Diego Maradona never regretted his “Hand of God”; Not because he thinks he didn’t cheat, but because of the runs against England. Weighing in on his two goals in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup, he wrote in his autobiography, the second of the century’s greatest goals: “I sometimes think I preferred the goal I scored with my hand.”
Because, he explained, “it was like stealing an Englishman’s wallet.”
The Falklands War was only four years old and both nations were suffering and feeling the scars. Maradona called the victory “revenge”.
He said: “We said before the game that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas war, but we knew they had killed a lot of Argentine boys there, killed them like birds. And this was revenge.”
The game features competitions marked by genuine sporting conflicts; Some are defined by political and cultural antagonism; Some colonies stewed by friction; Some were found to conflict with the ideology of the game. England vs. Argentina 24 years later on a grander stage — Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal in Atlanta — all these threads are tied into a single, passionate narrative. Unfortunately, neither encounter was peaceful and without incident. And no duel is over without old ghosts rearing their heads again.
Maradona’s “Hand of God” is unforgettable and unforgivable; Nostalgia reigned when England revisited the Azteca in Mexico City for their round-of-16 tie against Mexico. England felt the symbolic past of the curse when they beat the co-hosts 3-2. But the real redemption will come if they end Lionel Messi’s march in Atlanta. Since David Beckham’s red card for a foul on Diego Simeone in 1998, the Argentine has practiced the dark arts by being a regular presence in the VIP box at this tournament.
Also read | The making of the ‘Spider’: In Messi’s shadow, how Alvarez became Argentina’s hero
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Years later, Simone admitted exonerated that he had framed the referee. “I tackled him, and we both fell to the ground. He kicked me from behind while I was trying to stand up. And I took advantage of that. And I think anybody would have taken advantage of that,” he told Observer Sports Monthly.
Beckham got revenge in their next meeting, the 2002 edition, with the only goal of the game. It was his last meeting on the world stage.
The cards themselves were presented after their ill-tempered game in the 1966 quarter-final, which England won 1–0. Argentina captain Antonio Rattin, who died on Friday aged 84, was sent off for two offenses two minutes apart. He refused to leave the field, pulled the referee’s shirt and threatened to “punch” him.
After the game, the players pushed each other into the tunnel and the local police had to intervene. One of them urinated in the tunnel. Rattin fumed after the game: “It was clear that the referee played in an England shirt.” Roberto Ferrero attacked the referee and Ermindo Onega spat in the face of FIFA Vice President Harry Cavan.
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When fullback George Cohen was about to change his shirt, manager Alf Ramsey shouted: “George, you don’t change shirts with that animal.” After that, some Argentina players threw chairs in England’s dressing room. An orange was thrown on his face when a policeman tried to stop him. Referee accusations by England were a pervasive theme of the World Cup.
Not only in the England-Argentina match, it is natural to have conflicts between fans. Fans meet anywhere. This video is just one example of England and Argentina supporters hitting each other during the Norway-England quarter-final in Miami this time. After Argentina’s 3-1 win over Switzerland, supporters chanted: “El que no salta es un ingle,” “He who doesn’t jump is an Englishman.”
Their stadium song “Muchachos”, originally a song by the Argentine band La Mosca Tse-Tse, is a reference to the Falklands War. The blood of Messi and his army may not boil over war as much as Maradona’s generation, but it still sparks emotional nationalism. The battle over two islands in the Atlantic lasted 10 days, but the symbolic conflict still lives on on the football field. England fans are not saints either; In Qatar, at a non-England-Argentina match, he snarled: “Maradona is a fraud.”
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Underlining all the friction is the antithesis of sportsmanship. At the heart of Argentine football is a style called “criollo”, a disciplined and regimented style of English settlers, the founders of football in Argentina, a game based on individuality and character, not imposed on the natives. Juan Peron, when he became president in 1946, used to say: “We nationalized the railways and now we have nationalized football!”
Over the years, Argentina incorporated a more physical and practical side to the game, as claimed by legendary manager Carlos Bilardo. They consider the British to be soft-hearted. “English players are more naive. Our game is more calculating,” says former footballer and columnist Roberto Perfumo. “We study the opponent more closely, we find ways to destroy him. For example, one of our approaches is to study a player’s weak points so we can try to make him angry. Because in football, if you get angry, you lose.”
England’s players are no longer naive, nor are they as faint-hearted as they used to be. And they don’t have a more fitting stage to prove that the psychological damage done to them by Argentina is past.