The origins of the Hand of God, a goal still contentious two years after Maradona’s death

Diego Maradona ran towards the corner flag slightly subdued. He pumped both fists and then leapt and punched the air with his right hand, his signature goal celebration. The crowd in the mammoth Estadio Azteca didn’t fully roar.

Confusion lingered in the smog-filled Mexico City sky. Maradona’s teammates met him in the corner. They were puzzled. Had he just punched the ball into the net?

During an interview released in January of 2020, 10 months before his death at age 60, Maradona recalled what was said immediately after scoring that now infamous goal against England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup.

“Shut up and hug me,” Maradona told midfielder Sergio Batista, who quickly obliged. More teammates followed suit, including Jorge Valdano, who a week later would score against West Germany in a thrilling final that Argentina won 3-2.

“Don’t tell me you used your hand. You need to tell me,” Valdano insisted.

“I’ll tell you later, Valdano. Stop busting my balls,” Maradona shot back, as England goalkeeper Peter Shilton and defender Terry Fenwick argued with Tunisian referee Ali Bennecur, who jogged backwards towards the center circle after confirming the goal.

The Hand of God goal that Maradona scored that day — June 22, 1986 — is still one of the most controversial moments in World Cup history.

In Argentina, it is celebrated as a cunning display of gamesmanship against an arch-rival by the best player of all time. In England, it’s still mostly viewed as a shameful scandal — a robbery committed in broad Mexican daylight.

It’s a goal with a distinct name — but a name whose origin is uncertain.

So, who’s responsible for one of the most well-known monikers in world sport? Was it Maradona himself, or did he swipe credit for the title out of the air, rather like the goal itself?

That quarter-final was played amid political strife between the two countries.

Argentina had unsuccessfully invaded the British-held Falkland Islands, an archipelago in the South Atlantic 300 miles from the Argentine coast and 8,000 miles from England, four years prior. It is estimated that nearly 1,000 British and Argentine soldiers lost their lives in a two-month conflict, with Argentina suffering the brunt of the casualties.

In the days leading up to the match, players from both sides were asked questions about politics as well as football.

“I don’t talk about politics,” Maradona said sternly from Argentina’s training camp. “No, no, no. I play football. No politics.”

The tie was billed as a revenge match for Argentina, an unheralded side that had come into its own as the tournament progressed. At the previous World Cup in Spain four years earlier, they had exited at the second group stage following defeats to Italy and Brazil.

Maradona was Argentina’s undisputed star. He welcomed the responsibility of carrying the hopes and dreams of his country on his shoulders. Despite his refusal to answer questions about the geopolitical aspect of the match, Maradona used the war as a rallying cry to motivate his teammates.

In an interview for the 2016 documentary The Impossible Champion, the late Jose Luis ‘El Tata’ Brown, a starting central defender for Argentina at that World Cup, remembered what Maradona, the team’s captain, told the players before kickoff against England.

“We were walking towards the pitch and Diego said, ‘Vamos, eh! Vamos. These guys killed who knows how many of our boys. Vamos, eh!’. When the national anthem ended, you could’ve put anyone in front of me and I would’ve devoured them.”

Maradona glared at the English players as God Save The Queen blared throughout the stadium. For Maradona, turning a World Cup quarter-final into a battleground came naturally. He grew up in poverty and would later become a symbol of rebellion in Argentina, a spokesperson for those oppressed by the wealthy and far-right politicians.

On that steamy afternoon at the Azteca, Argentina and England played a cagey, tense match that was scoreless after 45 minutes of play.

At this time, Maradona was not yet considered to be the world’s best player, though he was nearing that honor. He had been dominant in the round of 16 match against neighbours Uruguay, a 1-0 win that even today goes unnoticed because of his exploits that would follow.

In the second half against England, Maradona would go from villain to deity in a span of four minutes.

In the 51st minute, Maradona dribbled at the England defense and latched onto Steve Hodge’s looping back-pass to Shilton.

“When I saw that the ball had gone up in the air, I thought, ‘I can’t reach it. Come down, please’,” the 5ft 5in (165cm) Maradona said. “And then I thought of an idea: use my hand and my head. When I landed, I fell and didn’t understand where the ball was. I looked and saw the ball was in the goal.”

Maradona had used his hand to beat a leaping Shilton to the ball and knock it into the goal. Uruguayan commentator Victor Hugo Morales, whose goal call on Maradona’s marvellous second of the match soon after has been replayed millions of times, was stunned when he realized what had taken place.

“The goal was scored with his hand and he celebrated with all his soul,” Morales exclaimed. “Argentina is winning 1-0 but pay attention to what I’m about to say: against England, today, and yes, it was scored with his hand. What do you want me to say?”.

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Subsequent photos and video replays were undeniable. Maradona had deceived the linesman and referee, though.

“It was distinctly cheeky from Diego,” former England striker Gary Lineker, who also scored in that match, said in 2016. “He did it very cleverly really, because you need to look very closely (at the images) to see it.”

After the final whistle, with Argentina having held off a late England rally, Maradona was surrounded by reporters from around the world.

This is when the mystery of the Hand of God began.

According to Argentine author Andres Burgo, who wrote a book about that quarter-final titled El Partido (The Match), a journalist tried to bait Maradona into admitting what he had done. Burgo told Peruvian outlet El Comercio that the Argentina captain initially denied that he had used his hand to score.

Several reporters asked Maradona about the controversial goal, but he claimed that he had used his head. Then he said the ball had come off of Shilton. “He used a series of excuses in order to avoid a fuss,” Burgos told El Comercio in 2020.

“Hector Ferrero, an Argentine reporter with Italian news agency Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), told (Maradona), ‘Come on, Diego. It’s clear that you used your hand’. ‘No, it was my head’, Diego responded. The reporter insisted, ‘Maybe it was the hand of God,’ and Maradona said, ‘Maybe it was’. I have no idea what the truth is, but those are the stories.”

In other interviews about the Hand of God goal, Burgo said that Maradona avoided the truth in order to steer clear of controversy with the referees of that match and with FIFA, world football’s governing body. But in his 2000 autobiography Yo Soy el Diego (I Am Diego), Maradona not only admitted to using his hand, but revealed he also took pleasure in swindling Shilton and England that day.

“Sometimes I feel that I liked the one with the hand more, the first goal,” Maradona said. “Now I can reveal what I couldn’t in that moment, what I had defined at the time as the Hand of God. What hand of God? It was the hand of El Diego! And it was like stealing the English’s wallet, too.”

Years later, Shilton was asked about that moment. An excerpt of that interview appeared in The Impossible Champion, a documentary about Argentina’s 1986 World Cup.

“I’ve always said that, as a goalkeeper, I probably would’ve liked to knock his head off because goalkeepers always want to get the ball, but I was getting the ball and I think that’s why Maradona put it in with his hand and not his head,” said Shilton. “I would never shake hands with him, because I just don’t think he acted the right way. The way he reacted in that situation isn’t the way I would’ve liked.”

After Maradona passed away in November 2020, Shilton authored a column in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper. He offered his condolences to his old foe’s family, before taking one last swing at Maradona’s antics 34 years later.

“What I don’t like is that he never apologised,” Shilton wrote. “Never at any stage did he say he had cheated and that he would like to say sorry. Instead, he used his Hand of God line. That wasn’t right. It seems he had greatness in him but sadly no sportsmanship.”

To recap, Burgo said that an Argentine journalist working for an Italian news agency first used the Hand of God term immediately after the game. But as noted above, Maradona took credit for the name in his autobiography after lying about the act for decades. And Shilton believes that it came from Maradona, too.

So which is it?

There was a ceremony in Doha, host nation Qatar’s capital city, during this World Cup to honor Maradona on the second anniversary of his death. It was at a small temporary museum in Msheireb, Doha’s modern city center. Visiting fans from Argentina, and from all parts of the world, chanted “Marado, Marado, nacio la mano de Dios,” (Marado, the hand of God was born), the chorus to Rodrigo Bueno’s 2000 hit song La Mano de Dios.

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Maradona’s second goal against England was replayed on a loop. Morales’ voice from the past could be heard over the loudspeakers. Genio! Genio! Genio! Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta! It was an appropriate soundtrack.

Speaking to members of the international press in attendance, Valdano, flanked by other members of that 1986 World Cup winning squad, including Jorge Burruchaga, Batista, and Nery Pumpido, remembered his dear friend and what he accomplished that day.

“One thought that it was impossible for Diego to play any better than he did (in the previous round) against Uruguay,” Valdano said. “But no, that was simply a sketch for what would be his masterpiece. Everything was destined for that moment. The ideal day. The ideal opponent. That day, he completed his most marvellous work of art. That day, he became a hero. He became a legend. He became a symbol.”

Valdano was quickly ushered away by security as the reporters and television crews descended on the Argentine legends.

The Athletic spotted journalist Daniel Arcucci in the crowd and approached him. We talked briefly about Argentina’s shocking loss to Saudi Arabia in their group-stage opener three days prior. Arcucci not only co-authored Maradona’s autobiography, he became Maradona’s close confidant and one of the few journalists he trusted.

“Maradona is unique. Take into account that Diego played his last World Cup in 1994, he retired in 1997 and he still inspires this,” Arcucci said, as he pointed to the crowd of adoring fans. “If you look around, there are many generations here. There are young people here who never saw him play. In that sense he’s incomparable. It’s emotional. Diego was much more than a footballer. Diego is a cultural icon in Argentina, but not just in Argentina, but an icon for global football.”

Arcucci was asked if it was true that Maradona had not been the originator of the Hand of God title.

“No, no. The story goes like this,” he explained. “An Italian journalist from ANSA told Diego, ‘It was the hand of God?’, and Diego said, ‘Yes, yes, yes’. Diego kept denying it. In fact, some of his teammates in the dressing room denied it as well. (Maradona) continued to deny it and finally confessed many (years) later. What’s funny is that a British paper once wrote that Diego had said that he regretted scoring that goal with his hand. Maradona said, ‘I’ll never regret scoring that goal with my hand’.”

So now we have an Italian journalist from ANSA, not an Argentinian one, who asked Maradona after the match whether the goal had been scored by the hand of God.

At the ceremony, Pumpido took questions from a small cluster of reporters. At 65 years old, the former goalkeeper remains broad-shouldered. His hands are massive, his fiery glare intact. Beads of sweat popped from his forehead. It was noon in Doha and the sun was piercing.

The Athletic asked him where the Hand of God goal stands within the annals of World Cup history.

“It’s just a goal,” Pumpido said, clearly bothered by the question. “The other one (Maradona scored that day) was historic. It’s the best goal of all time. Why don’t you ask me about that one? You’re very negative.”

Why ask the question? Because it was the Hand of God.

Regardless of who coined the name or whether one views the goal itself as a shameful act of cheating, a moment of defiant brilliance, or an artist’s masterpiece, it will live on in football history forever, continuing to fuel endless curiosity, debate and emotions of all kinds.

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(Top photo: Allsport/Getty Images)