Hand of the Devil, Feet of God.
That was Diego Maradona just four minutes apart at the 1986 World Cup, the tournament that made him a football icon.
Two goals epitomised the complicated legacy of Argentina's flawed genius. In a flash, Maradona produced two astonishing acts that transcended sport.
Tied 0-0 early in the second half in the quarter-finals, at Mexico City's Estadio Azteca, Maradona went up to contest the ball against England goalkeeper Peter Shilton. Rather than attacking it with his head, Maradona punched the ball into the net.
The goal stood; the referee had missed a flagrant, cynical handball. It was an outrage that would have been swiftly overturned in the sterile modern day of VAR. Not back then; disbelief reigned.
DIEGO MARADONA DEAD: WORLD MOURNS FOOTBALL ICON
'The Hand of God', it was dubbed. But to England?
"I certainly don't call it the 'Hand of God.' It was the hand of a cheating bastard," England defender Peter Reid wrote in his autobiography.
"From there, he went from the ridiculous to the sublime and scored what I believe is the greatest goal of all time."
Maradona slipped two England players with a wicked turn inside his own half. He commandeered the ball into England territory and cut inside another hapless defender on the right wing. He bamboozled another to enter the area and poor Shilton was again at his mercy.
Maradona rounded the goalkeeper with a deft left foot, then again used his left to stroke the ball into the net, just as an England opponent touched him for the first time on his masterful run, a desperate final lunge that proved in vain. The diminutive No.10 was down only briefly, then ran to the corner flag and leapt into the air in triumph.
It was breathtaking. He took the ball and beat England all by himself, one man vanquishing a confounded nation. Argentina progressed 2-1.
"When Diego scored that second goal against us, I felt like applauding. I'd never felt like that before, but it's true ... and not just because it was such an important game," Gary Lineker, who scored a late consolation goal for England and was the tournament's Golden Boot winner, later said.
"It was impossible to score such a beautiful goal. He's the greatest player of all time, by a long way. A genuine phenomenon."
Maradona again scored a brace in the semi-finals, for a 2-0 win over Belgium. He was heavily man-marked by Lothar Matthaus in the final against West Germany, yet still produced the assist for Jorge Burruchaga's winning goal in a 3-2 victory, breaking the deadlock in the 86th minute.
Maradona was the Golden Ball winner as player of the tournament. Having also scored against Italy in the group stage, he finished with five goals and as many assists.
The way Maradona put that Argentina team on his back made him a national deity. Yet in England at least, his quarter-final antics made him public enemy No.1.
A fight broke out in the tunnel after that game, as Argentina sang their victory songs. England knew they'd been wronged before they were bettered and they were fuming. England defender Terry Butcher went for a rival player and mayhem ensued, with punches thrown in a mass melee.
"No ifs or buts about it," England boss Bobby Robson said post-match.
"Peter Shilton felt deeply aggrieved. He doesn't like to be beaten and it was obvious that Maradona had not got his head to it, but his hand.
"That goal, which should never have been allowed, gave Argentina the edge. It was a bad refereeing decision and you don't expect one like that at World Cup level."
Maradona admitted his deviousness, saying that the goal was scored "a little with Diego's hand and a little with Maradona's head". He also branded the moment "a bit of mischief".
The resentment simmered in many England players. Reid still has nightmares about that game, 34 years later.
"Cheat is a strong word to use in football and players hate it when they are accused of being one, so I do not use it lightly ... but I can say without fear of contradiction that Diego Maradona is a cheat," he wrote.
"He deliberately used foul means to deceive the referee and to damage England unfairly, so how could I see him as anything else?"
England vs Argentina was set against the lingering hostility of the Falklands War, in which about 650 Argentine military personnel and 255 British personnel and several Falkland Islanders died. Maradona later suggested that his win at all costs approach to the quarter-final was inspired by the conflict, won by the British.
"It was our way of recovering 'Las Malvinas'," Maradona wrote in his autobiography.
"It was more than trying to win a game. We said the game had nothing to do with the war. But we knew that Argentines had died there, that they had killed them like birds. And this was our revenge. It was something bigger than us: We were defending our flag."
Reid wasn't buying that excuse.
"Was he really thinking of a disputed territory in the South Atlantic when he led with his hand? Was he f---!" Reid wrote.
"The only thing on his mind was doing whatever it took to score a goal at the World Cup and hope that he got away with it ... It was the hand of a cheating bastard."
Maradona played and lived full throttle. He descended into cocaine scandals and was kicked out of the 1994 World Cup after testing positive to ephedrine. He once fired an air rifle at nosy journalists. He battled with extreme weight gain and other health problems which threatened his life.
He enjoyed friendships with dictators like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Despite being a lifelong Catholic, he once chided Pope John Paul II about the Vatican's golden ceilings, as the Pontiff wrung his hands over children growing up in poverty; as Maradona once did in Buenos Aires.
He was coach for Argentina's 2010 World Cup campaign and regularly blasted reporters and rivals with X-rated tirades. Having had gastric band surgery to control his weight, his health slipped again and he cut a sad figure late in life.
The stately BBC had a noticeable gaffe upon his passing. The broadcaster's initial Twitter post acknowledging his death used a highly unflattering image, rather than one of the megastar in his pomp. It was quickly replaced after backlash.
https://twitter.com/kevmcg25/status/1331643632974225413?s=21Yet for any divisiveness Maradona inspired, his brilliance was undeniable. He could make a football talk and his passion for the game was white hot.
Beyond the heroics for Argentina and Napoli, it was the simple genius that made him the most revered player of his generation. The trick shots. The turns. The touches.
And of course, the trademark warm-up routines. Watching Maradona play with the football pre-game was worth the price of admission alone.
As Lineker explained on BT Sport after Maradona's death, his control of the football was otherwordly. He did on a whim things that other elite professionals found impossible. Even the English players who he so deeply wounded had to admire his mastery.
Lineker recalled a particular display, before a 1987 match between a Football League XI and a Rest of the World XI. Maradona had his Rest of the World teammates, including fellow icons like Michel Platini, "totally in awe of him".
"The first thing he did was in the dressing room. He just sat there, just in a pair of shorts," Lineker said.
"And you know how you roll your socks up? He just stood there and he juggled them on his left foot, for about five minutes, and everyone was going, 'Ooooh!'
"Then we went out on the pitch and he did something that was incredible, one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen on a football pitch.
"He juggled the ball all the way out to the centre circle, he got to the centre circle still juggling it, then he went 'bang'. He whacked it as high as he possible could and he waited. It came down and he went 'bang' and he did it again.
"He did it 13 times and the most he ever did was walk three paces to it. All of us were just sitting there going, 'Oh my God, that's impossible'.
"I remember going to training the next day at Barcelona and we all tried it. The best anyone did was three - and they were running for the third one.
"I've just never seen anyone have just such a beautiful affection with a football."
Even after that, Maradona's every touch was booed by the 61,000 fans at Wembley. The venom of those jeers was perhaps was gone, but his villainy had not been forgiven.
Yet while Maradona may have been a pantomime villain in England, the rogue element of his personality endeared him to many others. He was laden with human foibles, ranging from relatable indiscretions to the spectacularly self-destructive.
"Everyone is sad in the game, right around the world. There are literally hundreds of millions of people who loved Diego," former Socceroo Craig Foster told TODAY on Thursday after Maradona's passing.
"He was a flawed figure and that's why he was very much the people's champion. He came from the slums on the outskirts of Buenos Aires to become perhaps the greatest player that ever lived.
"We say that his left foot was touched by God; he had a gift which we hadn't seen before. He brought so much to joy to so many people but of course, he had so many controversial moments and challenges off the field, whether it was drugs or with the law or with authorities.
"That's why he's seen as the people's champion, not just of Argentina but of people around the world, who saw him as someone who represented them. Coming from nothing, going to the very top and taking on the system.
"He fought with FIFA for many years, he never became allured by the game itself. I think that's one reason why so many of us love him."
So how large will the 'Hand of God' moment loom in Maradona's legacy? For better or worse, it was pure Diego; as was the mesmerising goal that followed.
"The Hand of God was Diego, that was him," Foster said.
"Because what people forget is it became so infamous that only four minutes later, he scored perhaps the greatest goal in World Cup history; they called it the Goal of the Century.
"That was the two sides to Diego and that's why people loved him. He was representing Argentina, it was around that time when the Falklands was an issue and so it was hugely politically-charged.
"That was the two sides of his character, that made him both controversial and extraordinarily brilliant.
"He went on in Napoli and did the same thing. Everywhere he went, he was successful but his leadership of that team in 1986 to take Argentina to that World Cup... in the final he was quite brilliant, that ball for Burruchaga for the winning goal against West Germany ... they're wonderful memories for all of us who really grew up with Diego."
As Maradona himself put it: "I'm black or white. I'll never be grey in my life."
And so it was, until the end.
from WWOS https://wwos.nine.com.au/football/diego-maradona-hand-of-god-goal-argentina-england-1986-world-cup-legacy/c34c5da1-5503-40f6-9cfe-2991e6f25993
0 Comments