HAND OF SOD GETS NOBBLED

Maradona ‘can hardly walk’

“HAND of God” villain Diego Maradona struggles to walk.

Shock footage shows the former Argentina star, now boss of Mexican second division club Dorados, hobbling round a pitch.

Maradona, 57, inset, was even having to rely on assistant Luis Campos to move around.

Earlier this year he visited a hospital in Colombia for knee injections to slow the onset of arthritis.

Colombian surgeon Germán Ochoa first operated on the star in 2004 soon after he stopped playing.

He confirmed: “In June, before the World Cup, we basically treated him so that he could go through his World Cup activities.

“Maradona has severe arthrosis in his two knees and he no longer has cartilage – the bones touch each other, the femur with the tibia and the fibula.

“It is a serious problem because it causes a lot of pain, inflammation and difficulty to move.” He added: “The solution is to operate it and put prosthetics on both knees. In the short or medium term, the decision to replace the joint must be made. “Arthrosis has no solution. There is a progressive and total destruction of the cartilage and if it is not solved it gets worse.”

But aides at the struggling side say his condition is hampered by his insistence on joining in with training sessions.

Limits

His lawyer has previously admitted: “Diego is not conscious of his physical limitations. He gets on the pitch and still thinks he is 20.” Maradona scored his infamous goal against England in the World Cup quarter-finals in Mexico in 1986.

He punched a ball past keeper Peter Shilton and later admitted it had gone in “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”. Argentina won 2-1.