How good Diego Maradona would have been without drugs, with referee’s protection, the dreamy football pitches, science and nutrition.

Diego Maradona had more talent than almost any other footballer in history but his cult status in Argentina and around the world went far beyond the pitch. His flaws made him human and his battling nature won him adoration.

BUCARAMANGA, COLOMBIA, Feb 10: Reigning Olympic men’s football champions Brazil qualified for this summer’s tournament in Japan with a 3-0 win over Argentina on Sunday.

TEL AVIV, Nov 19: Argentina’s Lionel Messi scored an added-time penalty to salvage a 2-2 draw with Uruguay as they twice came from behind in an entertaining friendly match in Israel on Monday.

RIYADH, Nov 16: Lionel Messi returned from international suspension to score the winner in Argentina’s 1-0 victory over Brazil in Saudi Arabia on Friday.

VATICAN CITY, Oct 30: Thirty-seven years after the Falklands war, a tiny statue of the Madonna taken at the end of the conflict and held in Britain ever since is going home to Argentina in a gesture of reconciliation blessed by Pope Francis.

JOHANNESBURG – According to fact-checkers at the Washington Post, US President Donald Trump has made more than 13,000 false or misleading claims since his inauguration. It is no wonder some people doubt that the fact-checking of politicians’ claims is an answer to the problems of this misinformation age.

DORTMUND, GERMANY, Oct 10: Injury-decimated Germany squandered a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 with Argentina thanks to Lucas Ocampos’s 85th-minute equaliser in a friendly on Wednesday.

San Antonio, TX, USA, Sept 11: Lautaro Martinez netted a hat-trick in just 40 minutes as Argentina blitzed Mexico 4-0 win in a friendly in San Antonio on Tuesday.

SAO PAOLO, July 7: Lionel Messi was sent off before halftime and then angrily hit out at “corrupt” tournament organisers after Argentina beat Chile 2-1 to win a bad-tempered third-place playoff at the Copa America on Saturday.

BUENOS AIRES, July 4: Argentine soccer club River Plate opened the doors of its Monumental stadium on Wednesday to give shelter to people living on the streets, as temperatures fell during the Southern Hemisphere winter and a biting economic recession exacerbates poverty in the South American country.

BELO HORIZONTE, July 3: Lionel Messi finally showed signs of life at the Copa America on Tuesday as Argentina battled Brazil for a place in the final but once again he failed to inspire the side when it mattered most and his long wait for an international trophy goes on.

BELO HORIZONTE, July 3: Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero lashed out at the officiating after their 2-0 Copa America semi-final defeat to Brazil on Tuesday and questioned why video technology was not consulted in two penalty appeals that were waved away.

BELO HORIZONTE, July 3: Brazil advanced to the final of the Copa America with a 2-0 win over old rivals Argentina in Belo Horizonte on Tuesday thanks to a goal in each half from Gabriel Jesus and Roberto Firmino.

The only total solar eclipse of 2019 will plunge parts of Chile and Argentina into darkness. Outside the 150km-wide path of totality, skywatchers will experience a partial eclipse. Winter cloudiness looms as the only potential spoiler.

BELO HORIZONTE, June 30: Lionel Messi has not been at his best at the Copa America but Brazil defender Thiago Silva says his side will not take their eyes off the Argentina captain for a minute in their semi-final on Tuesday.

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 29: Argentina can look forward to a mouthwatering Copa America semi-final clash with Brazil after delivering a much-improved display to beat Venezuela 2-0 in the quarter-finals in their first game at the Maracana since losing the 2014 World Cup final.

PORTO ALEGRE, June 24: An early goal from Lautaro Martinez and a late second from Sergio Aguero gave Argentina a 2-0 win over Qatar on Sunday, a deserved victory that takes them into the Copa America quarter-finals to face Venezuela.

BELO HORIZONTE, June 20: Lionel Messi scored from the penalty spot to salvage a 1-1 draw for Argentina against Paraguay in the Copa America on Wednesday as his side rode their luck to cling on to hope of reaching the quarter-finals.

SALVADOR, Brazil, June 16: Roger Martinez scored an outstanding goal as Colombia beat Argentina 2-0 in an exciting finale to a Copa America Group B opener on Saturday that burst into life after a sluggish start.

Barcelona and Argentina striker Lionel Messi dethroned five-division boxing world champion Floyd Mayweather as the highest paid athlete over the past year, according to the annual list published by business magazine Forbes on Tuesday.

June 11: Lionel Messi has long craved a suitable strike partner so that he can win a major trophy with Argentina and the return of his friend Sergio Aguero has given the nation renewed hope of winning the Copa America.

KATHMANDU, March 28: Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa bade farewell to the national futsal team leaving today for Argentina to play the Futsal World Cup. The Minister wished the team success at an event held at the minister's official residence in Pulchowk today.

Your daily doze of missed important news of the day.

MADRID, March 23: Lionel Messi returned to Argentina duty for the first time since the World Cup on Friday but it was a disappointing outing for the forward as they lost 3-1 to Venezuela and he was ruled out of their next match with a groin problem.

Lionel Messi is struck by "emotional fatigue" combining playing for Argentina and Barcelona, says technical director Cesar Luis Menotti.

A body has been recovered from the wreckage of the plane that was carrying Argentina-born professional soccer player Emiliano Sala and pilot David Ibbotson, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) in Britain said late on Wednesday.

24th June 1987 on the poorest part of Rosario, Argentina a baby took his first breath. His parents had no big expectations of him at all.

Your daily dose of missed important news of the day.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 25: Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said he has a “good feeling” about Lionel Messi’s possible return to international soccer and will talk to the Barcelona forward about a possible return from his self-imposed exile.

MADRID, Dec 5: Lionel Messi’s fifth-place finish in this year’s Ballon d’Or vote was absurd, Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde said of the Spanish champions’ Argentina forward on Tuesday.

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 29: Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina are scheduled for 1 December and expected to last more than two hours, a source in one of the delegations told Sputnik.

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 29: An Argentine judge reviewing a Human Rights Watch complaint against Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked the foreign ministry on Wednesday to seek information from Turkey, Yemen and the International Criminal Court.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Nov 17:  Argentina’s navy announced early Saturday that searchers found the missing submarine ARA San Juan deep in the Atlantic a year after it disappeared with 44 crewmen aboard.

JEDDAH, Oct 17:  A stoppage-time goal from Miranda gave Brazil a 1-0 win over South American rivals Argentina in a foul-strewn friendly in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Argentina great Diego Maradona has hit out at his countryman Lionel Messi, saying the forward is not a leader on the pitch and should not be considered a footballing God.

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Oct 8: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried an Argentinian Earth-observation satellite into space Sunday and for the first time landed a first-stage booster back at its California launch site.

The couple says that one of the biggest reasons why they embarked on this caravan traveling expedition was to spend more time with their children.

ARGENTINA, Sept 18: The Argentinian authorities have slapped two-year stadium bans on four football fans over incidents from the World Cup in Russia, including when three of the men were filmed asking Russian women to repeat crude phrases in Spanish.

Sept 3: The Argentinian reached another milestone in the Spanish domestic league with his exploits against Huesca.

ARGENTINA, Sept 2: Argentina's Economy Minister Nicolas Dujovne heads to Washington on Monday to thrash out a hastily revised loan deal with the International Monetary Fund to help revive South America's second-largest economy.

ARGENTINA, Aug 26: The Argentine Coalition for a Secular State is trying to strip the Catholic Church of its political power in Argentina.

CARACAS, Aug 22: Another Argentine woman has died because of a botched abortion just as the Senate failed to pass the highly-debated abortion bill.Romina Fernandez had a clandestine abortion to terminate her pregnancy at the Sanguinetti Hospital in Pilar, Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires on August 8, a day before the country’s upper house slimly rejected the bill.

The Argentine footballer had a disappointing World Cup, but he is willing to consider an extension of his international career.

MEXICO CITY, July 22: Argentina's President Mauricio Macri has given the green light to the creation of several US military bases on his country's territory, media reported citing sources.

For two reasons, Jorge Sampaoli was a strange choice to take over as Argentina coach a year ago.

KAZAN, June 30: Teenager Kylian Mbappe scored two goals in four minutes to send a youthful France charging into the World Cup quarter-finals with a thrilling 4-3 win over Argentina on Saturday that sent Lionel Messi’s team home.

The knockout stages of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia begin on Saturday, with France and Argentina set to meet in Kazan for the first Round of 16 encounter. These two heavyweights of international football are always among the favourites to lift the Trophy, and boast of some of the game’s biggest superstars, from Paul Pogba and Antoine Griezmann to Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria. It is a duel to warm the hearts of every devotee of the beautiful game.

France and Argentina have failed to impress so far at the World Cup, but they have the chance to lay down a marker in Kazan on Saturday.

RUSSIA, June 28: The name of Lionel Messi is on everyone’s lips in the French camp as Les Bleus gear up for a seismic clash with Argentina in the World Cup last 16 on Saturday.