Maradona 'stable' in intensive care

Argentina's Diego Maradona, one of the most gifted players in soccer history, remains in intensive care in a Buenos Aires clinic with heart and breathing problems but is stable and improving.

Family doctor Alfredo Cahe said Maradona had a lung infection and denied reports he had taken an overdose of cocaine - an addiction which the player has been battling for the last decade and has left him a bloated shadow of his former self.

"He has a lung infection... because of a chill," Cahe told a scrum of reporters outside the posh Buenos Aires clinic where Maradona is being treated. "He is quite stable and (his progress) is relatively good."

"It is not related to an overdose," Cahe had earlier told local radio. "Lately Maradona was not (consuming) cocaine."

Overdose rumours

Maradona's official Website www.diegomaradona.com said the former Argentine captain was taken ill while eating a traditional barbecue after watching Boca Juniors play at the Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires where he made his name.

Well-wishers mounted a vigil outside the Suizo-Argentina clinic on Monday morning, some wearing the blue and yellow strip of Boca Juniors.

Fans glued posters of "El Diez" (No. 10 shirt) in his footballing prime on the clinic's walls. Many Argentines were too scared to turn on their televisions or radios on Monday morning for fear of hearing the worst.

Rags to riches

Maradona, the fifth of eight children of a factory worker, made his international debut in 1977. He moved to Barcelona in 1982 after the World Cup in Spain for $3 million and spent two years with the Spanish club marred by illness and injury.

In 1984 he moved to Napoli for a world record $7.5 million and helped transform a mediocre club into one of the best in Italy.

Now at the peak of his form, he led Argentina to a 3-2 triumph over West Germany in the 1986 World Cup final.

He scored twice in the quarter-final 2-1 defeat of England, one the infamous "Hand of God" when he fisted the ball into the net and the other a stunning solo goal when he ran through the opposition with the ball seemingly glued to his left foot.

In 1991 he failed a dope test for cocaine and was banned for 15 months.

Positive drugs test

He played in his fourth World Cup campaign in the United States in 1994 but tested positive for a cocktail of drugs the day before he was due to make his record 22nd appearance.

Maradona was admitted to a Uruguayan hospital in 2000 for hypertension and an irregular heart beat.

He has spent most of the past two years in Cuba undergoing treatment for drug addiction.

Despite his well-publicised drug problems, Maradona has a widespread fan club with 20,000 people as far afield as Vietnam and Iceland becoming members of the "Church of Maradona".

He has also been honoured with a musical about the ups and downs of his turbulent rags-to-riches life.