Soccer legend Diego Maradona to undergo emergency brain surgery

Nov. 3 (UPI) -- After being hospitalized a day earlier, Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona will have emergency surgery to treat a blood clot on his brain.

Leopoldo Luque, who is Maradona's personal physician, told reporters Tuesday that Maradona was admitted to the Ipensa Clinic in La Plata on Monday with anemia, dehydration and depression, but will now undergo the operation after an MRI revealed a subdural hematoma.

Luque will perform the procedure Tuesday at Clinica Olivos in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

"We did an MRI one month ago and everything was normal," Luque said. "We repeated the study, and we saw the subdural hematoma. These types of injuries are tough to spot, I don't know if he suffered some kind of hit or fall.

"This is a routine surgery that even [Argentina] vice president [Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner] has undergone. The panorama has not changed, he continues to have the same clinical diagnosis, but now we have a more concrete diagnosis. He is alert, he understands and he is in agreement about the surgery. He is not upset."

Maradona, 60, is currently the manager of Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata, but he has sat out of the team's training because of COVID-19.

Maradona, who ended his playing career in 1997, led Argentina to the World Cup title in 1986 and is widely considered one of the greatest soccer players of all time.