I never took my mother as someone who enjoyed watching football. But when the World Cup of 1986 was held in Mexico that year, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the television. She even moved her kit upstairs to the tv room so that she could fold ribbon roses while watching a football match.
As she churned out faultless rosettes with her dexterous fingers and dropped them one after another into a bucket by her feet, she beckoned my brother and I to join her by the sofa. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Argentina was playing England at the quarter finals.
Tensions were high on the pitch. It was the first time both sides had met on a sporting arena since the Malvinas War, four years earlier. Many of the players on the Argentine side had friends or relatives who had been conscripted or maybe even lost their lives. They knew that this was a match that could not be lost. For many, this was a chance for revenge.
“Look at him go!” My mom pointed at the tv screen with excitement in her voice. She was obviously referring to the little man with the wild curly hair and astounding quick feet, the number ten, the one and only Diego Armando Maradona.
When he scored the first goal, even Maradona himself looked surprised, as in disbelief of his luck, but decided to celebrate it with his team mates anyways. As we followed the replay, we watched Maradona out-jump the English goalkeeper, who was twenty centimetres taller than him. Then the whole world watched the controversial moment unravel as it showed Maradona stretch his arm up, close his fist and punch the ball into the net.
The English players raised their hands and protested, but the referee called it a goal.
The infamous “Hand of God” was later admitted with a certain cheekiness by the number ten, as one that was achieved via divine intervention — “a bit with the head and a bit with the hand of God”.
But despite the controversy surrounding that moment, merely four minutes after that first goal, Maradona managed to redeem with his feet what he’d done with his hand.
I can proudly say that I was a little girl of eleven years when I witnessed the greatest goal of our times, sitting there in the tv room with my family, holding our breaths by a thread as we watched Maradona dance and dribble past seven English players to score the goal of the century.
No one could have given a better account of those magical eleven seconds of glory than the legendary Uruguayan commentator Victor Hugo Morales, who tearfully and vividly described that moment for millions of listeners:
“Maradona on the ball now. Two closing him down. Maradona rolls his foot over the ball and breaks away down the right, the genius of world football. He goes past a third, looks for Burruchaga. Maradona forever! Genius! Genius! Genius! He’s still going… Gooooal! Sorry, I want to cry! Good God! Long live football! What a goal! A memorable run from Maradona. The greatest solo goal of all time. Cosmic Kite, which planet did you come from?”
We felt the city explode. People roared goooooooal! from the apartments around our house. From their balconies, grown men cried and hugged each other wrapped in blue and white flags. In the shop downstairs, we could hear Raul and Mauricio cheer with joy.
When the match ended, we ran to the terrace and watched our neighbours throw papelitos from their balconies. I raised my hands in the air and twirled as shredded paper floated from the sky and landed on us like snowflakes. Adequately, the custom of throwing confetti is only reserved for grand occasions like New Year’s Eve and of course, monumental football wins like this.
Others were banging on pots and pans. Buses, taxis, or just about any cars on the streets honked. Everyone was celebrating. And then subtly at first, but steadily growing in volume the whole city joined to sing:
Vamos, vamos Argentina,
vamos, vamos a ganar,
que esta barra quilombera,
no te deja, no te deja de alentar.