Argentina drop Maradona as coach

BUENOS AIRES: The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has elected not to renew Diego Maradona’s contract as national team coach.

Doubts surrounded the 49-year-old’s future ever since a tense meeting with AFA president Julio Grondona and newspapers spent the day speculating on who would succeed the man who led the team to victory as star player at the 1986 World Cup.

“The president put some salient points to Maradona in their long conversation yesterday,” said AFA spokesman Ernesto Cherquis Bialo. “And the executive committee unanimously resolved not to renew Maradona’s contract as technical director of the national teams.”

As an inexperienced coach, Maradona’s record over 18 months was less than stellar and the team only qualified for the World Cup finals by the skin of their teeth. Although several players had spoken up for him after a run to the quarter-finals of the World Cup, where Germany proved too strong, the AFA decided it was time to give the job to someone else.

Maradona’s often controversial tenure saw him use more than 100 players as he grappled with various formations. He was banned from all football activity for two months after crudely insulting journalists in the aftermath of the win over Uruguay last October that secured Argentina’s place at the World Cup.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 29^th, 2010.