Names in the Game

Associated Press

ZAGREB, Croatia - Diego Maradona will play in a charity soccer match in Croatia on June 17 with several other retired soccer stars.

Maradona, who captained Argentina to the 1986 World Cup, agreed to play in the northern coastal city of Novi Vinodolski to raise money for a local orphanage.

Others involved are former Croatia internationals Davor Suker and Zvonimir Boban.

"I'm happy to come again to Croatia," Maradona told two Croatian newspapers Wednesday. "It makes me even more happy to do a good deed. Humanitarian matches have become the meaning of my life."

The match is planned to accompany a tennis tournament June 15-18 in which retired tennis stars Goran Ivanisevic, Boris Becker and John McEnroe are scheduled to play.

Organizers also hope to arrange a tennis match between Maradona and McEnroe.

The soccer match would be one of the few times Maradona, rated one of the greatest players of all-time, has been seen on a field since his retirement in 1997.

Maradona became obese under the weight of cocaine addiction and, on March 5, successfully underwent gastric bypass surgery to help try and reduce his weight by 110 pounds within a year.

Before the operation, the 5-foot-6 Maradona weighed 266 pounds.