I watched this game live in 1986... the atmosphere that day, in that heat and altitude they had to play in, even on the little 14" TV we had in our house was palpable. There was something about the quality of the colors, the weather, the camera work, even to this day you can distinguish the video from the '86 World Cup at a glance of just a couple of seconds. It still brings back such amazing memories from my childhood - even though we lost. I collected the Panini World Cup stickers religiously and put them all carefully in the sticker album. I was heartbroken to be knocked out by someone I considered to be a massive cheat, but even so, I can't take away from the brilliance of this goal. It was an incredible run. He deserved the goal. I wish I could've said they deserved the game without feeling that tinge of bitterness.
This goal was incredible, but with many years passed, it has faded in significance for me. Not sure why, if it is because the game has evolved, or I have seen many other great goals, or something else. But probably because I think the defense was too passive. This goal would not be done today, most probably.
I may be mistaken, but I believe this is also the 'Gardel Lives!' goal. A radio announcer got a bit excited and started shouting 'Gardel Viva!' into the broadcast for a good while.
Carlos Gardel, the Gardel shouted out, was a the best of all Tango singers and an Argentine legend/national hero [0], dying at 44 in a plane crash. Think someone on the same level as Elvis was to the US.
Sorry that I can't find the broadcast recording of that goal though!
You underestimate the love people across the world have for Argentina's football team.
I am from Kerala, India, and here is an article that might help paint the picture: https://bit.ly/33iRqnp .
Also, among many people who are not football fans, Maradona and Pele are the two names they'd know. Check out the crowds at this public event in India when Maradona visited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIdwEZ31tTg
And I also didn't expect everyone abroad to respect Diego so much in this day and age. I think with his passing I'm getting to experience something that my generation has never experienced before, which is a glimpse into how the international community respects a part of Argentinian culture that is not grilled meat or Patagonia.
My heart is also kinda warmed by the fact he left us the same day Fidel did.
I'll represent the other, unpopular side: the man did as much if not more damage than all the glory he had.
As a footballer his career was finished pretty much 30 years ago. He left the '94 World Cup testing positive for drugs in what was a national embarrassment. His career as a manager was a disaster that existed purely off his prior fame. It's an embarrassment that we are unable to move on past things that happened four decades ago.
As a human being, he lacked morals, never recognized his uncountable illegitimate children, had no care for his body or self beyond the most infantile of desires, and his irrelevant words on a myriad topics were taken as gospel in an astounding display of hypocrisy.
I did not live to see his plays in the 80s. I remember his infamy of the 90s, along with the infamy of many, many public figures of Argentina of that time (along with the coked-up failure of a president Menem and the parade of similarly dubious public figures, all good friends of his too).
I remember being in elementary and my classmates emulating, respecting and excusing the horrible aspects of his character, and I certainly remember how that made dents in the morals of a generation that excused cheating as long as it got results done.
Having later on lived in more developed countries where that stuff just didn't fly, I'll go out on a limb and ascribe at least part of the failures of Latin America to these kinds of attitudes.
I was in Spain, and Maradona played there while he was not yet the shadow of himself that became later.
Lots of people admired this man but when he started doing stupid things like being totally drunk and stoned on public, most people stopped admiring him in all places but in Argentina.
I traveled to places like Bariloche and specially Buenos Aires for a very sort time,a month or so, and I could not understand almost the deity that such a bad example represented there.
But then an Argentinian friend explained it to me: You do not understand. It was because of the Malvinas, the English, Maradona represented something like a general that won over the same that defeated and humiliated us and so on...
And then it made sense. I had not made the connection before that.
And yes I agree with you that South America in general follows terrible role models. Places like Colombia or Venezuela look like paradise and are extremely wealthy but then the environment is Hell.
It is very interesting that Argentina and Chile are somewhat like the US and Europe but in reverse, the more to the South you go, the more serious people are, only that there is less and less people and land there to become significant.
I don't disagree with you. But it is not like first world countries are inmune. Just look at a current president whose lies, cheating and incompetence are inexplicably excused by 70 million first world voters.
A love/hate relationship with the English who I seem to remember voted the infamous Hand of God goal the worst, and the same match's blistering run and finish against them the best ever.
That match was played in 1986, just 4 years after the Falklands short war between Argentina and England, and it was the first time the two national teams met after that war. For those involved it meant a lot more than a football match.
RIP Dieguito. I saw him at least a couple times live at the stadium in the 80s; he was out of this world.
I have a team mate from Argentina here in London. We were talking about Maradona a few weeks back.
I thought when talking about him that if he showed up in London, there would be a mob around him, but it would be 50% people wanting his signature and selfies, and the other 50% would want to give him a piece of their mind about the Hand of God goal.
He probably wouldn't have been safe in London. As a Man City supporter, I know my estimation of Aguero was dinted a little when I found out he was Maradona's son-in-law.
Why? I remember that handball goal (it was not "the hand of god", it was deliberate handball), as being the moment in my childhood that I realised I could not trust some adults. Some adults - it became clear to me then - were dishonest. Even if they were brilliant, talented and otherwise seemingly worthy of respect, they were capable of cheating and not caring. To a young child (I was approaching my 8th birthday at the time), that was shocking to the core, and I cried, not just at England losing the game but that he - and an entire team, an entire country of adults - had cheated and felt fine with it.
Part of my childhood ended with that goal. I know I'm not alone.
I would have been in the group wanting a selfie though.
The parody "Church of Maradona" (yes, this is a thing!), or Maradonian Church might mark today as a black day, year 60 DD "Después de Diego" or "after Diego" ...
Poor Maradona holds the record for suffering the most number of fouls in a World Cup – 53, during the 1986 World Cup. He has a tattoo of Che Guevara on his arm, and a portrait of Fidel Castro tattooed on his left leg.-
Controversial figure, certainly to be missed by many ...
He had complete mastery of the ball. When Maradona ran with the ball or dribbled through the defence, he seemed to have the ball tied to his boots.
Discovered at the age of 8, the scouts asked for an ID, thinking they were being had. He played like an adult. Like very few adults, even then.-
Here's someone born with a special gift, of which he gave freely - and, expensively - twice the record holder for the most expensive transfer ever ...
Imagine if we had this silly VAR technology in the 80s. Then one of the most iconic moments in football history (hand of god) would have been reviewed and dismissed.
It's iconic because it was controversial but he got away with it, also because he was anyway a truly exceptional player. First thing that comes to mind being his other goal in the same match.
But otherwise using the hand to score a goal in football is not that much different from using a cheat device installed in a race car, taking an illegal shortcut in a marathon, or even performance enhancing drugs. Without drug testing many iconic wins wouldn't have been reviewed and dismissed.
Unpopular opinion: He was a gifted footballer but was a total piece of shit in nearly all other aspects of life including abusing women and minors, to say nothing of his complete lack of sportsmanship on the pitch.
I hate that this guy gets lionized. To me it just underlines everything wrong with football.
It wasn’t just a big match. Just four years after the war in the south Atlantic, it was perhaps the biggest international match in the brief history of international matches.
to see how legendary this man was, you just have to watch Maradona, the HBO documentary. which is also arguably one of the best sports documentaries. He was a polarizing figure no doubt, but this man won Argentina the world cup single-handed. ahh see the pun. he also made napoli a backwater team into the powerhouse it is today. n remember most of the matches he won, he was high on coke i.e not playing at his full potential.
Maradona’s documentary on HBO is excellent and really captures how incredibly far his talent was. Not just an outlier. Completely out of this world. He basically won a World Cup by himself.
RIP :( I'm playing this now in his memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0KCbZ7L17I . He's the greatest footballer that I had the chance to watch, and I consider myself lucky for that. Probably nobody will come again to that level, the game and the spirit of the game has changed too much for that to happen.
For many personal reasons I wont mention here Maradona was a real source of joy for me (something sadly not too common in life). Descansa en paz Dieguito querido, nunca se te escapo la tortuga.
[+] [-] gus_massa|5 years ago|reply
Original footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wVho3I0NtU
An interview many years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOz2uGMTA2w
[+] [-] balabaster|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jgwil2|5 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ccNkksrfls
[+] [-] mongol|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2012|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmsleight_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Balgair|5 years ago|reply
Carlos Gardel, the Gardel shouted out, was a the best of all Tango singers and an Argentine legend/national hero [0], dying at 44 in a plane crash. Think someone on the same level as Elvis was to the US.
Sorry that I can't find the broadcast recording of that goal though!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Gardel
[+] [-] ramgorur|5 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLVmBJEzXhk
[+] [-] solids|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crncosta|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snake_plissken|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fishtacos|5 years ago|reply
Following Pelé, of course.
A trip down memory lane... RiP.
His best goals (according to YT): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XegYZ8y3xMY&ab_channel=FIFAT...
[+] [-] zuppy|5 years ago|reply
Everybody was collecting them. What a shame he wasted such an amazing talent with drugs.
I’m a little sad that one of my childhood heroes is gone.
Hasta siempre, Diego Armando Maradona!
[+] [-] elvis70|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] santiagobasulto|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mavelikara|5 years ago|reply
I am from Kerala, India, and here is an article that might help paint the picture: https://bit.ly/33iRqnp .
Also, among many people who are not football fans, Maradona and Pele are the two names they'd know. Check out the crowds at this public event in India when Maradona visited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIdwEZ31tTg
RIP.
[+] [-] codegeek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvarangot|5 years ago|reply
My heart is also kinda warmed by the fact he left us the same day Fidel did.
[+] [-] esalman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrleinad|5 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/QueenWillRock/status/1331645705392451590
[+] [-] jonwinstanley|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] vermontdevil|5 years ago|reply
Diego.
[+] [-] pyman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Daishiman|5 years ago|reply
As a footballer his career was finished pretty much 30 years ago. He left the '94 World Cup testing positive for drugs in what was a national embarrassment. His career as a manager was a disaster that existed purely off his prior fame. It's an embarrassment that we are unable to move on past things that happened four decades ago.
As a human being, he lacked morals, never recognized his uncountable illegitimate children, had no care for his body or self beyond the most infantile of desires, and his irrelevant words on a myriad topics were taken as gospel in an astounding display of hypocrisy.
I did not live to see his plays in the 80s. I remember his infamy of the 90s, along with the infamy of many, many public figures of Argentina of that time (along with the coked-up failure of a president Menem and the parade of similarly dubious public figures, all good friends of his too).
I remember being in elementary and my classmates emulating, respecting and excusing the horrible aspects of his character, and I certainly remember how that made dents in the morals of a generation that excused cheating as long as it got results done.
Having later on lived in more developed countries where that stuff just didn't fly, I'll go out on a limb and ascribe at least part of the failures of Latin America to these kinds of attitudes.
[+] [-] pritovido|5 years ago|reply
I was in Spain, and Maradona played there while he was not yet the shadow of himself that became later.
Lots of people admired this man but when he started doing stupid things like being totally drunk and stoned on public, most people stopped admiring him in all places but in Argentina.
I traveled to places like Bariloche and specially Buenos Aires for a very sort time,a month or so, and I could not understand almost the deity that such a bad example represented there.
But then an Argentinian friend explained it to me: You do not understand. It was because of the Malvinas, the English, Maradona represented something like a general that won over the same that defeated and humiliated us and so on...
And then it made sense. I had not made the connection before that.
And yes I agree with you that South America in general follows terrible role models. Places like Colombia or Venezuela look like paradise and are extremely wealthy but then the environment is Hell.
It is very interesting that Argentina and Chile are somewhat like the US and Europe but in reverse, the more to the South you go, the more serious people are, only that there is less and less people and land there to become significant.
[+] [-] corpMaverick|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msapaydin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mellosouls|5 years ago|reply
Incredible talent, flawed man.
[+] [-] squarefoot|5 years ago|reply
RIP Dieguito. I saw him at least a couple times live at the stadium in the 80s; he was out of this world.
[+] [-] PaulRobinson|5 years ago|reply
I thought when talking about him that if he showed up in London, there would be a mob around him, but it would be 50% people wanting his signature and selfies, and the other 50% would want to give him a piece of their mind about the Hand of God goal.
He probably wouldn't have been safe in London. As a Man City supporter, I know my estimation of Aguero was dinted a little when I found out he was Maradona's son-in-law.
Why? I remember that handball goal (it was not "the hand of god", it was deliberate handball), as being the moment in my childhood that I realised I could not trust some adults. Some adults - it became clear to me then - were dishonest. Even if they were brilliant, talented and otherwise seemingly worthy of respect, they were capable of cheating and not caring. To a young child (I was approaching my 8th birthday at the time), that was shocking to the core, and I cried, not just at England losing the game but that he - and an entire team, an entire country of adults - had cheated and felt fine with it.
Part of my childhood ended with that goal. I know I'm not alone.
I would have been in the group wanting a selfie though.
[+] [-] trianglem|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bulutsuzku|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] edwardor|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riffraff|5 years ago|reply
To this day you can see representations of him all over the city, he was almost as revered as a local Saint, possibly more.
It's a pity the city is "off" due to COVID19, I would expect some big celebrations.
[+] [-] Bluestein|5 years ago|reply
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iglesia_Maradoniana
Poor Maradona holds the record for suffering the most number of fouls in a World Cup – 53, during the 1986 World Cup. He has a tattoo of Che Guevara on his arm, and a portrait of Fidel Castro tattooed on his left leg.-
Controversial figure, certainly to be missed by many ...
He had complete mastery of the ball. When Maradona ran with the ball or dribbled through the defence, he seemed to have the ball tied to his boots.
Discovered at the age of 8, the scouts asked for an ID, thinking they were being had. He played like an adult. Like very few adults, even then.-
Here's someone born with a special gift, of which he gave freely - and, expensively - twice the record holder for the most expensive transfer ever ...
A life well lived. RIP.-
[+] [-] aloukissas|5 years ago|reply
RIP Diegito
[+] [-] buran77|5 years ago|reply
But otherwise using the hand to score a goal in football is not that much different from using a cheat device installed in a race car, taking an illegal shortcut in a marathon, or even performance enhancing drugs. Without drug testing many iconic wins wouldn't have been reviewed and dismissed.
[+] [-] soneca|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ofdw|5 years ago|reply
I hate that this guy gets lionized. To me it just underlines everything wrong with football.
[+] [-] brudgers|5 years ago|reply
It wasn’t just a big match. Just four years after the war in the south Atlantic, it was perhaps the biggest international match in the brief history of international matches.
[+] [-] dzonga|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whoisjuan|5 years ago|reply
Really recommend it to anyone interested.
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|5 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iglesia_Maradoniana
This is a video about it by Vice: https://youtu.be/knRo_1xrJ2A
They perform baptisms and marriages. Members usually use Diego for their children's first or middle names.
They also spell "god" as "d10s" (dios + 10, where 10 is Diego's jersey number).
There are many songs dedicated to him, such as https://youtu.be/EAk-l1VHzBw
...and a museum, I think.
Maradona's immortal play is "el gol del siglo": https://youtu.be/jOz2uGMTA2w
The atmosphere during that match was pretty tense since Argentina and England had an armed conflict 4 years prior, the Falklands War.
[+] [-] andy_ppp|5 years ago|reply
The atmosphere in the crowd and the skills without his boots tied up.
[+] [-] paganel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cambalache|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edgarvaldes|5 years ago|reply
https://hernancasciari.com/blog/10_6_segundos
[+] [-] aazaa|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_hand_of_God
and watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ccNkksrfls
On second thought, this was probably a hack of sorts.