BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Diego Maradona left a medical clinic on Wednesday, four days after he underwent a stomach operation to help trim his ballooning waistline.
Maradona, 44, is expected to recover at a luxury apartment in the seaside resort of Cartagena with his sister Rita for about three weeks.
"Diego is in splendid condition," Francisco Holguin, a doctor at the Cartagena clinic where the surgery took place, told The Associated Press.
"The post-operative process is going very well and we will be checking on him every day."
Maradona will be kept on a diet of liquid foods for about 15 days before being given something more substantial to eat.
The former World Cup hero became unrecognizably obese in recent years as he struggled to overcome cocaine addiction at a clinic in Cuba.
His personal doctor, Alfredo Cahe, said Maradona was ready to open a new chapter.
"He has great hopes to start a new life, we are all optimistic," Cahe said. "He really wants to erase the past."
Maradona also sent a signed football to President Alvaro Uribe.
"For Alvaro, a tireless worker, with all my affection, Diego," read the message on the ball.
Uribe is known for putting in long hours as he tries to bring order to a country wracked by a 40-year-old Marxist insurgency and drug trafficking.
The surgery, also called gastric bypass, aims to reduce his weight by 50 kilograms (110 pounds) within a year. Before the operation, the 1.68-meter (5-foot-6) Argentine weighed 121 kilograms (266 pounds).
In 2000, FIFA chose Maradona and Pele as the sport's greatest players. In his 20-year career, Maradona led Argentina to the World Cup title in 1986 and the final in 1990.