“Why should I apologise?” joked Maradona smiling. “In a game where we are all having fun and one does something naughty that 100,000 fans do not see. It’s not that I’m proud of scoring a goal like this, but I think it’s funny when they get mad because I scored a goal with my hand. I think it’s very funny.”
Maradona’s frank admission stems from his belief that England, like Argentina did in that last eight match before going on to lift the World Cup, “stole” the 1966 final against West Germany.
Geoff Hurst’s extra-time goal to put the Three Lions 3-2 up in that Wembley final has long been debated as to whether it did in fact cross the goalline. Although given by Swiss referee Gottfried Dienst, Hurst would later admit the Azebaijani linesman, Tofik Bakhramov, got it wrong.
It is for that reason, Maradona admits, he feels no remorse for his goal that broke English hearts in ‘86. “They, England, won a World Cup with a goal that wasn’t against Germany,” he said. “It hit the crossbar and went this [gesturing a yard with his hands] much out and the referee blew his whistle. So, they shouldn’t say anything about Maradona, because they cheated before I did eh…” he said with a wry smile.
While the ‘Hand of God’ remains one of the most iconic moments in World Cup history it can sometimes be overlooked, amid all the controversy, that the world also witnessed arguably the greatest goal ever scored just three minutes later.
Picking up the ball just inside his own half, Maradona beat six England players before finishing past goalkeeper Peter Shilton. Just 12 touches, all with his magical left foot, were all that was needed. “A goal from heaven” as he describes it. And a strike declared by FIFA as the Goal of the Century.
“It is the best goal of my career because I scored it in a theatre like the Estadio Azteca, a theatre of real beauty. It’s the goal I dreamed about my whole life. The kind of goal that when you put your head on the pillow you say: ‘I want to get the ball at midfield and skip past the players, the goalkeeper comes out and I skip past him, I touch the ball and it goes in. I run…GOOOAAAAL. And then I wake up.’”
But does he still “dream” about that goal today? “No, for me this is done. I talk about this like positive moments of my life that I am proud to have lived with the passion.
“But what I look forward to now is for my grandson to see me play on TV and tell him “this was your grandfather” because now he says “babu babu.. is it like this or like that?” [gestures how to kick a ball]. So I’m looking forward to the moment when he sees that there where many great football players and his grandfather scored against most of them and everywhere in the world.”
READ MORE:
* Maradona’s amazing blow-by-blow account of his ‘Goal of the Century’.
* Maradona tells us why Lionel Messi can still not be regarded as the best ever.
* The Argentine reveals his love for the Holland team of ’74 and why, for him, they are better than the current Barcelona side.
