‘No, I don’t think it’s cheating, I believe it’s craftiness’
- Maradona exults in the moment he hoodwinked officials 20 years ago 
Juan Roman Riquelme never really convinced anyone that he would convert that penalty for Villarreal against Arsenal in the Champions League semi-final last week, but I know an Argentine who would have done: Diego Maradona. He could convince anyone of anything, even a World Cup referee that he had scored a goal with his head instead of his hand. To this day he shows no remorse for his notorious action of 20 years ago, as I discovered when interviewing him in Buenos Aires recently.
In fact, he positively exults in the moment he hoodwinked the match officials at the Azteca Stadium and, for a while, most of the world with his ‘Hand of God’ goal, which helped put an England team, including yours truly, out of the World Cup.
Some will not be surprised to hear he even has a painting of it hanging in his home, which shows two angels holding down Peter Shilton and a third covering the England goalkeeper’s eyes while he punches the ball into the net. With divine intervention like that, no wonder he shows no remorse.
Even so, to my mind, he is still the greatest footballer I have ever seen. And in that same game, of course, he went from cheat to champion by scoring the greatest goal in World Cup history on, what some may not have realised, was a quite dreadful pitch.
The following are excerpts
Lineker: So was it your hand — or the hand of God? Maradona: It was my hand. With this I don’t mean any disrespect to English fans but this is something that happens, we used to do this, I had scored goals before in Argentina with my hand. It was a goal but I couldn’t reach it and Shilton was already there, so I couldn’t head it, so I did like that [gesticulates by putting his fist upwards]. And I put my head back and I started running. When I started to run, at first Shilton didn’t realise.
The one who told him was the sweeper [Lineker interjects that it was Terry Butcher], he was the one who saw my hand. When I saw the linesman running, I was shouting ‘Goal’ and then I looked behind me to see whether the referee took the bait and he had, so that was it.
As you ran away and you were looking around for your teammates, do you think they knew it was handball? My teammates did notice and they didn’t come over to celebrate with me. I was saying, ‘Come on, come on, hug me. Let’s do it properly, let’s go the whole way,’ hoping the goal would be allowed. Thank God it was.
In England it would be regarded as cheating, saying you knew that it was not fair play, how do you see that? No, I don’t think it’s cheating, it’s cunning... Is it cheating handling the ball? Oh no, no, no it’s not cheating. I don’t think it’s cheating, I believe it’s a craftiness, maybe we have a lot more of it in South America than in Europe but it’s not cheating.
Why did you say it was the hand of God? Because God gives us the hand. And because it is very difficult for it not to be seen by two people, the referee and the linesman, so that’s why I said it was the hand of God.
The second goal was probably the one and only time in my whole career that I felt like applauding the opposition scoring a goal. Is it your best goal? It’s the dream goal, the dream goal. Us footballers always dream of scoring the best goal in history, we dream it and we have it in our heads. The truth is to score that goal, for me, was fantastic, and in the World Cup, incredible.
And even better as it was against England? When you talk about playing against Italy or, for example, Uruguay or Brazil, it is much more complicated to do the move that I did while playing against England because the English player is a lot more noble and honest on the pitch.
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
AuthorTopic: "Hand of God": Linekar interviews Maradona (Read 438 times)
