I wonder if he might have fared better nowadays. Some of the thuggery, which was excused as "hard tackling" ast the time, would have resulted in early baths nowadys. To some degree, you began to expect him to get clobbered when he received the ball. I read that the same happened to Pele around the time of the 1962 World Cup.
I think we would all have wished him more success and happiness, but to say simply, "He wasted his life", is a bit hard. The culture at the time did not allow him to express his talent fully.