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Diego Maradona scored greater than 300 targets, many touched with genius, however the two most well-known got here inside 4 minutes of one another on June 22, 1986 in Mexico: one was voted Goal of the Century, the opposite is much more well-known. Diego Maradona and Argentina arrived at that World Cup with one thing to show. Four years earlier in Spain, the Argentine’s first World Cup had ended with early elimination and a crimson card for a spectacular foul towards Brazil.
In Mexico, Argentina cruised by way of their group, edged previous previous enemies Uruguay within the final 16 after which confronted England, an enemy of a distinct variety, within the quarter-finals on the huge Azteca Stadium.
Maradona has given repeated accounts of that match: in his autobiography ‘Maradona’; in a e-book with Argentine journalist Daniel Arcucci on that World Cup known as ‘Touched by God’, and in interviews. The language could also be roughly vibrant, however the particulars stay the identical.
Maradona remembered the humiliation of the Falklands War — over the British-owned archipelago within the South Atlantic identified in Spanish because the ‘Malvinas’ — 4 years earlier, when Argentina surrendered to the British shortly after the beginning of the World Cup in Spain.
“It was England, let’s not forget, and the ‘Malvinas’ were fresh in the memory,” he stated. “It was a battle, yes, but on my battlefield.”
The first half was cagey.
“I was bored stiff,” his team-mate Jorge Valdano wrote in The Guardian 20 years later. “Eleven functionaries on each side trying not to make a mistake.”
That modified within the 51st minute. Maradona beat three males in midfield. Finding his approach blocked, he pinged a move to Valdano and set off in anticipation of a return.
Steve Hodge stole the ball. The back-pass to the goalkeeper was nonetheless authorized and that is what the England midfielder tried.
“The ball bounced nice,” he stated later. “I caught it absolutely spot on. It was the contact I wanted, looping it back with a bit of dip. When I caught it, I didn’t have a moment’s thought that it could be a problem, because I didn’t know where Maradona was.”
“Jumped like a frog”
Maradona, as regular, was considering quicker than anybody else and racing towards aim as Peter Shilton superior to catch the ball.
“It floated down to me like a little balloon. Oh boy, what a treat,” stated Maradona.
“Shilton thought I was going to hit him. But I jumped like a frog.”
Maradona was some seven inches (18cm) shorter than the England goalkeeper.
“If you look at my feet, you’ll see that I’m already in the air, moving upward. I keep moving up, and he hasn’t even left the ground,” Maradona stated. “I got an idea, to put my hand and my head in.”
Maradona’s left hand flicked the ball between Shilton’s open arms and into the aim.
“The one who realised what happened was (Terry) Fenwick,” stated Maradona. “But apart from him, nothing, no one else.”
When the England defender appealed, the BBC commentator, Barry Davies, assumed it was for offside. Even the celebration was a part of Maradona’s deception.
“I kept on running, never looking back,” he stated.
Argentina supervisor Carlos Bilardo had forbidden midfielders to waste power operating to affix celebrations. Maradona waved his team-mates towards him.
“This time, I needed them. I really did.
“(Sergio) ‘Checho’ Batista was the primary one to come back over, however slowly.
“He asked me: ‘Did you use your hand?’ I told him ‘Shut the fuck up and keep celebrating!’ We were still afraid they would disallow the goal.”
“As a kid in Fiorito I would score goals with my hand all the time. And I did the same thing in front of a hundred thousand people, but no one saw it,” he stated.
Tunisian referee Ali Bin Nasser checked out Bulgarian linesman Bogdan Dochev after which gave the aim.
“All they saw was the screaming after I had scored. And if they screamed that loud, it was because they were sure I had scored. So how could we possibly blame the Tunisian ref?”
Maradona says his different handball targets included a number of in Argentina and two for Napoli.
He stated that after in Argentina, “many years before Mexico”, he was caught and the referee “advised me not to do it anymore; I thanked him, but also told him I couldn’t promise him anything. I imagine he was celebrating like crazy against England.”
“Stealing from a thief”
Maradona got here up with the phrase ‘Hand of God’ on the post-match press convention.
“At first, I kept saying that I had headed it in. I don’t know, I was scared that since I was still in the stadium, they might disallow the goal. What did I know?
“In passing I stated to somebody, ‘It was Maradona’s head and God’s hand’.”
Hodge exchanged shirts at the end, but other English players remain less forgiving.
“Shilton did get mad,” said Maradona. “He stated, ‘I’m not going to ask Maradona to my testimonial. Ha! Who needs to go to a testimonial for a goalie?”
Four minutes later, Maradona ran more than half the length of the field, beat six England players and scored the Goal of the Century. It was also the match-winner.
But his first goal, athletic, cunning and illegal, remains the more discussed.
“We should not neglect that we have been Argentinians, representatives of a rustic that rationalises with the phrase ‘exuberance’ what somewhere else is known as dishonest,” wrote Valdano.
Maradona remained unrepentant.
“Of course, it was not the Hand of God. It was me.
Promoted
“I am not sorry for scoring with my hand. Not sorry at all!
“For me, it was like stealing from a thief.”
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