Argentina's World Cup quarter-final against England in Mexico in 1986 became one of the most famous games in football history thanks to one man
DIEGO MARADONA IN 1986
Maradona was 25 years old and entering the prime of his career when the 1986 World Cup came around. He had broken the world transfer record for the second time by joining Napoli from Barcelona for £6.9 million in 1984, and helped the Serie A side finish eighth and then third after they had narrowly avoided relegation the season before he signed. The next campaign, immediately after the World Cup, they won the Scudetto for the first time in their history and added the Coppa Italia for good measure. After making his name at Argentinos Juniors with a sensational goalscoring record, Maradona joined Boca Juniors in 1981 and won his only Argentine league title. From there he was quickly snapped up by Barcelona, where he was exceptional when fit but suffered from hepatitis and then a broken ankle as a result of a challenge by the notoriously vicious defender Andoni Goikoetxea. Barca met Goikoetxea's Athletic Club in the 1984 Copa del Rey final and after being the subject of violent play and xenophobic insults from the crowd throughout the game, Maradona sparked a mass brawl that effectively ended his career at Camp Nou - not that he was especially reluctant to leave. He was in a much better place when the World Cup in Mexico came around, with Naples the perfect fit for Maradona the person as well as the player. Having been knocked out by Italy and Brazil in the second round of the 1982 tournament after being fouled a World Cup-record 23 times against the Italians, Maradona also had something to prove.
ARGENTINA VS. ENGLAND
THE AFTERMATH
After the match, when TV replays and photographs had clearly established that Maradona had handled the ball, the scorer gave his first goal its famous name by commenting that it had gone in "a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God". He added later: "I was waiting for my teammates to embrace me, and no one came... I told them, 'Come hug me, or the referee isn't going to allow it.'" Bin Nasser and Dotchev blamed each other. "I was waiting for Dotchev to give me a hint of what exactly happened but he didn’t signal for a handball," Bin Nasser said years later. "And the instructions FIFA gave us before the game were clear -