Buenos Aires - Former Argentine football legend Diego Armando Maradona, officially appointed to coach Argentina Tuesday, said the new position was "a dream come true".

"For me it is an honour and a dream come true to be the coach of the Argentine national team, at the side of Carlos Bilardo. I will give my everything so that things go well for us," Maradona said in a press conference.

Rio de Janeiro - Brazil coach Carlos Dunga on Monday played down his rivalry with Diego Maradona, after the new Argentina coach had criticized Dunga last week.

"I hope things go well for him," Dunga said.

After his controversial appointment last week as coach, Maradona recalled his playing days, when he had led Argentina on the pitch to the 1986 World Cup and Dunga had captained Brazil to the 1994 World Cup.

Buenos Aires - Argentina is set to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its return to democracy on Thursday - a difficult process that has evolved gradually since the end of the military dictatorship in 1983.

Social democrat Raul Alfonsin, of the Radical Civic Union, won the election on October 30, 1983 to become president. It was clear at the time that he had been entrusted with a huge challenge. But even skeptics could not have guessed just how hard it was going to be to govern the South American country.

Buenos Aires - Argentina's central bank intervened in the country's foreign exchange market Wednesday with an injection of 1 billion dollars to contain the depreciation of the peso.

In the early hours of activity, the dollar rose 2.08 per cent against the peso to 3.43 pesos from 3.36. The Central Bank's intervention brought it down to 3.39 pesos, an increase of 0.9 per cent in relation to the previous day's closing.

Buenos Aires - Former Argentine football superstar Diego Maradona has been named coach of the country's national team despite a lack of experience as trainer at a time when Argentina has struggled in World Cup qualifiers.

"Now the real work begins," Maradona said.

His appointment followed a meeting Tuesday that Maradona and former national coach Carlos Bilardo held with Argentine football federation President Julio Grondona.