Fat, handballing cheat or footballing messiah (delete as you deem appropriate!) Diego Maradona will be at Villa Park next month along with his team mates for a replay of the heartbreaking (for us English obviously) 1986 World Cup quarter-final.
Maradona was the scorer of both goals to send us out 2-1, the one labelled ‘hand of God’ but actually more appropriately ‘the hand of a cheating toss pot’ will appear with the rest of the team on Sunday October 14. Kick off 4pm.
Maradona said: ‘It’s a game I still treasure to this day. For the rest of the team and I it was very special and was a great victory on the way to winning the World Cup. Everyone talks about the ‘Hand of God’ from this match, it was a bit of mischief, the goalkeeper had the advantage of grabbing with his hands. It was too high for me and I stuck out my fist.’
There was no mischief at all mate, you cheated and then lied about cheating.
‘After the goal, I was waiting for my team-mates to embrace me and no one came. I told them, come hug me or the referee isn’t going to allow it. This time when we will come to England there will be no mischief, only great goals. For us this is very serious, we are coming to win.’
Peter Reid, left for dead, along with all his team mates for Maradona’s second goal said: ‘It’s one of those games that’s talked about so much and meant so much that it’s impossible to forget how devastating it was to lose and to lose to one absolutely amazing goal but also to one which was, let’s say, a little dubious!’
He also says it is England’s chance for revenge and promises they’ll win ‘no question.’
Surely that will depend on whether another blind referee is used?!!!
Ahhh, still bitter even after all these years.!
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