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Never forgave Shilton for digging out Paul Parker at Italia 90 when German free-kick deflected of Parker's press and looped over him in slow motion, as he doddered and fell backwards, barely getting off the ground
Always bitching about Maradona to deflect blame from himself, should have been quicker off his line and punched clear, end off.
Never forgiven Shilton for the penalty shootout in the semi final. Didn't move a muscle until every kick had been taken, giving himself no chance of getting near any of them.
Apparently the arrogant cock even boasted about going the right way for every kick in the changing room after.
Fck me, I'd have managed to dive the right way if I dived after the bastard ball had gone past me
Never forgave Shilton for digging out Paul Parker at Italia 90 when German free-kick deflected of Parker's press and looped over him in slow motion, as he doddered and fell backwards, barely getting off the ground
Always bitching about Maradona to deflect blame from himself, should have been quicker off his line and punched clear, end off.
Shilton at 36, going on 37 shouldn't have been first choice going into that World Cup in 1986, he was there by default as there wasn't really any consistent, high quality keepers pushing him.
He was on the downward slide with reflexes and agility going and was most definitely past it in 1990 but again was still there because the alternative was Chris Woods and Seaman was still a few years away from very top level.
My brother wrote this about Maradona and I thought it’s worth sharing:
I know Maradona enjoys an — ahem — mixed legacy in this country. He’s a cheat, he’s a drug addict, he’s an embarrassment, etc. What I would like to do here is to acknowledge all those things and attempt to explain why, despite all that, he remains so important, so magnificent.
We can start with the on-pitch brilliance, with which we’re probably all by now long since familiar. That low centre of gravity, the ball skills, the vision, the leadership. Evading half the England team as they attempt to hack him to bits; punching a hole clean through the middle of the Belgian defence; juggling the ball during a pre-match warm up. It’s all been very well documented and I’m sure it will be the go-to for eulogies in the days ahead.
What I think has sometimes been overlooked is his sheer physical bravery. Playing in an era where players were strong enough to do each other real damage, playing the way he did on pitches often little better that potato fields; he was as tough as nails. This video, in particular, is an unforgettable series of clips of Diego riding challenges that seem to be intended to maim or kill him outright.
Then there are his achievements. Obviously, the World Cup, yes Napoli in Serie A and Europe. It’s a singular body of work we will probably never see again in football; the best player on the planet sat in the middle of a side that’s not really at his level, willing them on to greatness through sheer force of personality. Again, all well documented.
What I would like to focus on here are the two elements of Maradona that I feel are less commonly spoken about; the two elements which have always made him significant to me, and many millions of others across the planet.
First and foremost, Maradona conducted the single most glorious affair with the ball that the game will ever see. It’s instructive here to make the first of what will probably be several comparisons to Leo Messi, for which I can only apologise.
Watch Messi with a football; it’s his pal, trundling along by his side like a faithful dog, off on an adventure with its master, loyal and obedient. Maradona was different; you watch him with the ball — playing, warming up, goofing around in front of the cameras — and there’s an intimacy that simply doesn’t exist with any other player. There’s a finesse to his touch and a fascination in his eyes that belies the many thousands of hours he spent as a child and a young man trying to understand everything he could about this object. It’s visibly the geographic centre of his universe and he was devoted to it, even as he grew older and less able to play.
This is why many of the best clips of Diego are the ones where it’s just him and a football, and the best of all are where he doesn’t seem to know the camera is there. Doing keepie ups with his shins, juggling with his shoulders higher than I can kick a ball, backspinning it with the underside of his feet so it returns to him. It’s a love story; a dance, glorious and balletic, and his magic was never more fully in effect than in those moments, lost in a reverie. It’s the reason the famous footage of his warm up to Love Is Life is arguably THE iconic Diego moment, even more than the match footage. You can see the eternal child in him as he stretches out and explores the frontiers of what he and the ball can do together, and it humanises him even at the apex of his brilliance.
If my affinity for Maradona is rooted in Diego the Lover, let me say a word here too for Diego the Fighter, because that second aspect remains a huge huge part of his impact, and I don’t think it’s always well understood in the UK.
Half my family are Argentinean, and it’s a country I’ve spent a fair bit of time in. It’s a complicated place, and a complex culture. Football is a religion there, and Maradona remains a God, in a way that Messi, for all his superabundance of not-of-this-Earth talent, never will. Why is that the case, and why is the Hand of God incident, so central to the Maradona mythos, viewed so differently there, petty nationalism aside?
Three main reasons, as far as I can see.
The first is a high tolerance for what can only really be described as cheating. Argentinean culture is often, at its heart, Italian culture; one needs only look at the architecture, the food or even the people to know that. The country, as currently constituted, was largely built by Italian immigrants, and they retain that sneaking Italian admiration for achievements conducted off the books, so to speak.
Maradona himself was quite clear that beating the English in the manner he did was infinitely preferable to having done so by fair means; locally the goal in question was perceived of evidence of his daring, his street smarts. For what it’s worth, it’s always seemed to me that English football lives in something of a state of delusion as to its own moral rectitude; if the first goal was an example of Maradona’s low cunning, it’s quite well documented that Terry Butcher et al attempted to prevent the second by chopping their opponent down at the knees. There’s cheating and then there’s cheating, of course.
The second reason is Maradona’s background. He came from nothing. From actual dirt poverty, on a level that probably hasn’t existed in England within living memory. While the English will always love a working class hero, in Argentina that impulse is all the stronger; it’s an essential part of the Maradona mythos that he climbed from nothing and showed deference to no one. In that sense, his flaws only add to his appeal — he’s a bona fide man of the people who never once pretended to be anything more than he was; a street kid with street kid flaws who happened to have been gifted the soul of a poet.
The final reason is, for me, the most poignant of the three. National sentiment over the Falklands/Las Malvinas is relatively poorly understood outside Argentina. There’s a tremendous amount of pain and anger, commonly assumed to be directed against the English. But that’s not the case, in my experience. Spend some time in Argentina, talk to the locals and it becomes apparent, even at a distance of 40 years, that the Falklands conflict is a gaping hole in the nation’s pride. But there’s also a deep wellspring of love for England and English culture; it’s a nation that plays polo, (largely) reveres the monarchy, rabidly follows English football and loudly proclaims itself to be spiritually European, much to the chagrin of its neighbours. They’re no fans of Thatcher, but — hey — they’re not alone on that front.
What needs to be understood is how the Falklands conflict looks from the Argentinean perspective. A military government sent their boys, some essentially kids, into war with the English with inadequate training and equipment. Care packages from home were requested and did not reach their intended recipients, being raided instead by the military. This, in addition to some of the terrible treatment already afforded to the wider populace by said government. The pain and anger of the Falklands conflict isn’t an unfinished dialogue between Argentina and England, it’s an unfinished dialogue that Argentina is still working through with itself. You can draw a direct line from that suffering and humiliation to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, it’s all the same pain.
Why does this matter for Maradona? Because the Hand of God, taken in context of the elements above, represented for Argentina and for Argentineans a moment of profound depuration, wherein they were able to cast off some of their pain and degradation. He struck a blow for all those who had suffered; not just in the conflict itself, but at the hands of the junta. He gave a release to the great unspoken tension within the nation’s life, and reinserted some pride into the national character. That he did it by cheating made it all the sweeter; like a thief in the night, he stole back for Argentina a dignity thought lost. And he followed it up by scoring probably the greatest goal the sport will ever see.
People in this country talk endlessly about David Beckham’s 2001 free kick against Greece. Beckham’s goal prevented England from having to go to a play off to qualify for the 2002 World Cup Finals. Against Ukraine. Those were the stakes. It’s still a big deal nearly two decades later.
Try to imagine, for a moment, what that 1986 quarter final meant to the people of Argentina. It’s David Beckham, Robin Hood and Winston Churchill rolled into one, with the additional bonus of our hero having unapologetically emerged from absolutely grinding poverty. Obviously, he didn’t stop there either — he was absolutely electric in each of the knockout games, and won the trophy virtually single handed. The sheer romance of it all is nigh on unbearable.
I know there is the other view of Maradona; the drugs, the weight gain, the bad behaviour in public. He’s an easy figure to mock, utterly fallible and brought to Earth by his appetites, in every sense. But he never pretended to be anything other than what he was, never really bothered to hide his flaws. He delivered such joy to so many people, and — at his best — he was so full of life and possessed of such enormous character; he genuinely made you believe that anything was possible.
He also played the game with his heart on his sleeve, for good or ill. Less a smoothly calibrated professional of the type that dominates the modern game, more an overgrown schoolboy living out his dreams on the playground and then waking up to find they’d all come true.
That’s the Argentina end of things. We could talk about Napoli too, but I’m far less equipped to speak to that, and the eponymous documentary released last year covers it very well.
Diego Maradona’s life is a modern-day fairy tale. A fairy tale with bucketloads of substance abuse, but a fairy tale nonetheless. It’s the reason that you will find a picture of him on or around every bar in Buenos Aires, the reason his image is plastered all over Napoli and the reason I worshipped him as a child. He’s the representative of a genuine underclass, hailing from a nation whose best days are probably behind it, who by brilliance and force of personality upset the natural order of things and delivered catharsis to his people in the country of Argentina and the city of Naples. Not only that, but he did so while playing with a grace and style that were and remain all his own.
There will be other footballers, brilliant footballers, who will eclipse his deeds. Messi arguably already has. Others who are far more professional, whose careers stretch longer and who keep it together better. There will never be another player with a talent ceiling as high as Diego’s. There will never be another player with an ability to bend an entire tournament to their will as Diego did when at his best. There will never be another player whose peak will be so stratospherically high from both a football and cultural perspective. There will never be another player who will make a football dance the way he did.
They’ve just announced three days of national mourning in Argentina. Hopefully the above paints a picture as to why; it’s the least he deserves.
Farewell, Diego Armando Maradona. Thank you for lighting up my childhood, for your courage, your daring and the sheer grace and beauty of your play. You made me love football all the more, made my dreams a little deeper and my soul a little less earthbound.
Never forgiven Shilton for the penalty shootout in the semi final. Didn't move a muscle until every kick had been taken, giving himself no chance of getting near any of them.
Apparently the arrogant cock even boasted about going the right way for every kick in the changing room after.
Fck me, I'd have managed to dive the right way if I dived after the bastard ball had gone past me
He always had the same technique. Check this out from 1974, a 2-2 draw in a friendly with Argentina just before the World Cup that year. Skip to about 5:35 in the video. He's started to dive as Kempes' penalty is virtually hitting the back of the net.
Traininvain's brother, what a brilliant piece of writing, just superb.
Thanks, I’ll pass that on to him. He wrote it this afternoon to a mate on WhatsApp group. I’ve told him he’s wasted in his day job!
Wanted to share as I know a lot of people still dislike Maradona for 1986 and it might help them understand him a bit better, although I’m sure he’ll still be hated by many!
Maradona everytime. Both probably of similar talent, whereas Maradona was a rogue with a heap of personality , where Messi just seems a bit a dull, albeit one of the greatest.
I like my legends for me need to come with charisma and maybe a demon or two as well as genius - Best, Ali, Hunt, Rossi (Valentino), Botham, Bolt, etc. Maradona certainly is one these.
This is a Maradona tribute thread so first and foremost RIP to the great man. As an aside, the top 5 players I have ever seen play are: Best Pele Cruyff Maradona Messi
He always had the same technique. Check this out from 1974, a 2-2 draw in a friendly with Argentina just before the World Cup that year. Skip to about 5:35 in the video. He's started to dive as Kempes' penalty is virtually hitting the back of the net.
Did he ever save one?
I've said this before - he used to boast about his "technique" in press interviews, his theory that 40% of penos went down the middle so if you stayed put you'd save 40% of penos.
Except, my man, if you've told the oppo that's where you'll be. As it turned out.
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Echo that Antti. Certainly the greatest player I have ever seen. Lived a controversial and troubled life ... but on the field of play, absolutely the best. Never ever played in an outstanding club or international side - yet always dragged his teams through, and carried all on his shoulders to greatness. Some amazing passages of individual brilliance yet always the consummate team player. Punishment he took on the field was incredible, and with little protection from referees in those days. Maradona helped capture and shape all that was good in the Beautiful Game.
"Maradona helped capture and shape all that was good in the Beautiful Game."
how many players get kicked out of World Cups for taking illegal drugs? cheated on the field, and off it by all accounts, prostitutes, mafia links, drugs, he was a basket case personally.
he was a great player, but that's where the praise ends with me.
"Maradona helped capture and shape all that was good in the Beautiful Game."
how many players get kicked out of World Cups for taking illegal drugs? cheated on the field, and off it by all accounts, prostitutes, mafia links, drugs, he was a basket case personally.
he was a great player, but that's where the praise ends with me.
Err, I think there's quite a few England players + national icons who tick all of those boxes, as the writer says their Maradona cheating and Butcher cheating, no difference.
Best player of my generation by a mile, probably wouldn’t have had so much flak if A) he admitted after what he had done instead of coming out with the hand of god bollocks and B) had he been any nationality other than an Argie.
favourite cheese mature Cheddar. FFS there is no such thing as the EPL
Haven't read all the comments on here. Just want to say he was the man. He was the man! There I said it again. What a football player. What a life. God rest your soul Diego. I hope there’s enough sniff and brasses in heaven for you.
Best player of my generation by a mile, probably wouldn’t have had so much flak if A) he admitted after what he had done instead of coming out with the hand of god bollocks and B) had he been any nationality other than an Argie.
His agent (who was English) has just been on Newsnight and says that at England’s next game at Wembley he flew over and met the players and apologised to all of them personally.
His agent (who was English) has just been on Newsnight and says that at England’s next game at Wembley he flew over and met the players and apologised to all of them personally.
This story doesn’t sell papers unfortunately.
[Post edited 25 Nov 2020 23:41]
Probably because it isn’t true, England players are on the record as saying he never apologised. It took 22 years before he said he even regretted it.
I hope terry fenwick doesn’t watch any tv tonight, going to be some painful memories! Two of maradonna’s most famous goals, neither should have stood.
Too late I have already seen multiple reports of Maradona's death and that picture of Fenwick hacking him down is the one featured .A tackle like that today would probably be a season long ban and the fact it did not rupture his Achilles or injury him badly a miracle . The man was an incredible player and a huge part of my childhood so I am sad tonight . His final chapter after his Glory Days contributed to his early death but still despite his Demons he was one of a kind. RIP Great One hope its a freshly mowed pitch you are walking on tonight
Absolutely - really good piece from your brother, Traininvain.
I find it a bit sad if people remember arguably the greatest ever footballer, foremost as a cheat. Every week you see players cynically taking-out opponents on the break, claiming throws/corners/goal-kicks when they know they've had the last touch, diving/exaggerating contact, nibbling away at opponents, and in some cases, the same players regularly launching into dangerous challenges that could potentially end an opponent's career. It does my head in, but I doubt there are many footballers who don't cheat at some point. At least Maradona didn't go out to break anyone's legs. As painful as his first goal against us remains, you cannot watch that second goal and not be blown away by his genius.
As for judging him on his personal life - no doubt he was a troubled soul who made a lot of sh it decisions, but there are plenty of footballing heroes closer to home who've had problems with drink, gambling, relationships etc. None of us can imagine what it's like to go from nothing, to everyone wanting a piece of you, and you being treated like a living God, whether in Argentina or Naples, so as my Mum always says, don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins.
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