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Coach Maradona says he's not afraid of failure

Diego Maradona took over as Argentina coach on Tuesday and brushed aside the possibility of failure in the role.

  • Agencies
  • Published: 23:33 November 5, 2008
  • Gulf News

Buenos Aires: Diego Maradona took over as Argentina coach on Tuesday and brushed aside the possibility of failure in the role.

"I'm not afraid of losing my crown," Maradona, one of football's all-time greatest but most troubled players, said after being officially presented by the Argentina Football Association.

"We've had a mini-crisis and I would be a coward if I did not take this on.

"It would be worse if I continued leading the life I had before," said the 1986 World Cup winning captain who scored the notorious 'Hand of God' goal in the process and later suffered three doping bans in his brilliant but tormented career.

Maradona, who will take charge for the first time in the friendly away to Scotland on November 19, replaces Alfio Basile with Argentina stuck in a rut of mediocrity, having won only one of their previous eight games.

Basile quit after last month's embarrassing World Cup qualifying defeat to Chile.

Maradona was chosen despite having only two brief stints as a coach with provincial club Deportivo Mandiyu and top-flight side Racing Club, both during the mid-1990s, when his 23 games on the touchline produced just three wins.

The appointment is a remarkable personal achievement for Maradona who since retiring has fought against drug addiction, alcohol problems and obesity and four years ago spent 10 days in the intensive care unit of a Buenos Aires hospital.

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