Speculation turned into fact today as the Argentine National Soccer team, coachless since Alfio Basile stepped down after losing to Chile in a World Cup qualifier earlier this month, offered Diego Maradona the job. After being called in after an exhibition game in Georgia (the country, not the state), Maradona meet with the head of the Argentine selection, Julio Grondona, who was at times at odds with Maradona throughout his career.

Grodona and Maradona don’t have the greatest history with each other, but Maradona admitted some mistakes and says he is a different man now.

Well that’s a healthy start. And even though last week he was on the verge of begging for the gig, it turned out that he was the first person called in to interview for the job so maybe this’ll work out after all.

“I arrived from Georgia at 10am and three hours later I was having a shower to meet Julio (Grondona). As I was going to the meeting, I thought it was some kind of hidden camera (show)

“I will select the squad,” said the former number 10 for Napoli to some South American reporters, confirming that the Argentine Federation had approved his plans. “I am very happy and very satisfied”, he added.

Yeah, and so was Magic Johnson when he took over the Lakers after his retirement and look how that turned out (not good). We wonder if, after the long layoff and many incidents that’s happened over his post-career life, Maradona is ready to coach such a profile team. Sure he’s got the love of players like Lionel Messi, but do the other players respect him as much? We’ll see February 11th against France, which is his first official game as coach, whether or not he takes the team back to the heady days of Argentine Soccer. It can’t be much worse than the state he finds it now.

The Maradona era begins “I will be Argentina’s coach” [La Gazzeta Dello Sport]
Maradona, Reporting for Duty [NY Times]
Maradona set to become Argentina coach [World Soccer]
Image [La Gazzeta Dello Sport]