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Yet to any objective viewer who takes the time to watch the game in its entirety (it's easily accessible online), it's clear that there is gross hypocrisy in Shilton's sanctimonious denunciation of Maradona's "cheating" the England team out of a chance to play in a World Cup semi-final.
Like most of his teammates, Shilton conveniently forgets that throughout the match, Maradona was the victim of a much more dangerous, brutish form of cheating than his handball goal: systematic, cynical and often brutally violent fouling.
Even before his Hand of God goal, Maradona had already suffered a late, hefty bodycheck; a vicious, lunging, two-footed tackle; and two nasty elbows to the head — all from England's centre-half Terry Fenwick alone. Fenwick would again swing his elbow into Maradona's head for a third time about ten minutes after Maradona's Goal of the Century, but incredibly the only sanction Fenwick would receive during the entire match was a yellow card for that ferocious tackle in the 9th minute.
Yet Fenwick was merely the worst of many culprits. Within the first 32 minutes, Maradona had been hacked down twice by Peter Reid, leveled by Peter Beardsley's two-footed tackle from behind, and cynically tripped up and sent flying by Steve Hodge just outside England's penalty area. Perhaps the most incredible thing about his glorious second goal is that none of the English defenders managed to foul Maradona before he rounded Shilton and scored.
Diego Maradona had his flaws and his demons, very much like his friend Paul Gascoigne, but I saw him as a lovable rogue as well as an artist with the ball. He made many mistakes in his life, but I would argue that the Hand of God is not one of them.
As I said to my friend Anthony McIntyre the other day, Both of Maradona's goals against England were works of staggering genius. Maradona's second goal was of course football poetry incarnate, but his first goal was an ingenious two-fingered riposte to the thuggery that he was forced to endure, not only in that quarter-final, but throughout his entire career, simply because cynical violence was not punished in football then as it is now.
The Hand of God goal epitomises the two qualities I admired most in Maradona: his brilliance with the ball at his feet and then the impish cunning of the little barrio boy who learned his craft on the streets.
May Diego Maradona rest easy now, and may Peter Shilton forever suck lemons. 

⏭ Alfie Gallagher is a Sligo based blogger.
And Shilton is a rabid Brexiteer to boot.
ReplyDeleteCan he not Just be a cock. What's his politics got to do with it? Fair play to your man on Twitter. That made me laugh
ReplyDeleteDion Dublin made the same points that Alfie made about the fouls inflicted on Maradonna...
ReplyDeleteBarry give it a rest. You sound like a broken record at the best of times.
Shiton's support of Brexit and Boris is part of the small minded, narrow, bitter 'English as British' nationalism that his curmudgeonly attitude to Maradona is also part of.
ReplyDeleteFrankie, bot calling kettle black methinks.
Barry, it is a piece about a great footballer, not everything is political....Why not make the point that the goals he scored wouldn't have stood today because of VAR.. One was a hand ball and the solo goal, just before Maradonna received the ball an English player got floored....
ReplyDeleteFrankie
DeleteI notice that on another thread about Maradona somebody praised Maradona' supposed support for "Irish self-determination" you didn't weigh in with pleas to keep politics out of the discussion.
Maradona was a brilliant footballer but a flawed human being. It would have been ludicrous for VAR to have disallowed his second as no English player protested then or since. Besides England were that close to getting an equaliser ...
Troll? So Maradona’s handball was not, in fact, cheating, but was a blow for justice against the kind of fouls and roughing up that were - shock, horror - entirely normal in 1986. If you had watched a bit more football you would realise this; and you would not have been shocked at what, by the standards of the time (Souness, Butcher of Bilbao) was a fairly gentlemanly affair.
ReplyDeleteI love Maradona, and I would not have chosen that day to criticise him. However, your post almost certainly comes from someone with an axe to grind against England. If you must gratuitously attack England, at least make cogent arguments.