So, Diego Maradona in a traffic accident last night in Argentina.

Just another day in the life for El Diego.

The coach of Al Wasl is a flake. Has been for years. Still is.

Stuff happens to him. Weird stuff. And I fear that is how Wasl will come to grief with their high-profile coach signing. Not necessarily from dunderheaded coaching moves, though he certainly is capable of those, but from daily little things that turn into big things. The sorts of things that have been happening to him for a while now.

To review:

In late 2009, El Diego used foul language during an official Fifa press conference, tearing into Argentine journalists who had expressed the very reasonable fears that the country might not qualify for South Africa 2010 under his stewardship.

That got him a two-month suspension from all soccer activities.

Then, last spring, his dog bit him on the face while he was kissing it goodnight. I am not making this up. He needed a trip to the emergency room at a hospital and stitches.

Soon after, he drove his vehicle over the leg of a video cameraman and rebuked him for getting his limb in the way of his wheels, shouting “asshole!” at him. (If he does that to an Emirati TV guy, Diego is the one who will end up at the precinct office.)

About the same time, he said that his bathroom in Argentina’s headquarters in South Africa was not up to his standards, which turn out to be high end. He wanted the ultimate in toilet fixtures and got them. It was never clear what might happen if his room’s commodes were not of the highest standard, but he made people run around.

And now, the following July, after being fired by Argentina and indulging in a mud-slinging brawl with Fifa as well as the president of his national federation, he is in a traffic accident while driving to see his ill mother. Allegedly.

The media relations firm contracted by the Wasl club told the English-language media here that El Diego was fine, that he was uninjured.

They still do not know, however, when he might be seen again in the UAE. Not that it’s getting late, or anything, but half the league has already gone to summer training camps and just about all clubs in the league have settled on their foreign players.

Wasl has done neither. Once he gets to Dubai, El Diego doesn’t want to leave the country, at all, to train, and figures he can get his boys ready in a few weeks, even though August is Ramadan and Muslim players can train only once a day because they fast during daylight hours.

Also, El Diego still hasn’t worked out who he wants to play for him. Wasl has only one foreign player under contract, and foreigners are a critical to any UAE club. In theory, Maradona’s extended time in Argentina is about seeing the Copa America and looking for a couple of South Americans whom he can recruit for Wasl.

Meantime, though, nothing much is going on at Wasl’s headquarters as they wait for El Jefe Loco to make his way back over the Atlantic to start doing his job.

This will not end well. If Maradona doesn’t do something overt, like scream at one of the club officials, he will drag the club down with all the little strange stuff that surrounds him. The traffic accidents. The face-eating dogs.  Just generally being unreliable.

But it will be fun to watch, in a dark sort of way.