Perhaps nowhere else in the world has soccer hero-turned cocaine addict Diego Maradona attracted as much veneration as in the ramshackle neighbourhood where he was born into poverty 43 years ago.

But even a few metres from his former family home, now occupied by rubbish scavengers, worship is tainted with disappointment over the antics of the overweight idol who has become a ghost of the man who almost single-handedly won the World Cup 18 years ago.

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"I hope he's getting better, that he managed to get out of all this shit he's taking," said childhood friend Jose, 42, who lives near Maradona's former house in Villa Fiorito, a shanty of wooden houses and sewage-strewn streets on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

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"He has been corrupted," added Jose, harking back to his kick-abouts with Maradona on pitches improvised on scrubland during their youth.

Maradona, who has spent most of the last four years in Cuba in a drug rehabilitation programme, was rushed to hospital while visiting Argentina last month with a swollen heart and lung problems.

It kicked off nearly a month of hospital treatment that ended with him being forced by his family against his wishes to stay in a clinic for drug addiction.

Even now, Argentines always remember Maradona for his football -- for the glory days in 1986 when Argentina won the World Cup. That pride and respect will never be lost.

But an initial outpouring of pity for Argentina's most famous citizen has gradually given way to disapproval of his behaviour over the last month, from discharging himself from hospital intensive care to playing golf on a cold autumn evening a few hours later.

It ended with him returning to hospital in an ambulance. Many Argentines had one reaction: "Serves you right."

EATING PIZZA

Local media offer a daily stream of stories -- Maradona guzzling down pizza and wine after leaving hospital, throwing fits of anger at doctors or having to be sedated to stop him returning to Cuba.

True or not, the reports help to form Argentines' opinions.

"It's madness that he goes to hospital and then he's in a country house full of people having a barbecue," said Jose.

Maradona now packs 100 kilos into his 1.66-metre frame. His family unceremoniously transferred him against his wishes to a private clinic at the weekend in what his doctor said was his last chance to cure himself of drug addiction.

Maradona, speaking slowly and sometimes incoherently to local television in an interview after his first hospital visit, said: "I was dying."

"I hope what he is doing sinks in, he starts paying attention to his doctors and stops to think that he has two daughters," said shop security guard Emilio Aguero, 53. "It is very irresponsible of him. This is of his own doing. He is a disappointment for the country."

Villa Fiorito is no better off than when Maradona was born here. The roads are filthy. A stream of polluted, foamy water divides the neighbourhood.

DRUG ADDICTION

The home-town boy is still respected here despite his jet-set lifestyle and the fact that he now plays the elite sport of golf rather than soccer with its working-class roots.

But 25 years after Maradona left the neighbourhood, Alberto Chavez, dressed in the ragged remains of an old tracksuit, is preaching tough love.

"I was a great friend of his. We've grown up together. I hope the best for him...but he must stop this stupidity," he said.

A poll showed that about half of Argentines believed that Maradona should no longer be treated as an idol but as a simple man with a disease -- drug addiction.

"I don't know how he got hooked. No (hospital) wants to take responsibility for him. He has brought shame on Argentina," said Nina Rojas, a flower vendor who works a few blocks away from the posh hospital that treated Maradona.

"He is known around the world, he's a good footballer and this brings responsibilities," she added.

In Villa Fiorito, Jose wondered; "What would have become of Maradona if he had not been touched with his magic skills?"

He provided his own answer, saying sadly: "Look. Around here everyone is a petty thief."