Divine and damned

摘要

HE WILL LIVE forever on that sunny June afternoon in 1986 in the Aztec stadium in Mexico City. It was the quarter-final of the World Cup between Argentina and England. In the 55th minute Diego Armando Maradona collected the ball in the Argentine half and carved his way through the England defence as if it wasn't there before striking a low hard shot. It was one of the greatest goals of all time. It came just four minutes after Maradona, with the match scoreless, had risen to meet a miscued clearance in the England penalty area and punched the ball into the net. He had scored, he said later, "a bit with the head and a bit with the hand of God". With no video refereeing back then, the goal stood. It was, he said, a kind of revenge for Argentina's defeat at English hands in the Falk-lands (Malvinas) war four years earlier.