Teóricos da Bola

Simplesmente delicioso..tinha 8 anos quando vi este jogo e aqueles 2 golos, a fabulosa Argentina de Maradona, despertou-me para o futebol. Aqui ficam as palavras do único grande génio da bola, que me perdoem Pelé e Eusébio...



(...)The next game was against England, on June 22, 1986 - a day I will not forget for as long as I live. That game was so hard-fought, so tight, with Barnes making things difficult for us towards the end. And with my two goals. My two goals!
I remember many things about the second goal. If one of my relatives tells it, there's always yet another English player involved. When I was growing up in Fiorito I used to dream of scoring a goal like that on the little makeshift pitch, for Estrella Roja, and I did it in a World Cup, for my country, and in a final. I say a final because for us, because of everything it represented, we were playing a final against England. More than defeating a football team, it was defeating a country.
Of course, before the match we said that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas War, but we knew a lot of Argentinian kids had died there, shot down like little birds. This was revenge. It was like recovering a little bit of the Malvinas. In the pre-match interviews we had all said that football and politics shouldn't be confused, but that was a lie. We did nothing but think about it.
In a way, we blamed the English players for everything that happened, for all the suffering of the Argentine people. I know it seems like madness and a nonsense now, but truthfully at the time that was what we felt. It was stronger than us: we were defending our flag, the dead kids, the survivors. That's why I think my goal meant so much. Actually, they both did. They both had their own charm.
The second was the goal you dream of as a kid. Whenever I see it again I can't believe I managed it. Now it's become a legend, and as such there's been all sorts of rubbish said about it. Like the fact I thought about my little brother's advice to dummy the keeper. I didn't, but I later realised unconsciously that it must have entered my head, because I finished like my brother Turco had told me six years before.
In 1980, against England at Wembley, I'd done a very similar move but finished by sidefooting the ball when the keeper came out. I'd missed by a fraction. Turco phoned me and said: "You moron! You shouldn't have sidefooted it, you should have thrown a dummy - the keeper had already committed himself." And I answered: "You little shit! It's easy for you to say that. You're watching it on the telly!"
But he really shut me up: "No, Pelu, if you'd thrown a dummy, you could've dragged it towards the sideline and finished with your right, do you see?" The brat was seven years old! Well, this time I finished like my brother wanted.
Another thing that was true, even though it has also become a legend, was that I could see [Jorge] Valdano running down my left, free on the far post.
Here's how it went: I started off from the middle of the pitch, on the right; I stepped on the ball, turned, and sneaked between Beardsley and Reid. At that point I had the goal in my sights, although I still had a few metres to go. I passed Butcher on the inside and from this point Valdano was a real help, because Fenwick, who was the last one, didn't leave my side. I was waiting for him to stand off, I was waiting to pass the ball - the logical thing to do.
If Fenwick had left me, I could have given it to Valdano, who would have been one on one against Shilton. But he didn't. So I faced him, then threw a dummy one way and went the other, towards the right. Fenwick tried so hard to close in on me, but I carried on and I already had Shilton in front of me.
I was on exactly the spot I'd been on at Wembley that time in 1980, the exact spot! I was going to finish the same way but . . . God, the Beard, helped me. The Beard reminded me, tic . . . and Shilton bought the dummy, he bought it. So I got to the end and I went tac, inside . . . At the same time Butcher, a big blond guy, caught up with me again and kicked me quite hard. But I didn't care, I'd scored the goal of my life.
In the dressing room, when I told Valdano I was watching him, he wanted to kill me. "I can't believe you were looking at me and you still scored that goal! That's downright rude, mate, that's humiliating, that's not possible."
I wanted to put the whole sequence of that goal in stills, blown up really big, above the headboard of my bed. I'd add a picture of Dalmita (Gianinna hadn't been born yet), and below an inscription which read "My life's best". Nothing more . . .
I got a lot of pleasure from the other goal, too. Sometimes I think I almost enjoyed that one more, the first one. Now I feel I am able to say what I couldn't then. At the time I called it "the hand of God". Bollocks was it the hand of God, it was the hand of Diego! And it felt a little bit like pickpocketing the English.
No one noticed at the time: I went for the ball with everything I had. Even I don't know how I managed to jump so high. I struck out with my left fist behind my head. Even Shilton didn't see what was happening, and Fenwick, who was behind me, was the first one to appeal for a handball. Not because he'd seen it but because he couldn't understand how I could have jumped higher than the keeper.
When I saw the linesman running towards the middle of the pitch I did a beeline towards the stand where my dad was with my father-in-law, to celebrate with them. Don Diego was hanging over on to the pitch thinking I'd headed it in. I was a bit stupid, because I was celebrating with my left fist outstretched. The ref could have cottoned on and suspected something was up. By now, all the English were protesting and Valdano was giving me the shhh! with a finger over his lips.
Valdano had passed to me, we'd played a one-two, they put pressure on him and he passed me a dud ball because he'd had no choice. I jumped. I jumped at the same time as the keeper with my fist outstretched and . . . goal, gooooaaaaaaaaal , go weeping to church! As I told a BBC journalist a year later: "It was 100% legitimate because the referee allowed it, and I'm not one to question the honesty of the referee."
The rest of the world wanted my head, of course. But when I returned to Italy after the World Cup, an amazing thing happened. Silvio Piola came to see me. He'd been one of Italy's great goalscorers during the 1938 World Cup, and he said to me: "Tell all those who say you're dishonest because you've scored a hand-goal, if that's the case, they have one less honest man in Italy. I also scored a hand-goal, playing for the Azzurri against England, and it didn't stop us celebrating then!" He was a great old boy. I later read he really had scored one like mine.
In the final we were up against Germany, the team I'd picked from the start. That World Cup was the first where both teams stepped on to the pitch together, and we performed a load of stupid rituals in the tunnel: we'd shout and beat our chests. All the other teams had looked at us with fear. Except the Germans. I remember telling Tata Brown: "This lot aren't afraid of anything."
We scored two great goals to start, but when they drew level I got scared. Unwarranted fear, as it turned out. Sure, they'd scored with two headers in our area - unforgivable for any serious team - but when I looked at the midfielder Briegel's legs and saw they were like logs, I knew we could make it.
When we got back to the centre spot for the kick-off, I squashed the ball against the turf, looked at Burru and told him: "Come on, they're knackered, they can't even run any more. Let's get the ball moving and we'll finish them off before extra-time."
And that's how it was. I was still in our half when I turned, lifted my head and saw a huge wide avenue open up in front of Burruchaga for him to run straight on goal. He turned his back on Briegel and left him behind. I sidefooted the ball and off went Burru, off went Burru, off went Burru . . . Goaaal ! Burru!
I remember we all piled up on top of each other, like a huge mountain. We felt like world champions, six minutes left, and there it was . . . But Bilardo was shouting at us: "Stop fucking about! Go mark; you and Valdano, mark! Come on, come on!"
When the match was finally over, all you could hear in the Azteca stadium were Argentine voices singing - the Mexicans had been left speechless. That's when I burst into tears. I had cried at every moment of my career, and this was the best, the most sublime.