"Maradona set to be Argentina Coach" came as a piece of jaw-dropping headline news because while "Hand of God" Maradona may be regarded as the greatest football star of all time, he has paper-thin qualifications as a football coach. No wonder even my uninitiated female colleagues were shocked by the news.

From the online discussions you can see that it is the diehard fans of Argentina who are the most devastated by the news because they know Maradona just too well. He may have been able to recover from the excesses in his personal life, and even crawl back from the brink of death but, given his lacklustre performance in coaching in the past, it is hard to believe that he would make a good coach. Some webmates who are familiar with the works of Jin Yong compare having Maradona as the Argentina national football team coach to having Jin Yong's fictional character Zhou Botong the Old Prankster as leader of the All True Sect of Taoism.

No one can deny that the Argentine Football Association has more appropriate choices like Carlos Bianchi, the fans' favourite "Viceroy", or Sergio Batista, the head coach of Argentina's Olympic football team that won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. What worries the fans most is how someone as frivolous as Maradona would be a match for his scheming rivals like Fabio Capello (England) and Marcello Lippi (Italy).

But there are others who think highly of such a move, counting on Maradona's godlike status to inspire fighting spirit and confidence in his national team. In these supporters' further analysis, it would occur to them that the past national team coaches may have been great strategists, but they have failed to win any major trophies for their country. So there must be something lacking in them. Perhaps Maradona can make up for it. As for the actual strategies to adopt, just leave it to Carlos Bilardo and the other assistant coaches!

It is impossible for us to predict what will come out of such a bold decision. All we can hope for is that the generation of star players like Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero and Javier Mascherano will not be wasted under this decision.

By Tuta

*Translation from Chinese article.