Geoff Hurst, the Hand of God and the Biggest Rows in World Football. Graham Poll
right towards a team-mate, Jorge Valdano, who was standing inside the D of the penalty area, with his back to goal.
Valdano's attempt to control the pass sent the ball spiralling upwards. The player marking him, Steve Hodge, stuck up his left leg and miskicked the ball higher into the air and back towards his own goalkeeper, Peter Shilton. Maradona had continued his run, hoping for a one-two with Valdano. Shilton came out to punch away Hodge's miscued attempted clearance. Maradona arrived at the same time as the ball. Up went Maradona. Up went Maradona's left arm. Cue pandemonium.
Maradona used his clenched hand to flip the ball up and over Shilton's attempted punch and into the goal. Maradona immediately started celebrating but, at first, none of his team-mates joined in. So he waved them towards him. Shilton pointed to his own arm, in a gesture that the watching world knew meant, ‘Handball!’ The goalkeeper sprinted out to the referee to protest and other England players joined him. But the ref had already signalled a goal and the goal stood.
Four minutes later, Maradona scored a second goal, one of the best ever seen in a major match. Watching it again now, you wonder whether you're playing the clip in fast mode. Maradona had his back to our goal when he gained possession inside his own half but a trail of flailing defenders was left like flotsam in his wake as he span around and just kept running before beating Shilton legitimately. Lineker collected a goal for England ten minutes before the end, his sixth of the tournament. But Argentina won 2-1. They beat Belgium in the semi-final, and then, in front of another 115,000 crowd at the Aztec (on 29 June), Argentina beat West Germany 3-2 in the Final. Maradona was carried around the pitch shoulder high, holding the trophy aloft. Like Zidane 20 years later, he was voted the tournament's best player despite his moment of infamy in the match against England.
THE ISSUES
Immediately after the quarterfinal against England, Maradona was interviewed by media representatives from around the world. He was asked, ‘Wasn't your first goal handball?’ He replied that it was ‘un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios’(a little with the head of Maradona and another little with the hand of God).
Hand of God. The phrase has echoed down the years, but it was an ambiguous answer; certainly not an admission. The admission came many years later. In his autobiography, published in 2002, Maradona said, ‘It was the hand of Diego and it felt a little like pick-pocketing the English.’ Yet, although he has come clean about what happened, he has remained ambivalent about the act, appearing apologetic in some interviews given to English media but steadfastly defiant when talking for Argentine audiences about the incident.
There is no ambivalence in Argentina. La Mano de Dioscame only four years after Argentina had been at war with Britain in the Falklands and Maradona's compatriots were overjoyed by the football victory after defeat in battle. Argentina worships Maradona, not despite the fact that he scored with his hand against England, but because of it.
Scottish football fans revere Maradona for exactly the same reason: he put one over England. When Maradona became coach to the Argentine national team, his first game in charge (on 21 November 2008) was at Hampden Park against Scotland. The Daily Record newspaper created a logo for all their extensive coverage of the fixture. It read, ‘A big hand for Diego’. The newspaper also reported a terrace song. Gleefully sung to the tune of the Hokey Cokey, it went, ‘You put your left hand in and you shake it all about. You do the hokeycokey and you score a goal, that's what it's all about. Oh-ohh, Diego Maradona!’
So, to many people, what Maradona did was not only acceptable, it was admirable. But before English readers get too censorious, let's consider this: should an Englishman have up-ended Maradona in 1986 when he was homing in on our penalty area for his second goal? Bobby Robson, who was England's manager that day in 1986, wrote in 2008 that if Bryan Robson had been fit to play against Argentina he would have stopped Maradona ‘one way or another’. Would we have complained? I doubt it very much.
Yet, surely, deliberately fouling an opponent is a form of cheating. Or is it? For me, the Hand of God incident raises two intriguing questions: what constitutes cheating in football, and when is cheating acceptable on the field of play? You might think it is easy to answer both questions. You might believe that any deliberate act that is outside the laws of the game is cheating and that it is never acceptable. Yet when I was refereeing I was constantly reminded that the line between what is legal and illicit is often blurred.
For instance, if a player goes down without being tripped or kicked, he's cheating, isn't he? Not necessarily. If he jumps out of the way of a bad challenge, he is behaving sensibly and properly. So when a player goes down without there having been any contact, a ref has to decide whether he is preserving his own shins or just diving. One high-profile incident like that occurred on 19 August 2006 at Bramall Lane. Liverpool's Steven Gerrard hit the deck in the penalty area although there had been no contact from Sheffield United's Chris Morgan. Rob Styles, the referee, awarded a penalty and explained later that, in his opinion, Morgan had intended to foul Gerrard, who had skipped out of the way and fallen to the floor. Styles received lots of stick, predictably, from writers and broadcasters for talking about ‘intent’. Equally predictably, Neil Warnock, who was the Sheffield United manager, was particularly scathing about the very idea of a match official trying to guess Morgan's intentions. He was highly critical of Styles. No change there then. But Law Twelve says that it is a foul if someone trips or attempts to trip an opponent. That law required Styles to decide what Morgan was trying to do. The ref was right and Warnock was wrong. No change there, either.
Another example came at Ewood Park on 9 November 2008 when Chelsea's Nicolas Anelka chased a poor back-pass into the Blackburn Rovers' penalty area. Goalkeeper Paul Robinson came out and, in trying to evade the challenge, Anelka lost his balance. That time, the ref, Chris Foy, did not award a penalty. I am not sure he was right, but I am sure it is always an extremely difficult judgement call.
Now, what about when a player feels the merest touch of an opponent's boot against his shin and tumbles to the ground? Does he have a right to make sure everyone realizes that he has been fouled, however slightly? I can tell you that there were many occasions, when I was refereeing, when a player stayed upright after getting his shin tapped and I said to myself, under my breath, ‘If you'd gone down there, I'd have given a penalty.’ But I didn't give anything, because there would have been no credibility in penalizing the defender for such a slight touch with the attacker still on his feet. So, do you blame strikers for flinging themselves to the floor if they feel contact in the penalty area? I don't.
To complicate matters further, there are times when an attacker effectively causes the foul against him—but it is still a foul. One example featured Thierry Henry when he was playing for France against England. It was on 17 June 2004 in the European Championships in Portugal. Henry was chasing the ball into the English penalty area and our goalkeeper, David James, was rushing out of his goal to get to the ball first. I believe that Henry calculated that, if he could arrive fractionally before James and tip the ball away with his toe, then the goalkeeper's momentum would bring about a foul. That is exactly what happened. Henry toe-ended the ball, and James, who was already diving to either block a shot or get his hands on the ball, inadvertently clattered into the French striker and knocked away his legs. Quite correctly, a penalty was awarded, Zidane scored it and France won 2-1. Henry's only intention as he raced forward had been to invite the foul. But it was still a foul—and I don't imagine anyone would consider what Henry did was cheating. So I hope you can see that the whole question of going down in the penalty area is not at all straightforward.
Now put yourself in the boots of a defender. An opponent beats you with speed or sleight of foot and, although you go for the ball, you kick his leg instead. It's a foul. Simple. But if the player beats you fairly and squarely and, after he has gone past you, you scythe him down to stop him getting away, it's a foul again, but it is a worse type of foul. We can all agree on that, I hope. So, what if, once the opponent has beaten you with the ball, you grab his shirt from behind and stop him? Is that better or worse than scything him down? In one sense, the shirt-grabbing is less heinous than hacking someone down. Knocking over an opponent could do serious damage. Shirt-grabbing usually does not endanger anyone's health. But some would argue that grabbing a shirt