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Cleaning up my email I found this article...
===================================
Twenty years ago today the hand of God smote England
Jorge Valdano
Thursday June 22, 2006
The Guardian
My entire qualification for writing this column is that on that day, at that
time, I was there. And I must say that I was bored stiff because we couldn't
get a grip on the match. When we wanted to play fast we were inaccurate,
when we wanted to be accurate we were tedious. Eleven functionaries on each
side trying not to make a mistake.
On a day like that nobody expects a visit from history, but in that office
full of bureaucrats there was one crazy man capable of anything. A crazy
Argentinian, to boot. It is important to consider the nature of that person
because, from that day on, Maradona and Argentina became synonymous. We are
talking about a country with a clearly extravagant relationship with
football, a country which made a deity of a footballer with a decidedly
extravagant relationship with football. And that afternoon, which began so
boringly, Maradona made extravagant through football and through Argentinian
character.
It all began with a long slalom, which was Maradona's natural way of running
with a ball. Just before he reached the area, he found only opposition legs
in his way and, seeing no way forward, knocked the ball up to me and looked
for the return.
The problem I had playing with Diego as a team-mate was that he turned you
into a spectator and, when he passed you the ball, it took a moment to
remember that you were like him - a footballer. Well, perhaps not like him,
but a footballer none the less.
The fact is that when I woke up, I shook a leg to try to play the one-two
but did it so unskilfully that the ball was knocked forward by my marker.
Looking at it in perspective, it was a smart move on my part because if I
had touched it Maradona would have been offside. The fact is that nobody
recognised my singular contribution, partly because I fell to the ground so
clumsily that it embarrasses me to remember.
Fortunately, the eyes of the people were not on me. Because from the ground
myself, and the rest of the world, from wherever they were, saw that ball
rise in slow motion and then begin to come down on the edge of the six-yard
box where Peter Shilton and Maradona went to challenge for it in the air.
There something happened which I couldn't understand but which was called a
goal and had to be celebrated as wildly as such an unpleasant match, a World
Cup, England deserved. Maradona ran and celebrated without much conviction,
as if his cry contained a doubt within. Strange goal, strange cry - I still
didn't understand much until I got to the huddle and found out why.
From my position I suspected that Diego could not have reached up there with
his head but at no point did I see his hand, nor God's. Any ethical
scruples? Twenty years on we can have them, but at that moment we only felt
joy, relief, perhaps a forced sense of justice. It was England, let's not
forget, and the Malvinas were fresh in the memory.
In the days before the game I said that we had "a good opportunity to
confound the idiots" but that was just playing the intellectual. When
emotions come into the equation, nearly all of us are idiots. Also we
shouldn't forget that we were Argentinians, representatives of a country
that rationalises with the word "exuberance" what in other places is called
cheating.
The other goal
The office was now turned upside down but the crazy man had only just begun.
Shortly afterwards he received a very difficult ball in the middle of the
pitch with his back to goal. He turned, took off and got into a series of
tight scrapes from which he escaped perfectly.
I was accompanying him level with the far post as if I were a television
camera tracking him. Diego assures me that he meant to pass to me several
times but there was always some obstacle that forced him to change plans.
Just as well. I was dazzled and I thought it was impossible (it still seems
that way to me) that in the middle of all those problems he would have had
me in mind.
If he had passed me the ball as it seems Plan A called for, I would have
grabbed it in my hand and applauded. Can you imagine? But let's not deceive
ourselves, I am convinced that Diego was never going to release that ball.
Throughout those 10 seconds and 10 touches, he changed his mind hundreds of
times because that's how the mind of genius in action works.
That celebration that put intelligence, the body and the ball in tune was an
act of genius - but also in the most profound way, in footballing terms, of
being Argentinian. What Maradona was doing was making Argentinians' football
dream a reality: we love the ball more than the game and, for that reason,
the dribble more than the pass.
When the ball went into the net I knew, in that instant, we were present at
a moment of great significance: Maradona had just put on Pele's crown. Aware
of the historical moment in which I was living, I did something that
humanity has still not recognised. I, ladies and gentlemen, took the ball
out of the net where Maradona had put it. The focus, fortunately, was still
elsewhere. In fact, 20 years on, the ball keeps going into the net time and
again in the memories of those who love football . . . and there was me
thinking I'd taken it out.
===================================
Twenty years ago today the hand of God smote England
Jorge Valdano
Thursday June 22, 2006
The Guardian
My entire qualification for writing this column is that on that day, at that
time, I was there. And I must say that I was bored stiff because we couldn't
get a grip on the match. When we wanted to play fast we were inaccurate,
when we wanted to be accurate we were tedious. Eleven functionaries on each
side trying not to make a mistake.
On a day like that nobody expects a visit from history, but in that office
full of bureaucrats there was one crazy man capable of anything. A crazy
Argentinian, to boot. It is important to consider the nature of that person
because, from that day on, Maradona and Argentina became synonymous. We are
talking about a country with a clearly extravagant relationship with
football, a country which made a deity of a footballer with a decidedly
extravagant relationship with football. And that afternoon, which began so
boringly, Maradona made extravagant through football and through Argentinian
character.
It all began with a long slalom, which was Maradona's natural way of running
with a ball. Just before he reached the area, he found only opposition legs
in his way and, seeing no way forward, knocked the ball up to me and looked
for the return.
The problem I had playing with Diego as a team-mate was that he turned you
into a spectator and, when he passed you the ball, it took a moment to
remember that you were like him - a footballer. Well, perhaps not like him,
but a footballer none the less.
The fact is that when I woke up, I shook a leg to try to play the one-two
but did it so unskilfully that the ball was knocked forward by my marker.
Looking at it in perspective, it was a smart move on my part because if I
had touched it Maradona would have been offside. The fact is that nobody
recognised my singular contribution, partly because I fell to the ground so
clumsily that it embarrasses me to remember.
Fortunately, the eyes of the people were not on me. Because from the ground
myself, and the rest of the world, from wherever they were, saw that ball
rise in slow motion and then begin to come down on the edge of the six-yard
box where Peter Shilton and Maradona went to challenge for it in the air.
There something happened which I couldn't understand but which was called a
goal and had to be celebrated as wildly as such an unpleasant match, a World
Cup, England deserved. Maradona ran and celebrated without much conviction,
as if his cry contained a doubt within. Strange goal, strange cry - I still
didn't understand much until I got to the huddle and found out why.
From my position I suspected that Diego could not have reached up there with
his head but at no point did I see his hand, nor God's. Any ethical
scruples? Twenty years on we can have them, but at that moment we only felt
joy, relief, perhaps a forced sense of justice. It was England, let's not
forget, and the Malvinas were fresh in the memory.
In the days before the game I said that we had "a good opportunity to
confound the idiots" but that was just playing the intellectual. When
emotions come into the equation, nearly all of us are idiots. Also we
shouldn't forget that we were Argentinians, representatives of a country
that rationalises with the word "exuberance" what in other places is called
cheating.
The other goal
The office was now turned upside down but the crazy man had only just begun.
Shortly afterwards he received a very difficult ball in the middle of the
pitch with his back to goal. He turned, took off and got into a series of
tight scrapes from which he escaped perfectly.
I was accompanying him level with the far post as if I were a television
camera tracking him. Diego assures me that he meant to pass to me several
times but there was always some obstacle that forced him to change plans.
Just as well. I was dazzled and I thought it was impossible (it still seems
that way to me) that in the middle of all those problems he would have had
me in mind.
If he had passed me the ball as it seems Plan A called for, I would have
grabbed it in my hand and applauded. Can you imagine? But let's not deceive
ourselves, I am convinced that Diego was never going to release that ball.
Throughout those 10 seconds and 10 touches, he changed his mind hundreds of
times because that's how the mind of genius in action works.
That celebration that put intelligence, the body and the ball in tune was an
act of genius - but also in the most profound way, in footballing terms, of
being Argentinian. What Maradona was doing was making Argentinians' football
dream a reality: we love the ball more than the game and, for that reason,
the dribble more than the pass.
When the ball went into the net I knew, in that instant, we were present at
a moment of great significance: Maradona had just put on Pele's crown. Aware
of the historical moment in which I was living, I did something that
humanity has still not recognised. I, ladies and gentlemen, took the ball
out of the net where Maradona had put it. The focus, fortunately, was still
elsewhere. In fact, 20 years on, the ball keeps going into the net time and
again in the memories of those who love football . . . and there was me
thinking I'd taken it out.
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