The Hand of God

On June 22, 1986, at Azteca Stadium in Mexico, Argentina plays against England for the quarterfinals of the World Championship.

Only four years have passed since the humiliation of Argentina by Great Britain in the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands war, and at least for the Argentinians, this match is also a chance to retaliate.

But the match will be remembered, not for the victory of Argentina 2 to 1, but for two goals scored by Diego Armando Maradona.

In the sixth minute of the second part, after a wide cleaning of English defender Hodge, the ball flew toward the area of the English Crosy gate, and Maradona jumped up and struck him secretly with her left hand to send him to the net. Sunnisian Arbiter Ali Bin Nasser declared the goal fair.

After the match, Maradona declared that the goal was marked “butco con la Cabeza de Maradona y oro poco con la manno de Dios.” And it would have been known since then as the goal “by God's hand. ”

Just four minutes later, Maradona again took a ball in her semifield and, after an incredible welcome to the English gate, where she drove four opponents and then even goalkeeper Peter Shilton scored the second goal, which would later be remembered as Goli of the Century.

In a scripture dedicated to the Argentinian football star (In Search of Dieguito Maradona, published in The Guardian, 2004, then reprinted in a collection of essays and reports The Rub of Time, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2018, writer English Martin Amis writes that according to Latin Americans, the key to the character of the Argentinians lies in the way these two goals of that match are valued.

In Argentina, he notes, people actually like the first goal, not the second. Because machoThe Argentinian woman feels much more satisfied when she has achieved something with tricks or tricks, when she has achieved it honestly or in the sweat of her forehead, or so she is believed.

The same in politics and business affairs in Argentina is not that they merely tolerate corruption. Rather, they worship him, continues Amis, even though by putting this second claim into his fingernails, do you think he's quoting someone? In this culture, playing by rules carries some kind of humiliation, a kind of desecration.

Maradona writes on autobiography: “ [First Gul] gave me great pleasure. Sometimes I think I enjoyed it more than the second. ”

Even former Argentina representative Cesar Luis Mennotti's coach was thus expressed:

Great! And better yet, much better, that the goal was unfair, cruel, because it gave more to the English.

The continuation of the Falkland war by other means...

I wonder which of those two goals have I liked most? And he always picks the second, since the triumph of cunning, no matter how heavily conceived with philosophical significance, cannot be compared, to me, to the triumph of the football gesture, or the aesthetics of the game.

But this may depend on the way I experience it, the spectator, the football - not as the prision of a fight, not as a randomizer (to bet), but as a combination of athletics, ballet, and theater.

The process that Amis brings, in his essay, makes me think that people can be divided into two groups into those who cheer with the first goal (the one by hand) and the others who speak second.

(And a third group, of course: Those who have never heard of Maradon's goals and don't give a fuck about football. )

Like any light game, football can only follow its arbitrary rules but always has a gray space, which includes the fable that has saved the referee, the centicent position, the touch of the ball, the simulated foul; a space that for some is the geometric place of “game” in gameEither limit testing.

There are those who will add that the rules, even the rules of football game, embody whose right is power and that the poor, the small, the humiliated will never be able to lift his head, playing Fair.

When I read what Amis writes about worship Oppression In Argentina, or for the popular “adoption of fraud, bypassing rule (and law), eye failure, cheating, or anything else that includes the umbrella of levantinismI think Albania, as the Balkans and South Italy come to mind.

I remember what makes that country different from other Latin American countries is also the component of the Italian-born population, which have brought a certain culture with them.

Yet, the explanation brought him half a joke from Amis about the culture of adopting lawlessness, does not convince me to the end; even when I imagined that even among Albanians, there would be countless those who chose the first goal of the second.

Maybe there's another reason here, which has little to do with attitude to law and ethics in cultures where social co-existence rules are still largely imposed on the outside. Another reason, which relates to self - centeredness or to our inability to get out of ourselves.

Maradona's handold goal, anyone can do it on condition that the referee does not see it. On the contrary, the second goal, either that combination of drive and the ball between the field and the net, is the work of a football genius.

None of us could. For some, among whom I am, this is the reason enough, to worship it: the beauty of the gesture, the perfect technique, the balance, the coolness in a arena as hot as the World Cup Aztec, the drama of nearly mythology between Argentina and England.

But not all approach life like this; for for some results add much more weight than the grace of execution, even when it comes to play and entertainment.

In fact, in the face of a goal that anyone can point out, enough to have the right cunning; and a goal that no one can point at, they will choose first, for it is easier to identify.

So also the classification that Amis suggests, clearly separates the play from the theater: the play is the match and its campaigning in history; but the theater is the player's, who hits the rules without punishment.

The victory thus comes in double: against the other team and the estabilist, who has decided and imposed regulations, including those of the game.

Maradona has gone too far when she's talking about “mano de Dios.” Let's just say that he sinned “with the first goal, and then took the blame for the second goal, to confirm to us all the ying/yang duality of football, many of life.