Diego Maradona will be 48 on Thursday. There were times when it seemed that he wouldn't get that far, with his well publicised struggles with and weight.
Now he is well on course for a happy birthday. He looks set to be announced as coach of Argentina, the job he has campaigned hard for since stepped down two weeks ago.
On Monday the line from the Argentine FA was that Maradona was one of four candidates, there was no rush to appoint and all four would be spoken to.
Instead Maradona touched down in Buenos Aires on Tuesday morning, met with president Julio Grondona in the afternoon and emerged to announce that although talks would continue, the job was his for the taking...
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Luiz Felipe Scolari has just suffered his first defeat as Chelsea manager with the English season still at a relatively early stage.
Back home in Brazil we are in the home straight and Gremio, the club where Scolari made his name, are optimistic of winning the title for the first time since 1996 - when Felipao (yet to be baptised 'Big Phil') was at the helm.
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Lionel Messi was hardly overcome with regret when he arrived back in Barcelona to be informed that ..
"Argentina haven't played well for a while, and ," he said. "We needed a change."
But the change he is advocating would seem to be one of style of command rather than ideas or playing personnel. Messi was enthusiastic in his support of 1986 World Cup-winning midfielder Sergio Batista stepping up from the youth sides to replace Basile.
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At the halfway stage in South America's World Cup qualifiers the top scorer is .
He had plenty to celebrate on Saturday - he scored twice to help his side to a 3-0 win over Peru and in the process became Bolivia's all-time leading marksman and the first man on the continent to score five goals in .
This last achievement is all the more remarkable given that Botero was . But in three starts plus 25 minutes off the bench he has one more goal to his name .
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After last month's World Cup qualifiers left Argentina without a win in five games, I wrote a piece about their problems.
It focused on the team's deficiencies in both penalty areas - and for this reason I made a point of not even mentioning key midfielder Juan Roman Riquelme.
It was no surprise to me, however, when the comments section was full of references to him, many of them hostile.
Riquelme divides opinions, and with the qualification campaign resuming this weekend, the debate will rage once more. But it is much more than a discussion about a player; it deals with the very nature of the contemporary game.
So much of modern football is a desire for 'bigger, faster, stronger' and with the emphasis now on ever greater athleticism, is there still room for an old fashioned foot-on-the-ball playmaker who moves with the ungainly gait of someone wading through water?
Many, even in Argentina, would now say no. They would argue that Riquelme is a throwback to the 1940s, an expensive luxury always likely to be crowded, hustled and cancelled out in today's packed midfields.
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I cover South American football from Brazil. There's a wealth of talent and a rich culture - a fascinating continent to follow football.
