Diego Maradona believes he should be the new coach of Boca Juniors and has criticized the club for being on the verge of appointing Julio Cesar Falcioni to the job.
Falcioni's representative, Sergio Greco, said on Saturday that his client had given up his job as coach of Argentine club Banfield and was ready to take over Boca when the Clausura season starts early next year.
Maradona, 50, has been out of work since he was dropped after the World Cup as Argentina's national team coach. Since then he has campaigned unsuccessfully for a return to the national team, or with a club.
In an interview Monday with the newspaper Clarin, Maradona said: ''I say to the people at Boca that I will be on the bench there one day.''
Maradona said he felt betrayed by Boca Juniors, the Argentine club that helped make him famous. In the interview he also ridiculed Falcioni saying he was ''only a goalkeeper,'' and lambasted Boca Juniors president Jorge Amor Ameal for considering Falcioni.
Maradona was offered a contract in July to stay on as the national coach, but the deal required him to drop members of his coaching staff. He declined and was dismissed. Several months later he said he would consider the compromise, but by then the Argentina Football Association had decided on Sergio Batista as the new coach.
