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SLAM! Sports SLAM! Soccer World Cup COLUMNS THE WORLD
INTERACTIVE ALSO ON SLAM!  |
Thursday, August 24, 2000Italian team to hang up No. 10 jerseyNAPLES, Italy (AP) -- Diego Maradona's troubled old love affair with the Napoli soccer squad will get a long-awaited Valentine: The retiring of his No. 10 jersey.Napoli, which is returning to the top Italian league this season after a two-year demotion to Serie B, announced the decision to honour the Argentine on Thursday. Maradona, 39, widely considered one of the best players in soccer history, spent his best club years with the Naples squad from 1984-1991. With 115 goals, and an inexhaustible supply of magical playmaking moments, the stout forward led the underdog southerners to two league championships and a UEFA Cup title. But it was also in Naples that Maradona's public battle with cocaine began, leading to two 15-month suspensions for league drug violations, and eventually, a bitter parting with Napoli. He left Italy in 1991, and only returned once, in 1998, for several television appearances in Rome and Milan where he continued to denounce professional soccer's handling of drug abuse. He did not, however, stop in Naples, having often complained that the club didn't stand behind him in his battle with the Italian league. He also has a 14-year-old son in Naples whom he has not visited since he left. The decision to retire No. 10 comes after Napoli was sold by long-time owner Corrado Feriaino, and the club's return to Serie A after a long decline that bottomed out with a last-place finish in 1998. Maradona, who maintains near-mythic status with fans in Naples, will reportedly participate in a special all-star game in his honour at Napoli's Stadio San Paolo in October. He has often been mentioned as a possible future coach or team official. Maradona, who led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup title, has continued to have trouble with drugs, winding up in the hospital with heart problems in January. He turns 40 on October 30. 
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