Hand of God: Chapter Two

Diego Maradona's infamous ”hand of God” goal in the 1986 World Cup is the most famous picture from one of football's fiercest clashes. It is exhibited again and again every time Argentina and England meet on a football pitch. But was Maradona's hand ball the act of a genious or a cheater? Can sportsmanship and fair play have different standards in different countries?

According to Argentinian journalist and columnist for newspaper La Nación Ezequiel Fernandez Moores the behaviour of footballers in England and Argentina is much similar than it seems to be.

The stereotype of Argentinian players as men who would try to win a match by whatever means necessary (or unncesessary) was born at least 20 years before Diego Maradona used his left hand to beat the English Team in the Azteca Stadium, recalled Ezequiel Moores.

In 1966 Argentina faced England in the quarterfinals of the World Cup at Wembley. The match was 0-0 when German referee Rudolf Kreitlein sent off Argentina captain Antonio Rattín, who refused to leave the pitch demanding to know the reason why the referee expelled him.

Later on, Kreitlein admitted he could not understand Spanish and sent Rattín off because of the way the Argentine ”looked at him”. Rattín then would have sat on the Queen's red carpet for a moment after finally leaving the pitch as the first player to be sent off in an international match at Wembley. England won 1-0. After the game, England manager Alf Ramsey did not allow his players to swap shirts with the opponents and called the Argentines ”animals” in the press. In South America the image was totally different, though.

”For people in South America, England won the World Cup in 1966 in similar fashion as Argentina in 1978: the home team helped by the referees. Alf Ramsey complained about the violence of the Argentinian team, but the statistics show that England commited 33 fouls against 19 fouls for the players he called animals,” said Ezequiel. 

The Argentinian journalist then exposed how much the match in 1986 was affected by the Malvinas/Falklands War between the two countries four years earlier.

Maradona used the death of hundreds of Argentinian young soldiers in a pre-match speech to motivate his teammates. The Malvinas, or Falklands, was ”a minor war” for England, one of many, ”but an open wound for Argentines,” in Ezequiel's view. Still, is it possible to say that only Argentina wanted to win that game by all means? 

In the same match, England defender Terry Fenwick elbowed Maradona in the face. England star Gary Lineker was defeated by Maradona's hand in 1986 but four years later used his own hand to score a goal, disallowed, against the Netherlands in the World Cup in Italy. In 1998 and 2002 England had two dodgy penaltys awarded against Argentina. Both times Michael Owen seemed to have dived. But was not it a characteristic of the Argentines? Maybe the old football enemies are not that different. But why should they be?

”Perhaps it is part of the ongoing love-hate saga between Argentine football and that from England. But, as a friend tells me: 'How can we hate the English when they've given us the gift of football?!'. Football can sometimes be a metaphor for war. But it is not war,” said Ezequiel Moores.