Maradona Undergoes Surgery After Dog Attack

Argentina national soccer coach Diego Maradona underwent an hour of plastic surgery on his face yesterday after he was attacked by his pet dog, a Chinese Shar-Pei, reports Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Maradona was taken to the private Los Arcos clinic in Buenos Aires after being bitten on his mouth and nose.

“He had a simple lesions and had surgery for about half an hour,” Julio Jiminez, the clinic’s administrator, said in an interview. “There’s no problem. He was walking and left with his girlfriend.”

Maradona, 49, is revered by many in his homeland for individual performances that helped his team win the 1986 World Cup. He was voted the greatest player ever in a poll of supporters by soccer’s governing body FIFA.

He took over Argentina’s national team in November 2008. Argentina stuttered to maintain its record of reaching every World Cup since 1978, clinching a finals berth in its last qualification match.

Maradona was given a two-month ban by FIFA after he launched a profanity-laced tirade at journalists following the 1-0 victory over Uruguay on Oct. 14 that sealed a place in the World Cup in South Africa.