MEXICO CITY, June 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Diego Maradona has resigned as coach
of Mexican second-division club Dorados for health reasons, his lawyer said
Thursday, after nine tumultuous months in the job for the Argentine football
legend.
Maradona, 58, “has decided not to continue in his position as manager of
Dorados. Under his doctors’ advice, he will be devoting time to his health
and will undergo two operations: for his shoulder and his knee,” lawyer
Matias Morla wrote on Twitter.
“We thank the entire Dorados family and will continue the dream together in
the future,” he added.
Maradona took the coaching job at Dorados, who are based in the western
state of Sinaloa, in September 2018 — amusing skeptics who questioned why
the 1986 World Cup champion, who has publicly battled various addictions,
would move to a place better known for drug cartels than football.
But he answered his critics by coaching the struggling club to back-to-back
finals appearances that brought them tantalizingly close — but not quite —
to their dream of winning promotion to the first division.
“Thank you for everything, Diego!” tweeted the club. “A Dorado forever.”
Maradona had said in April that he planned to leave the club at the end of
the spring season, alleging the league’s referees were biased against him.
The controversies that have marked his career were not lacking from his
time at the club.
The Mexican Football Federation fined him an unspecified amount for
violating its apolitical ethics code by praising Venezuela’s leftist
President Nicolas Maduro in a post-match press conference in March.
And security guards had to restrain a violent, swearing Maradona from
attacking jeering fans of opposing team Atletico San Luis in December after
Dorados lost the fall season finals to them in extra time.
Maradona had to watch that match from the stands, after being sent off near
the end of Dorados’s 1-0 first-leg victory for launching an insult-laced
tirade at officials when he thought his team should have been awarded a
penalty.
Maradona’s managerial career has failed to match the luster of his playing
days.
The dream of winning a title as coach still eludes him, after stints
managing the Argentine national team and various clubs in Argentina, the
Middle East and now Mexico.