BUENOS AIRES - Argentine legend Diego Maradona said on Tuesday that he would have loved to manage the nation's soccer squad for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona waves to his fans before the match between Boca Juniors and Lanus in an Argentine Apertura championship soccer match in Buenos Aires Dec. 2, 2007. [Agencies] He said he would like to start training soccer teams again, but that he is happy with the Argentine Football Federation's choice of Sergio Batista to manage the Olympic team, known as the Under-23 in Argentina because Olympic rules state that all but three players must be under-23.

"The truth is that I am very happy to see Batista with the Under-23, but that job was mine. I would like to have managed in the Olympic Games," Maradona told Argentina's Del Plata Radio.

Batista and Maradona were teammates in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, where Argentina won, and in the 1990 World Cup in Italy, where Italy won.

He said he "really wanted" to get back to work. Maradona last managed 13 years ago in Racing Club. He was there only four months before losing his job due to poor results. The first team he managed, Deportivo Mandiyu, sacked him for the same reason in 1994.

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