A broken ankle in a La Liga game at the Camp Nou in September 1983 caused by a reckless tackle by Athletic Bilbao's Andoni Goikoetxea—nicknamed "the Butcher of Bilbao"—threatened to jeopardize Maradona's career, but with treatment and rehabilitation, it was possible for him to return to the pitch after a three-month recovery period.

Maradona was directly involved in a violent and chaotic fight at the 1984 Copa del Rey Final at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid against Athletic Bilbao.

After receiving another hard tackle by Goikoetxea, as well as being taunted with racist insults related to his father's Native American ancestry throughout the match by Bilbao fans, and being provoked by Bilbao's Miguel Sola at full time after Barcelona lost 1–0, Maradona snapped.

He aggressively got up, stood inches from Sola's face and the two exchanged words. This started a chain reaction of emotional reactions from both teams. Using expletives, Sola mimicked a gesture from the crowd towards Maradona by using a xenophobic term.

Maradona then headbutted Sola, elbowed another Bilbao player in the face and kneed another player in the head, knocking him out cold.
The Bilbao squad surrounded Maradona to exact some retribution, with Goikoetxea connecting with a high kick to his chest, before the rest of the Barcelona squad joined in to help Maradona.

From this point, Barcelona and Bilbao players brawled on the field with Maradona in the centre of the action, kicking and punching anyone in a Bilbao shirt.

The mass brawl was played out in front of the Spanish King Juan Carlos and an audience of 100,000 fans inside the stadium, and more than half of Spain watching on television.

After fans began throwing solid objects on the field at the players, coaches and even photographers, sixty people were injured, with the incident effectively sealing Maradona's transfer out of the club in what was his last game in a Barcelona shirt.

One Barcelona executive stated, "When I saw those scenes of Maradona fighting and the chaos that followed I realized we couldn't go any further with him."

Maradona got into frequent disputes with FC Barcelona executives, particularly club president Josep Lluís Núñez, culminating with a demand to be transferred out of Camp Nou in 1984.

During his two injury-hit seasons at
Barcelona, Maradona scored 38 goals in 58 games. Maradona transferred to Napoli in Italy's Serie A for another world record fee, £6.9 million ($10.48 million).

The Spanish defenders in Maradona's
Era sure know how to Tackle Hard.

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