If you've ever been to Argentina, even for a long weekend, you'll know how big this news really is. He'll be backed by "technical secretary" (aka right hand man) Carlos Bilardo, the same team that brought Argentina its 1986 World Cup success.
That's a smart move by AFA and gives Diego plenty of technical experience to fall back on.Right now, Argentina is around 6/1 fourth favourite to win the World Cup in 2010. That means Maradona is a 6/1 chance to become the most celebrated Argentine in history...and by a long, long way. Forget Evita Peron, Che Guevara, Borges, and all the others. If Diego brought the World Cup back to his country he'd move past demi-god status and have churches re-named in his honour. If you think I'm joking, you don't know much about Argentina.
Update: On Clarin.com they're running a survey, the question is "Do you agree with the choice of Maradona as the next manager of Argentina?" These Clarin surveys usually get maybe 5,000 votes in the space of 12 hours. Here's how the vote stands after four hours:
Yes 26.2 % (17,605 votes)
No 73.8 % (49,468 votes)