How Argentina's Diego Maradona remains undisputed king of that rugged era

Touched by God 

How We Won the Mexico ’86 World Cup

Author: Diego Armando Maradona and Daniel Arcucci

Publisher: Hachette 

Pages: 226

Price: Rs 699

Since we’re on about Mexico ’86, it would be nothing short of blasphemy to not begin with the fabled event that went on to define that World Cup. So here it is: 

It is June 22, 1986 and the match clock reads 55 minutes on a sun-soaked afternoon at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium. In a seemingly innocuous passage of play, Diego Armando Maradona receives the ball from Hector Enrique inside his own half. England have men behind the ball; all seems well. Just then, with a balletic turn — a semi 360 of sorts — Maradona skips past Peter Reid and Peter Beardsley in one swift, mesmeric motion. Ball glued to his feet, his heels caressing the surface, he then ghosts past Terry Butcher and Terry Fenwick. A second later, Butcher thinks he has caught up with him, but the Glasgow Rangers man is just kidding himself. Maradona evades his outstretched leg and accelerates past him again. Peter Shilton comes but an unsteady Argentine captain has already blasted the ball into the net.

By now, Victor Hugo Morales, the Uruguayan journalist calling the game in Spanish, has sent the audience into chaotic paroxysms of ecstasy. “I want to cry, oh holy God, long live football! What a goal! Diegoal! Maradona! ...Little cosmic kite, which planet did you come from?” he screams. On the sidelines, Maradona is embraced by his teammates in a way a father would his long-lost son. In the crowd, they’re still rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

The events of four minutes ago already seem forgotten.

Moments before his amphetamine-crazed shift of feet left his opponents in a daze, Maradona had somehow risen above Shilton to miraculously punch the ball into the net. The Tunisian referee had allowed the goal to stand; it would later be dubbed the “Hand of God”.

Those four minutes succinctly captured Maradona’s entire football career. He could dazzle and deceive with that same inconceivable fervour, one that forever endeared him to his fans. The England game, even by Maradona standards, was a snapshot of gripping football theatre unrivalled in World Cup history. And that’s why he deserves ample credit for not making his new book, Touched By God: How We Won the Mexico ’86 World Cup, just about that. England obviously finds a mention, but never does it overshadow this outspoken and entertaining rehash of two of his previous books, El Diego and I am Diego of the People.

Flipping through its pages, you come across something about Maradona far greater than his football. How could that be? How could anything be possibly more powerful than his ability with the ball, or the glistening pride that swept across his face when he pulled on the white and blue of Argentina? Well, there is. It’s his honesty and a fascinating impenitence that makes Touched By God so engrossing and exceptionally readable.

For the record, Maradona still hates Daniel Passarella, the man he replaced as La Albiceleste captain in the run-up to the World Cup, he’s still a part of the César Luis Menotti camp, as opposed to Carlos Bilardo’s, the coach who led them to the ’86 triumph, and if it were up to him, “he would have gone out there with a machine gun and killed Shilton, Stevens, Butcher, Fenwick… Hoddle, Beardsley, and Linekar”. It’s safe to say that Maradona, after all these years, is still Maradona: bellicose and unapologetic. 

While promoting the book, Maradona spoke about how he had revisited all the game footage from Mexico ’86, which is evident in his writing. Every memorable goal, every significant pass, every crunching tackle is recalled in a vivid, thrilling narrative that seems as recent as the woebegone 2010 campaign, which Maradona himself initially had the honour — and then the misfortune — of spearheading. 

More startling is Maradona’s brilliant culling out of football’s brutal physical age, where getting viciously kicked at for slippery ball players like him was normal, and expecting any punishment for such acts was akin to spotting polar bears in the desert.  Maradona singles out South Korea — Argentina’s first opponents in Mexico — for some savage assessment in that respect, cuss words aplenty and thrown in at will. 

Touched by God: Maradona with the World Cup trophy Photo: Reuters

Maradona’s candour also allows his cocaine use to surface. While recollecting one of his many altercations with Passarella, Maradona confesses to doing coke while on national duty. His drug use, as Paddy Agnew writes in Forza Italia: The Fall and Rise of Italian Football, started back in Barcelona in 1982-83. He only tested positive for the first time in March 1991, following a routine dope test after a league game against Bari. 

The years leading up to the fall from his exalted, demigod status had been full of strife. Rumours of a thriving camaraderie with the Camorra, the local Naples mafia, had become routine, and parties hosted by Maradona — often involving drugs, copious alcohol and topless women — had become notorious for getting out of hand. On the field, however, he continued to weave his magic. 

At Mexico ’86, Argentina was undeniably Maradona’s team, one that he led with the skill and swagger of a nation’s darling; in the eyes of the Argentine people, he could do no wrong. And most of them would tell you that the national team at the time was a one-man artillery squad that only fired when Maradona wanted it to. That’s why Maradona warrants applause for underscoring the contributions of his teammates, some of whom played a much meatier role in the victory than many would imagine.

At the end of a brutal challenge from South Korea’s Kim Yong-Se during Argentina’s first group game Photo: Reuters

For someone who has followed Maradona — even Pelé for that matter — over the years, Touched By God throws up some familiar frailties. He is yet to fully let go of his fixation with referring to himself in third person, and all the hubris does get a bit too much in the end. More infuriatingly, the translators manage to wreck the football lingo. “I scored the goal at a penalty kick at the end of the first period,” they write. Elsewhere they say, “We were winning, one to nothing, with a goal I made from a free kick. But they tied it up at the nine-minute mark…” Unlike in basketball or American football, you don’t “tie” matches in football, even though it essentially means the same thing. 

These minor quarrels, however, fail to undo the effort of Maradona who has produced a sincere, bombastic account of one the most unforgettable conquests the World Cup has ever seen. Maradona remains the undisputed king of a rugged, antiquated era untouched by the indulgences of modern football. And, we can only thank god that he exists.