BUKOVKA, Czech Republic, June 30 : If you didn’t know that Czech soccer fan Miloslav “Curby” Urbanec was fascinated by the Argentine national team, you might have guessed from the house painted in the sky-blue and white of the team strip and flag. Or the life-size statue of Diego Maradona. Or the Lionel Messi mural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The music promoter’s three-storey house in Bukovka, 90 km (56 miles) east of Prague, even boasts a huge sun emblem, the central motif of the Argentine flag, high on the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A larger-than-life Messi mural adorns the back of the house, and a statue of the late Diego Maradona guards the courtyard. An all-weather football pitch behind the house is surrounded by placards bearing images of the stars of Buenos Aires side Boca Juniors, one of Maradona’s teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As a four-year old kid I watched the 1978 World Cup in Argentina with my father, and I completely loved the long hair of the Argentine players like (Mario) Kempes,” said Urbanec, 51.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They won the World Cup, that was the start of my passion for Argentina, Boca Juniors, for everything about football.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Urbanec’s van is painted sky-blue and white, and bears images of Maradona holding the World Cup and of Messi, with the slogan “In Messi we trust”, and a custom number plate reading “MARADONA”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Urbanec named his second son, now 7, Lionel because, he said, it was clear seven years ago that “this guy is absolutely special”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Urbanec is sure his side are on course for another victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“La Seleccion this time is absolutely amazing,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I believe 100 per cent we will win again and it will be a beautiful party, not only in Bukovka – around the world, because Argentina play the most beautiful football.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Argentina meet Cape Verde in the round of 32 on July 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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BUKOVKA, Czech Republic, June 30 : If you didn’t know that Czech soccer fan Miloslav “Curby” Urbanec was fascinated by the Argentine national team, you might have guessed from the house painted in the sky-blue and white of the team strip and flag. Or the life-size statue of Diego Maradona. Or the Lionel Messi mural. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418697,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418696\/revisions\/418697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}