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.
The heat? I live in Mexico City, it's basically never hot here. That game was on June 22, and according to WolframAlpha that day had a high of 15C. I don't know if that data is accurate, but I can tell you a high of 15C in June is plausible. Even if Wolfram's data is sketchy, I'd bet the high temperature on that day was somewhere between 15C and 25C.
That depends on what you mean by hot: the highest temperature ever recorded in Mexico City is 38C, so my friends from northern Mexico and from, say, Arizona would say that no, Mexico City does not have even a day or two when it gets hot. (Of course, 38C is probably much too hot for comfort if you are playing football.)
But back to June 22, 1986.
I'm pretty sure the Mexican national weather service knows exactly how hot it was on June 22, 1986 in Mexico City, but unfortunately their website doesn't seem to have day-by-day data available for download (at least not that far back). I did find a table of monthly average high temperatures [1], and for June 1986 in Mexico City (see "Distrito Federal" in the table) the average high temperature was 23.6C. The Weather Underground says that on June 22, 1986 the highest temperature was 75F [2], which is 23.9C. (Why doesn't the Weather Underground default to Celsius for visitors from Mexico?)
So it looks like I would have won my (very conservative) bet that the temperature was somewhere between 15C and 25C that day.
> Maybe the TV commentator said it was a hot day.
This is definitely possible!
1. The commentator could have assumed that because the game was in Mexico it would be hot! This happens all the time. I have explained to dozens of people that Mexico City doesn't really get hot, most are surprised. Of course, when I remind them Mexico City is at an altitude of 2.2km they usually believe me about the lack of heat.
2. The commentator could have known it was 25C and still thought that was hot for a football match.
I'm watching the game right now on BBC Sport, the one with English commentators (Emlyn Hughes, Terry Venables etc). All the fans are wearing short sleeve t-shirt, this indicates that the temperature is between 20C-24C. Mexicans are very sensitive to cold, so most of them wear jumpers when it's below 20C.
What's your definition of "being a cheat" in football? Let me remind you that kicking Maradona during a match, trying to break his legs so he can no longer play, is cheating. Punching, pushing, hurting someone on purpose is cheating. Even one of the BBC commentators, Emlyn Hughes, said during the England vs Argentina match: "Oh, that was awful. He deserves a red car. Oh well, looks like we got away with it".
And yes, scoring a goal with your hand is also cheating. Did Maradona scored a goal with his hand? Yes. Did the English team kick and hurt Maradona the entire match. Yes, I saw it with my own eyes.
This is why FIFA invented the concept of Fair Play, to stop players from kicking and hurting others. And why they invented the VAR, to stop them from scoring goals with their hand.
For me, Emlyn Hughes International Soccer is the best football game from the 80s. Was released 2 years after Maradona scored the Goal of the Century against England. I remember that Emlyn Hughes was one of the commentators.
I recall watching it at my granny and grandad's house down in Devon. One of the dogs pissed on the TV aerial, which was run up a rubber plant. The colours went a bit odd after that and there was a bit more static on the screen. The game was electric.
Maradona's contribution for the Argies was absolutely awesome. He had style, class, aggression, a massive swagger and an incredible situation awareness. There were another 22 people on the pitch that day but:
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.
It's more than the play itself. It's the context. A world cup game (on of the best in recent decades at that), an Argentina x England after a war which precipitated massive change in Argentina, the whole atmosphere around that match. Then the hand of god, then that goal. It will be a legend remembered for centuries to come, in the memory and folklore of Argentinians especially, and of football lovers everywhere.
Scoring against Getafe is not comparable to scoring against England in a world cup, specially when it is Argentina against England (in a game England invented) only a few years against the Falklands war. It's a great goal by Messi, but Maradona's goal has a place in history books.
> Records trace the history of soccer back more than 2,000 years ago to ancient China. Greece, Rome, and parts of Central America also claim to have started the sport; but it was England that transitioned soccer, or what the British and many other people around the world call “football,” into the game we know today.
In short: everyone lays claim to kicking around a ball, but England invented the modern game
When people talk about "the modern game", I think most would agree we're talking about passing to players running into a better position further up the pitch
The first rules established in England allowed no such thing. Forward passes were still not permitted (like Rugby). It was in Scotland where the offside rule that loosely resembles what it is today was actually invented, allowing players to spread themselves a bit more around the pitch.
My understanding is that kicking something about with the aim of getting it somewhere or other existed in lots of different places, independently. The modern, codified game more or less resembling what we have today was invented in England.
Amazingly similar. I think it is better. Notice how the player that chases him does not slow the pace, but pushes on until he makes a failed attempt to break the play. Speed seems faster too. A good illustration of evolution of the game. Of course, we don't know if Maradona would still have scored with more effort from the English defense, maybe he would. In any case, two great goals.
I dont know if you have played football or are a fan, but the context is a great part of the difficulty of a goal, not only were his opponents better the stakes were sky-high. Players who regularly score in a normal game freeze when the do-or-die time comes. For all his brilliance Messi has never scored a goal in a decisive game in a WC, Maradona scored 4 in 2 games in 1986.
And there was that moment Messi skied a penalty kick in ... what was it, the Copa América final? He announced his retirement the day after. Of course, retracted.
I was in a random bar in Barcelona when Ronaldo scored a hat trick to come back against Wolfsburg in the CL. For a Madrid fan, it was amazingly juicy. A little old lady started dancing the flamenco to taunt a table of young lads.
True, but remember that in the 80s the rules were different and players did not hesitate to tackle opponents. Also Maradona had to be more careful against England in a World Cup match than Messi playing against Getafe.
A few years afterwards, the game began speeding up. The goal is from an earlier era. Before the backpassing was outlawed. Before tactical fouls earned a yellow card. Before hacking fell out of the game. One of the remarkable features of the goal is that he avoided being pulled/pushed/kicked down by any of the defenders.
Another remarkable feature is that it happened at 2200m, in July, with 1986 air quality. Futbol in Mexico still looks different because so much of it is played at altitude...and so much of European futbol is played near sea level.
Hopefully, its most remarkable feature will never be surpassed: massive geopolitical significance in the wake of the war in the south Atlantic.
> One of the remarkable features of the goal is that he avoided being pulled/pushed/kicked down by any of the defenders
100%! The 80s was an era of defensive brutality, when horrendos tackles from behind were allowed. Tricky dribblers like Maradona were routinely hacked down. Even Emlyn Hughes said during the England vs Argentina match: "Oh, that was awful tackle by Terry Fenwick. He deserves a red car. Oh well, looks like he got away with it".
The fact it was during an eliminatory game of World Cup (that Argentina ended up winning) matters a lot to the importance and beauty of this goal. There are not many opportunities in a player life to do such a thing (unlike national league or even continental league matches)
That is certainly true. But there is a World cup every four years and in most cups in the past, let's say, 20 years, there is an eliminatory game with an equally great or greater goal. I think this goal has become legendary because of:
- Maradona's dominance as a player throughout the -86 cup
- The Falkland Islands war just a few years prior giving this game a special tension and attention
- It's beauty relative other goals at the time
My comment is just a reflection to often heard comments about it being the greatest goal ever. Judging it just by what the clip shows, it has faded for me. But the historical context is important.
The defense is not passive but the football field was very soft and it's hard to run around to play football on it. This is according to Gary Lineker, England forward who was playing in the tournament. The bad condition favours Maradona who's accustomed to play in bad field condition.
If you ran for a few meters and tried to control a ball at your feet, you'd understand somewhat. Even that is extremely difficult to do well- shifting the ball and keeping it under control of your feet and away from defenders.
Now try to imagine people trying to hack you down (totally normal defending back then) and tugging your shirt, in the blazing heat, at altitude, against a team that humiliated your country in a war a few years earlier...and instead you waltz around all of them, make them look amateurish, and knock them out of the biggest sports tournament on the planet at a sport they invented.
Nicely put me old fruit. Sadly we have managed to make a habit of that. For example the "death of English cricket" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/23241494 is why the Ashes exist.
Soccer is not grid iron, nor is it rugby but back in the day, defence could be quite a bit more robust than it is now. Footie players are not built like the second row and if you happen to apply six studs (cleats I think for the left pondians) at speed to the side of someone's knee then it will not end well.
If you look carefully, you will notice that Maradona doesn't simply whizz around defenders: he completely humiliates our boys by finding space and making the ball go there with him. The bloody thing is attached to his toe when he needs it to be so and then he simply flicks it into the net, almost as an afterthought. He barely looks at it - he know where it is because he has told it to be there.
So the importance of this goal was that Maradona dribbled pas almost the whole England team single highhandedly and humiliated them, restoring the pride of a nation (Argentina) who lost a war (Falklands War) before this to England.
Argentina did not loose the war, that's what Brits don't understand, a facist dictator lost the war. You see, in 1982 my family and the entire country was at war with an Argentinean dictator, when suddenly Margaret Tatcher, an unpopular Prime Minister at that time, saw the opportunity and instead of de-escalating the tension between UK and the dictator, she decided to go to war with him. What the media didn't tell the Brits is that Argentina was already at war and fighting for democracy. For that reason, Argentine people felt betrayed by England. Both countries were close friends for more than 100 years, since 1810 when Britain and Argentina signed a treaty of friendship proposed by Woodbine Parish. His cousin, John P. Robertson, was a good friend of General San Martin. Argentina and England had 2 enemies in common: Spain and France. Both countries were allies until the beginning of world war 2, when General Perón became a good friend of Mussolini. The dictators and facists Videla a Galtieri went to war with the UK, US and NATO. There was no democracy in Argentina, no government and diplomats to stop the war. It was an illegal war because it was not approved by the Congress and Senate. The fact that Maradona scored an "illegal" goal against the Brits was seen as a revenge for loosing a war that no one wanted to fight, except for Tatcher.
I was alive at the time, in the UK (not England). Everyone knew the war was not with the Argentinian people. Also Maradona became a hero in our house for defeating England[1].
It was a bit late to de-escalate after the islands had been invaded. Do you really think Galtieri would have gone for any kind of political settlement that would have seen troops withdrawn or islands returned? The whole thing was his Hail Mary exercise to stay in power. I seem to recall US SoS Haig tried pretty hard to fix things.
The big mistakes by the Brits were made beforehand by not taking seriously the noises being made by the junta, when there might have been a chance to contain things.
It’s very sad that what was once a strong relationship between the two nations went downhill with Peron and since then the islands / evil Brits theme gets rolled out to distract from internal issues.
The Argentine people have certainly suffered appallingly under dictators and poor leadership.
And yes, without the sentiment that followed winning back the islands Thatcher and her then future would probably have played out very differently, but don’t doubt that there was very strong support in the UK at large for the recovery of the islands.
> It was a bit late to de-escalate after the islands had been invaded.
According to my family, a bunch of people, probably fisherman or metallurgic workers, raised a flag in one of the island (we don't know why) and then Galtieri sent some troops to protect these people. When the fascists arrived to the islands, they were hostile to the residents. And then hell broke loose, and Galtieri was at war with the UK, US and NATO. A complete lunatic. Once the war started, the propaganda machinery took over. People fighting the dictator didn't want this war, but knew very well it would weaken the Military junta.
> Do you really think Galtieri would have gone for any kind of political settlement
No. The ERP (People's Revolutionary Army) and Montoneros were fighting against Galtieri, in the streets of Buenos Aires, so the Military Junta needed a distraction. However, my mom always said that the only person who could stop that war was Lady Di. She was very popular in Argentina, people used to compare her with Evita. Maybe my mom was wrong, she was a bit of dreamer after all.
> The big mistakes by the Brits were made beforehand by not taking seriously the noises being made by the junta
True. Galtieri never thought England would go to war. I'm not sure why, probably because he had bad intel, or was a complete sociopath.
> It’s very sad that what was once a strong relationship between the two nations went downhill with Peron
Yes, it's sad. After Peron everything went downhill. My mom is an English teacher, and was born in Argentina. She loves the English culture and people (Ladi Di, Churchill, etc), and the war did not change any of that, but deep inside I think she feels betrayed by England (by Tatcher, the media, and even the Queen). But she knows very well what happened and why, and finds comfort in thinking that the war helped restore democracy in her country. She was a proud Montonera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montoneras
> Although the ERP continued for a while under the leadership of Enrique Gorriarán Merlo, by late 1977 the guerrilla threat had been eradicted or gone underground.
> The Montoneros were effectively finished off by 1977, although their "Special Forces" did fight on until 1981. The Montoneros tried to disrupt the World Cup Football Tournament being hosted in Argentina in 1978 by launching a number of bomb attacks. In late 1979, the Montoneros launched a "strategic counteroffensive" in Argentina, and the security forces killed more than one hundred of the exiled Montoneros, who had been sent back to Argentina after receiving special forces training in camps in the Middle East.
It was a civil war between a facist dictator and the Argentines who wanted freedom and democracy. Of course Montoneros went underground, they were being killed by the thousands. The good news is that the wounds left by fascism are now healing.
In Argentina, Maradona was seen as Evita and Che Guevara. The Champion of the poor, and the face of anti-imperialism.
> The fact that Maradona scored an "illegal" goal against the Brits was seen as a revenge for loosing a war that no one wanted to fight, except for Tatcher.
I'm pretty sure Leopoldo Galtieri wanted the war more than Thatcher did; he started it, after all.
Also, negotiating with dictators doesn't always end well. Look at what happened in 1939.
> I'm pretty sure Leopoldo Galtieri wanted the war
100%. The ERP (People's Revolutionary Army) and Montoneros were fighting in the streets of Buenos Aires, so Galtieri and the Military Junta needed a distraction. A big one.
> he started it, after all
This is probably a myth created by the media. A bunch of people, probably fisherman or metallurgic workers raised a flag, and hell broke loose. Things escalated very quickly after that. All we know is that a small group of people raised a flag in one of the island and then Galtieri was at war with the UK, US and NATO. The Military junta killing Argentine people, and going to war with a powerful country, a country that defeated the German Empire. It's crazy! Was the war inevitable? I don't know. Did England over reacted? Who knows. All I know is that Galtieri was a sociopath, and that he died while incarcerated in a Correctional Facility.
> negotiating with dictators doesn't always end well.
This is true, ex: Saddam Hussein, Hitler, etc. But you know what, this was a conflict that could have been resolved by Lady Di in probably 1 day. People in Argentine loved her. She was seen as the Evita of Europe. On the other hand, people in Argentina didn't like Galtieri, and people in England didn't like Tatcher. Unfortunately, no one tried to diffuse the situation in any way. This is sad. Argentina and England were allies from 1810 to 1939, until WWII started and Perón took over https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina_during_World_War_II The fact that during WWII 4,000 Argentines served with British armed services shows how many British descendants were living in Buenos Aires in the 1900s.
Maradona scored against England, not Britain. In athletics the UK competes as one nation: GB. In football the four UK nations compete separately; England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland. IIRC this is FIFA recognition of the British origins of the beautiful game.
What do you not get? He takes the ball from the half way line on a solo run past 6 of some of the best players in the world and manages to score, while being tackled. I’m not a sports aficionado so struggle to come up with analogy to another sport but let’s just say it’s like reverse engineering an nvidia driver in a few weeks using nothing but vi and hexdump.
Very few people can control the ball whilst turning as he does at the beginning. And he beats six players, some of the best in the world.
As you get to higher and higher levels of football the quality of the defending increases so being able to play against the opposition as if you were eight is very rare.
It's a very good goal because of how many defenders he evades all on his own, but it's considered the "goal of the century" because of the context: a World Cup elimination game against the hated English.
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!
Original footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wVho3I0NtU
An interview many years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOz2uGMTA2w