With an hour to go before kick-off, the thousands of fans in blue cheer on every time the big screen here at Ellis Park shows their idol, and coach of the national team, Diego Maradonna who has stepped onto the field with his coaching staff.
To the catatonic glee of his country-men, the debutant world cup coach Maradonna held up a newspaper picture of himself toward cameras and blew kisses to the crowd.
At this stage of the game Argentine fans are ahead of the game and have decked out the stadium in their national, colours bringing banners up to twenty meters long and draping them around the entire circuit of two seating tiers.
Nigeria's Super Eagles and their Argentine counterparts are on the edges of the field preparing to warm up while the respective goalies have entered the field to stretch out.
Nigeria's Super Eagles arrived at the stadium minutes ago.
Hundreds of seats in the stadium still remain glaringly, but queues outside the stadium are growing longer the closer it comes to kick-off time.
Re-print of the article "Maradona struts for Argentina" written by Judy Lelliott for Times Live.
Photo by Time Live.
The original artiucle is available at:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article501106.ece/Maradona-struts-for-Argentina
