Valdano and the Hand of God

[Figaro]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup200...1803010,00.html

 

Twenty years ago today the hand of God smote England

 

Jorge Valdano

Thursday June 22, 2006

The Guardian

 

 

My entire qualification for writing this column is that on that day, at that time, I was there. And I must say that I was bored stiff because we couldn't get a grip on the match. When we wanted to play fast we were inaccurate, when we wanted to be accurate we were tedious. Eleven functionaries on each side trying not to make a mistake.

On a day like that nobody expects a visit from history, but in that office full of bureaucrats there was one crazy man capable of anything. A crazy Argentinian, to boot. It is important to consider the nature of that person because, from that day on, Maradona and Argentina became synonymous. We are talking about a country with a clearly extravagant relationship with football, a country which made a deity of a footballer with a decidedly extravagant relationship with football. And that afternoon, which began so boringly, Maradona made extravagant through football and through Argentinian character.

 

Divine intervention

It all began with a long slalom, which was Maradona's natural way of running with a ball. Just before he reached the area, he found only opposition legs in his way and, seeing no way forward, knocked the ball up to me and looked for the return.

 

The problem I had playing with Diego as a team-mate was that he turned you into a spectator and, when he passed you the ball, it took a moment to remember that you were like him - a footballer. Well, perhaps not like him, but a footballer none the less.

 

The fact is that when I woke up, I shook a leg to try to play the one-two but did it so unskilfully that the ball was knocked forward by my marker. Looking at it in perspective, it was a smart move on my part because if I had touched it Maradona would have been offside. The fact is that nobody recognised my singular contribution, partly because I fell to the ground so clumsily that it embarrasses me to remember.

 

Fortunately, the eyes of the people were not on me. Because from the ground myself, and the rest of the world, from wherever they were, saw that ball rise in slow motion and then begin to come down on the edge of the six-yard box where Peter Shilton and Maradona went to challenge for it in the air. There something happened which I couldn't understand but which was called a goal and had to be celebrated as wildly as such an unpleasant match, a World Cup, England deserved. Maradona ran and celebrated without much conviction, as if his cry contained a doubt within. Strange goal, strange cry - I still didn't understand much until I got to the huddle and found out why.

 

From my position I suspected that Diego could not have reached up there with his head but at no point did I see his hand, nor God's. Any ethical scruples? Twenty years on we can have them, but at that moment we only felt joy, relief, perhaps a forced sense of justice. It was England, let's not forget, and the Malvinas were fresh in the memory.

 

In the days before the game I said that we had "a good opportunity to confound the idiots" but that was just playing the intellectual. When emotions come into the equation, nearly all of us are idiots. Also we shouldn't forget that we were Argentinians, representatives of a country that rationalises with the word "exuberance" what in other places is called cheating.

 

The other goal

 

The office was now turned upside down but the crazy man had only just begun. Shortly afterwards he received a very difficult ball in the middle of the pitch with his back to goal. He turned, took off and got into a series of tight scrapes from which he escaped perfectly.

 

I was accompanying him level with the far post as if I were a television camera tracking him. Diego assures me that he meant to pass to me several times but there was always some obstacle that forced him to change plans. Just as well. I was dazzled and I thought it was impossible (it still seems that way to me) that in the middle of all those problems he would have had me in mind.

 

If he had passed me the ball as it seems Plan A called for, I would have grabbed it in my hand and applauded. Can you imagine? But let's not deceive ourselves, I am convinced that Diego was never going to release that ball. Throughout those 10 seconds and 10 touches, he changed his mind hundreds of times because that's how the mind of genius in action works.

 

That celebration that put intelligence, the body and the ball in tune was an act of genius - but also in the most profound way, in footballing terms, of being Argentinian. What Maradona was doing was making Argentinians' football dream a reality: we love the ball more than the game and, for that reason, the dribble more than the pass.

 

When the ball went into the net I knew, in that instant, we were present at a moment of great significance: Maradona had just put on Pele's crown. Aware of the historical moment in which I was living, I did something that humanity has still not recognised. I, ladies and gentlemen, took the ball out of the net where Maradona had put it. The focus, fortunately, was still elsewhere. In fact, 20 years on, the ball keeps going into the net time and again in the memories of those who love football . . . and there was me thinking I'd taken it out.

 

 

Now whilst Valdano waxes lyrically on as he is prone to do, he has omitted something very interesting from his story.

 

Once they all got back to the dressing room, Maradona walked over to Valdano and referring to his second goal said "I'm sorry Jorge but every time I wanted to pass to you I couldn't find space." "You were watching me?" ask Valdano. "Of course, you were trying to catch up on line with the far post." Silence in the dressing room. Valdano later said that it was like receiving a slap in the face.

 

Burruchaga quickly butted in and said: "Diego, if you had missed after all that, you wouldn't have been able to show your face in here for the rest of your life".

 

 

I've heard the story hundreds of times and it later became 'official' - Maradona always blames his brother for the second goal.

 

Argentina were playing England in a friendly at Wembley in 1981. Maradona went on a run, an exact copy of what he was to do five years later, but at the end of the run instead of dribbling the goalkeeper he shot and the ball just missed the post.

 

A little later one of his younger brothers, Hugo, phoned him and told him what he had done wrong. Maradona hit back at the criticism. "It's always easy when you're not on the pitch playing!"

"No, 'pelu', if you'd have dribbled, you'd have stepped away and then you slot it in with your right. Got it? You'd already put the goalkeeper on the floor." (The fact that Hugo was six at the time hasn't stopped Maradaona telling the story).

 

"At that moment I didn't think anything of it, but something must have stuck in my head because I finished the run just as my brother 'el turco' had said."

 

 

A couple of days ago Maradona was in a TV studio and he bumped into the Tunisian referee. Maradona says he nearly pis*ed himself when he heard what the ex-referee said.

 

"I think I'm part of that goal. Without my judgement it wouldn't have been possible. I could have blown two or three fouls during the move, but I applied the advantage law. I'm very proud that that goal has now become the greatest goal in World Cup history thanks to my decision".

 

Maradona said the only thing he could think of off the hat:

 

"Thank you very much, without you I'd be nothing!"

[aka Dus]

Heh heh.

 

Class.

[Rimbeux]

fascinating, 20 years ago today...

[Ramón Benítez Hernández]

Only in some inch thick heads in England

 

 

[Figaro]

I saw him week in, week out when he was winding down his career at Sevilla CF with Bilardo throwing blueys on the touch line - to the Sevilla team doctor who had rushed on to help a seriously injured opposition player: "Stamp on the bar steward! Don't help him! Stamp on him for f ecks sake!"

 

I also got to know Maradona through common friends who played for Sevilla alongside him, Diego, Conte, Mazagon and they all said and continue to say that drunk or drugged up as he was they have never played with anyone who has come anywhere remotely near.

 

as for being the greatest footballer of all time - that's just for pub discussions

[Mono]

Maradona is the most naturally gifted footballer ever. I remember some years ago the press in the US saying Michael Jordan was the greatest ever sportsman... It's just a pit they've never heard of football cos then they'd have to bestow the honour on Diego. Not taking anything away from Michael Jordan. Diego was the best at the biggest sport on Earth. Not exactly comparing like with like but no doubt he had his flaws and all. Some geniuses wrote music, some wrote scientific theories... Maradona was a genius with a football

Edited June 22, 2006 by Mono

[John am Rhein]

Pity for Diego that he's remembered more for being a cheat than a great footballer.

 

Except that he isn't - he's remembered as a great (perhaps the greatest, although I'd say on balance not) footballer.

 

As for being a cheat - he's also the greatest cheat.