Bigger Than The Game: Maradona's Goals

Often in sports, there comes a game that has deeper significance that just a sporting contest between two teams. It happens often that national pride, religious strife and geopolitical connotations are wrapped up and rolled out on the field of play. These events have transcended time and become not only great sporting events but great historical events. One such game took place in the 1986 FIFA World Cup between Argentina and Great Britain.


 The Set Up

Just two years removed from the 74 day long conflict known as “Falkland Excursion” in England, the conflict over the islands was a particularly sore point in the late 1980’s. As national pride grew in the islands, Argentine military forces invaded the long held but heatedly contested islands on Friday 2 April 1982, when Argentine forces invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands and South Georgia..

The conflict was the result of a protracted historical confrontation regarding the sovereignty of the islands. Argentina has asserted that the Falkland Islands have been Argentinean territory since the 19th century. Taking the claim further, it was added to the Argentine Constitution after its reformation in 1994.

Patriotic sentiment ran high in Argentina, but the outcome prompted large protests against the ruling military government, which hastened its downfall. In the United Kingdom, the war was seen a brief conflict that served as but a short training exercise for the well trained British Navy. So sure of the outcome, the Royal Navy allowed Prince Charles to join the attack fleet.

On the other side of the Atlantic the Argentines set festering for two long years until the ’86 World Cup when hopes of being placed in the same bracket at the British footballers were realized after the team qualified by beating Peru in the CONMEBOL championship.

The team was lead by its small but strong Captain Diego Maradona, who had lead the team in scoring throughout the qualifying tourneys. Leading up the game with England, Maradona had played every minute of Argentina’s games against South Korea and Italy scoring three goals and passing for 5 assists.

The Goal That Should Not Have Stood

In the 51st minute, of what to that point was a scoreless , Maradona played a ball out wide to Jorge Valdano. England’s Steve Hodge managed to dispossess Valdano, but could only kick the ball high into the air, back into the heart of the English territory setting up the spilt second match between England’s keeper and Maradona. In a flash of genius Maradona used his hand to score the goal. Adding a head jerk that spoofed the referees even more so Maradona went down in history with a goal that should have never stood. Hurrying toward his shocked teammates gleefully to celebrate, Maradona astutely recognized that the celebration would seal the deal of the “hand of God” goal.


The “Other” Goal

What stands out most about the game, aside from the off the field implications, and the “hand of God” goal, is Maradona’s second goal that has since gone down as the greatest goal of World Cup history. This goal feature Maradona’s skill, not only as a marvelous left footed shooter, but his innate ability to move the ball over large swaths of the field quickly and intuition for the weaknesses of opposing team’s style of play.

Having received the ball in his own half, Maradona swiveled around, and with 11 touches ran more than half the length of the field, dribbling past five English outfield players and goalkeeper. Maradona later commented that the goal would not have been possible had it not been for the fairness of the English style of play.


By the end of the tournament, Maradona went on to winning the Golden Ball as the best player of the tournament by unanimous vote and was widely regarded to have won the World Cup virtually single-handedly. In a tribute to him, authorities at Azteca Stadium (where the game took place) also built a statue of him scoring the "goal of the century" and placed it at the entrance of the stadium.