Dear Argentina: Please hire Diego Maradona as your coach, Brazilians would love it
November 1, 2008 by William K. Wolfrum
The rumor from Argentina is that they plan on filling the coaching vacancy of their national soccer team with legendary player Diego Maradona.
Speaking as someone on the Brazilian side of the Brazil-Argentina soccer rivalry, I think this is a fantastic idea. Sure, Morris Dalla Costa makes a good argument why he would be a terrible choice …
When you are a legend in soccer, you pretty much get what you want.
It’s the only explanation for Argentina’s appointment of a drug addict, tax truant (last time he was in Naples, he had to cough up two Rolex watches) and self-destructive personality as the national team’s new manager.
Harsh? Hardly. That’s reality.
Why Argentina would turn the reins of its national team over to Diego Maradona when there are so many qualified individuals is almost mind-boggling.
… but that just explains why I’d like to see it happen. Argentina’s heavily stocked national team would implode. Generally, coaches for any sport tend not to have too much success when their best trait is overwhelming narcissism. But that’s what Maradona would bring to the mix. It would be fantastic entertainment, to say the least.
The only thing that would make me nervous about Maradona taking the reins of Argentina is that he could very well permanently screw up the brilliant Lionel Messi. Unencumbered with ego nor attitude, Messi would get a full lesson on how to be an egomaniacal jerk from Maradona. Hell, even Brazilians have a pretty strong fondness for Messi, mainly due to the respect and deference he always showed Ronaldinho Gaucho at Barcelona.
But I’ll trust Messi to keep his own head on straight. Argentina must hire Maradona now, so all of us could just have our heads spin for the few months he was in charge of the national squad. Before he quit or was fired.
–WKW
As an Englishman, and remembering the infamous ‘Hand of God’.
I am with you all the way Bill.
C’mon, Bill — You don’t really think that any organization worth its proverbial salt would hire a leader based only on fame & highly questionable personal appeal, with no thought to the fact that the person had clearly demonstrated a complete lack of the skills necessary to actually perform the job, do you?
Wait — what?
Remember, tho, from Argentina, Maradona can see the Falkland Islands. That’s foreign policy experience in my book.
[...] Earlier, I had begged for Argentina to give Maradona the job, and they came through. Now, we have time to enjoy Maradona’s stunts for a short time, It’ll be fun to watch, but over quickly, and when he’s finally fired or forced to quit, it will be everybody’s fault but his own, and won’t Google and Yahoo feel great that they kept Maradona’s madness away from curious Web searchers,. [...]
[...] Entering this week, Argentina and coach Diego Maradona had their destiny in their hands. However, following thorough losses to Brazil and Paraguay, the Argentina side has slipped to fifth place in CONMEBOL qualifying. If qualifying ended today, the Argentines would be forced to play a home-and-away playoff with CONCACAF No. 4 Costa Rica with the winner going to South Africa. [...]
[...] Gone Wild: I fell a lot better about writing this post now that Diego Maradona is running around Germany yelling at German [...]