If there is one item which sums up Gabriel Bustamante’s extraordinary dedication to collecting football memorabilia, it is a half-used Diego Maradona cigar.
Maradona had just lost a 2019 play-off final with the Mexican second-division side he was coaching at the time, Dorados de Sinaloa, when Bustamante spotted him smoking the cigar on his way out of the stadium. When Maradona threw what was left of it under the team bus, Bustamante got down on his knees to rescue the relic smoked by El Diego.
The Argentinian asked what the collector was doing, to which he replied “Diego, it had your DNA — I had to conserve it”. Maradona simply turned to his assistant and said: “This guy needs more therapy than me”. He gave Bustamante the sunglasses he was wearing, too.
A few hours in the company of Bustamante, 59, is enough to make you realise he has hundreds of stories like this among his 20,000-strong collection of match-worn football shirts, boots, pennants, trophies, books, medals and more — all stored in a basement in Monterrey, Mexico.
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