£50m striker who slept with team-mate’s spouse referred to as ‘traitor’ by soccer legend

Born in Rosario, picked up by Barcelona’s famous La Masia academy, becoming club captain of your childhood team before making a big money move to PSG, one might think that the career of Argentine striker Mauro Icardi would be overshadowed by the man they call the Little Magician.

But the career of the former Sampdoria and Inter man is a memorable one in its own right. Superb movement and positioning combined with a precision of finish equal to the best of his generation, on the pitch Icardi was, and still is, a genuine talent.

However, perhaps unfortunately for the 31-year-old, it will be for his off-field antics as much as his in-game performances for which football history remembers him.

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From going to war with one of Europe’s most feared firms, to shacking up with his teammate and mentor’s wife, Icardi is no stranger to the limelight.

So without further ado, let’s find out what’s all the fuss about a man who Maradona once said ‘was dead’ to him,

An eagle in the Canaries

Icardi cut his teeth in the same football-mad city that raised Angel Di Maria and Lionel Messi, playing for local side Club Infantil Sarratea in Rosario, before, at the age of 9, moving to Gran Canaria with his parents.

The youngster was nothing short of a phenomenon on the Canary Island, supposedly bagging over 400 goals at youth level for UD Vecindario. Picking up the nickname El Aguila (the Eagle). Icardi’s extraordinary goalscoring talent meant the Argentine found himself on the radar of a host of Europe’s elite clubs.

Liverpool, Arsenal and Real Madrid were all supposedly interested in Icardi’s services, but it was Barcelona who secured the teenage sensation.

“Only a madman would have refused the offer of entering the academy of the best club in the world,” Icardi would go on to say.

Icardi impressed for the Catalan club at youth level, earning a loan move to Italian side Sampdoria in 2011.

The following season, the move was made permanent in £400,000 deal, with Icardi admitting he couldn’t see a path into tiki-taka loving Spanish side.

“Someone with my characteristics couldn’t find space in that team,” Icardi said. “Look at [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic. Even he failed. Barca play without a centre-forward. All my teammates in the youth system who were big and tall like me have left the club.”

Wife to meet you, Mauro

Following his permanent move to Italy, Icardi continued to do well on the pitch. Scoring 10 times for Sampdoria.

However, the person who he was really impressing turned out to be the wife of senior teammate and compatriot Maxi Lopez, Wanda Nara, with whom Icardi began having an affair.

In a move that’s all too familiar to enthusiasts of the Football Manager series, Wanda betrayed her 30 something year old Argentinian forward husband for the promising youngster Icardi, despite having three children with Lopez.

To make matters worse, Lopez and Icardi had been good friends, with the former inviting the latter on holiday when he first moved to the club. Lopez has even been described as Icardi’s ‘role model’ during their time at Sampdoria.

Upon discovering the affair, Lopez divorced Nara in 2013, with the presenter and model remarrying Icardi a year later.

By the affair was discovered, Icardi made a high-profile move to Inter Milan, meaning the friends turned rivals faced off in a 2014 game dubbed ‘the wanda derby’, which saw Maxi Lopez refuse to shake his former teammate’s hand.

The pair have gone on to have an attention grabbing on-and-off again relationship, the highlights of which have been a near-ban from Instagram for posting pics of the couple in the shower, Wanda accusing her Hubbie of ruining ‘another family with a slut’, and Icardi tattooing the names of Maxi Lopez’ three children on his arm.

The two now have two kids of their own, and Wanda has even become Icardi’s agent, earning big fees on his move to PSG and Galatasaray.

Beef with a GOAT

Unsurprisingly, the football world reacted rather badly to Icardi and Wanda’s relationship.

But perhaps nobody was quite as peeved as Argentinian legend Diego Maradona (except for Maxi Lopez himself, presumably).

Rarely one to mince his words, the Napoli legend called his compatriot a ‘traitor’, and was furious when the striker was included in the 2016 Olympic squad.

‘Icardi doesn’t exist to me. He could be captain of the cosmos, after what happened I’m a fan of [Lopez]. That’s not done, brother’, Maradona told reporters on an Italian radio station.

You feed him, you let him in your house and then this happens? No. Those who don’t have moral codes are dead to me.’

Icardi, apparently deeply hurt by the public criticism for the football great, hit-back and the criticism, and denied he had been good friends with Lopez.

‘I fell in love, that’s something you should judge solely on its own merits.

But [Lopez] was not my best friend, nothing like that. We were colleagues in Sampdoria, nothing else.’

Ultra awkward…

While Icardi cut an unpopular figure with the rest of the footballing world, he remained the darling of the Inter Milan faithful, becoming club captain at just 22.

That is until the unpredictable forward fell out of favour, to put it lightly, with the club’s passionate and occasionally violent ultras known as Curva Nord.

The feud began after a disappointing 3-1 loss to Sampadoria, when, according to Icardi, the ultras reacted badly to Icardi giving his shirt to a young child.

‘ I take off my shirt and shorts and throw them to a kid as a gift. He is in seventh heaven and I am pleased to see him happy’, wrote the Argentine in a statement after the game.

“A leader of the Ultras snatches the shirt away from him and throws it back at me. This is when I insult him: ‘Piece of s**t, you act the big man with a little kid to show off in front of the rest of the Curva.’

While the fans forgave him after a while, the wound was reopened after Inter fans read Icardi’s book.

In Sempre Avanti, the current Galatasaray front man relived the incident, writing that he wasn’t scared of the fans, and that he ‘will bring 100 criminals from Argentina who will kill them on the spot.”

It’s fair to say the the Curva Nord weren’t too happy, with the ultra group releasing the following statement:

“You are finished with us. You’re done. TAKE THE ARMBAND OFF, YOU CLOWN. Yes, that is what we demand.”