"No.10 shirt -- Between Heaven and Hell" promises an artistic take on the ups and downs of the former soccer ace's turbulent life, seen through the eyes of an 80-year-old Maradona looking back.

"It is about the dreams and nightmares of the greatest soccer idol," director Hector Berra said on Wednesday, giving reporters a glimpse of the musical replete with tangos and crooning due to premiere in Buenos Aires in January.

But soccer fans beware.

"There is little soccer in it, but a great deal of life," added Berra, who plans to translate the show into English and take it to the stages of London and New York.

Maradona, now 43, is regarded as one of the finest players to have graced the game, leading Argentina to World Cup victory in 1986.

His supporters are so fanatical, that some 20,000 people as far afield as Vietnam and Iceland have become members of the "Church of Maradona".

But drug use off the pitch marred Maradona's career, and he is now a bloated shadow of his former self, spending much of his time in Cuba, where he is in drug rehabilitation.