Diego Maradona wins big in debut match in Mexico

Diego Maradona marked his coaching debut in Mexico with a big victory, as the Argentine legend managed club Dorados defeated Cafetaleros 4-1 in a second-division league on Monday.

The 57-year-old, who last coached Al Fujairah S. C. in the United Arab Emirates in 2017, raised many questions when he decided to join a lower-ranked team from the second-division in Mexico in Culiacan, Sinaloa, which is famous for smuggling drugs.

But the legendary footballer put all doubts to rest with the victory. Ecuadoran forward Vinicio Angulo scored a hat-trick to give the newly appointed coach a victory in his debut match.

“We played a great match,” Maradona was quoted as saying by AFP, following the victory.

“Some people said Maradona’s useless. There were a lot of stupid people going on television to fill up the time. I hope they’ll come to the pitch now and look at my record and see what we’re actually doing, see that I know how to do this,” he added.

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The victory meant Dorados jumped three places into the 10^th position, while Cafetaleros remained on the 15^th place in the domestic league table.

“This was nothing, this was just one match,” he said. “We’re still going to be playing in a lot of finals. Let’s not think we’ve achieved anything with this match. This is just the start of a beautiful dream.”

Maradona’s presence, however, failed to fill Dorados’s 20,000-seat stadium, with just over 10,133 fans attending the match. The attendance, however, was almost double than what had been in the past matches. An average of 4,000 attendance per match was seen in the previous two home appearances.