The Unico de La Plata stadium, where Diego Armando Maradona held his last coaching position before passing away on November 25, will take the name of the Argentine football legend, the governor of the province of Buenos Aires announced on Friday.
“We decided to rename this enclosure the + Unico de la Plata Diego Armando Maradona + stadium. Diego was unique (Unico in Spanish, editor’s note) and he deserves that this unique stadium bears his name”, said Governor Axel Kicillof, in the presence Argentine President Alberto Fernández and Vice-President Cristina Kirchner.
A grandstand will also be renamed in honor of the recently deceased ex-Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella, a former Estudiantes player and coach who led Argentina to the 2014 World Cup final.
The Unico de La Plata stadium was built in the 90s with the idea that it would be shared between the two rival local teams, Estudiantes and Gimnasia y Esgrima, but after its inauguration in 2003, the stadium was not used by these formations only temporarily.
This arena, one of the most modern in Argentina, will host four Copa América matches next July.
Buenos Aires
Before dying at 60 from cardiac arrest, Maradona ran Gimnasia y Esgrima, which he took over in September 2019.
Another stadium in Buenos Aires already bears the name of the famous number 10 of the Argentine selection, that of the Argentinos Juniors club, since 2004.
This is where the “Pibe de Oro” (the golden kid) began his career at the age of 15 before joining the Boca Juniors team after five years.
The San Paolo stadium in Naples, where Maradona built his legend by making the heyday of the local club Napoli between 1984 and 1991, was also renamed after the name of the Argentine legend.
The mayor of Naples had proposed to change the name of the San Paolo stadium just hours after the announcement of the disappearance of Maradona, who had become a real idol of the city in southern Italy after a passage marked by his only two titles of champion of Italy.
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