Argentine icon enjoyed plenty of highs and lows in amazing career — encapsulated in five minutes on June 22, 1986
IT WAS the day we saw the sublime and the revolting from football’s most controversial player ever.
June 22, 1986. Thirty years on from England’s infamous World Cup quarter-final defeat to Argentina, where Diego Maradona took centre stage.
As well as a football rivalry — which had been spawned 20 years earlier — this clash came just four years after the Falklands War.
England beat Argentina in the last eight on the way to 1966 World Cup success in a bad tempered affair, which saw Antonio Rattin sent off and Three Lions boss Sir Alf Ramsey call the South Americans “animals” and stopped his players from swapping shirts with their opponents at full-time.
But things had changed in two subsequent decades.
Argentinian superstars, Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa had joined Tottenham.
But Maradona — the world’s most expensive player TWICE — was the clear dangerman.
He had been controversially left out of Argentina’s 1978 World Cup-winning squad, and was sent off four years later in Spain.
Maradona came to Mexico with a point to prove.
A Gary Lineker-inspired England recovered from a slow start to blow Poland and Paraguay away, while Argentina finished top of a group which contained world champions Italy before beating Uruguay.
Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium was packed with 114,000 fans to watch the international heavyweights battle for a place in the last-four.
Peter Shilton kept England in the game as Argentina dominated the first half.
But it was six minutes after the interval that the game sprung to life thanks to the ‘Hand of God’.
Maradona received the ball just inside the England half, before whizzing past Glenn Hoddle.
He runs at the Three Lions defence and tries a one-two with Jorge Valdano — only for Steve Hodge to intercept the return pass.
However, the Aston Villa man’s attempted clearance/ pass back to Shilton loops up towards the six-yard box and Maradona, with his left fist tucked in behind his head, rose up to beat the England goalkeeper to the punch.
The Napoli man immediately wheeled away in celebration, urging his team-mates to join him and fool referee, Al Bin Nasser, that all was well.
Terry Fenwick led the English protests, but the Tunisian official awarded the goal.
Maradona showed just why he was considered the best player in the world just four minutes later as he scored the ‘goal of the century’.
His influence all over the pitch was in evidence as this time he received the ball inside his own half.
Maradona swivelled, and ran at the England side.
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