Maradona congratulates Argentina’s new coach
Buenos Aires, Aug 4 (IANS) Football icon Diego Maradona has congratulated Argentina men team’s new chief coach Edgardo Bauza and said he formed part of the team at the World Cup 1990 held in Italy.
“I want to congratulate ‘Paton’ (‘Big Footed’) Bauza, new coach of Argentina. I’ll never forget that he was the player 24, of 23 in Italia ’90. And he stayed to support the team throughout the WC,” the 1986 World Cup winner on Wednesday through social networks.
Maradona ranked Bauza, current coach of Sao Paulo, with the Argentine soccer greats of that time, reports Xinhua.
Through a comment published on his official Facebook account in Spanish, Italian and English, Maradona said that “we are a generation of players who leave everything for the national team”.
Bauza, 58, was appointed as Gerardo Martino’s successor on August 1 and he will pick up where Martino left off in the South American qualifiers ahead of the World Cup 2018 in Russia.
As a player, Bauza had a brief career in the national team, where he played in three friendly matches between 1981 and 1990 and he was part of the team, although unused, that came in second place at Italy 1990, under the direction of coach Carlos Bilardo.