in Tepito, Mexico City's market district where, as filmmaker Phidel McCabe puts it, "you can find literally anything."
The Manchester-born filmmaker, who lives in Mexico City, has made "El Diez: Made in Tepito," a documentary exploring how Argentina ended up wearing a shiny blue shirt on June 22, 1986, when Maradona scored twice with his "Hand of God" and "Goal of the Century" versus England at the Azteca Stadium.
After exchanging shirts with Uruguay and needing to wear blue again against England, the Argentina team had to find replacements quickly and, according to team accounts, that iconic shirt came from the street markets of Tepito.
"I came across an ESPN article about the story, and I'm a huge Maradona fan, so I went to the market and started speaking to people," McCabe told Reuters.
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The story has generated legend, doubt and competing versions, even in the city where it is said to have happened. "Even here in Mexico City, people aren't sure whether this story is true," McCabe said. "So, it made me more enthusiastic to get to the bottom of the truth." The documentary follows the six days between Argentina's match against Uruguay in Puebla and the quarter-final versus England in Mexico City. The documentary's promotion features a mural by Ana Xhopa, a Zapotec artist from San Blas Atempa in Oaxaca.
"It was super important to me to make the merchants visible, the resistance of the neighbourhood, of the people who are still here in Tepito... It's not only FIFA, it's also local commerce; it's us Mexicans," Xhopa added.