On June 22nd 1986, the
infamous “Hand of God” incident put pay to England's chances of
winning their Mexico World Cup quarter-final against Argentina, when
Maradona punched into the net, a looping deflection beyond the
massive Peter Shilton. Of course, a gentleman would admit to cheating
and ask the ref to disallow the goal but not Diego! Although Maradona also scored one of the great WC goals ever to make it 2-0, Gary Lineker
brought us back into the game and had he got onto one of John Barnes'
crosses at the end of the game we might have pulled through. This is
Peter Reid's account of the game. If you also watch the video he is the
one left in Maradona's wake as he took England apart.
In 1966 the previous World Cup meeting
with Argentina led to the disgraceful scenes of England manager, Alf
Ramsey, wrestling his players away from the Argentinians after
England had won 1-0 at Wembley in the WC quarter-final, insisting
that they were not to swap shirts following the unruly behaviour of
the opposition, particularly Rattin the perpetrator of several
horrible tackles.
Geoff Hurst scored the only goal with a
near post header and the rest is history.
Let's not forget David Beckham's
sending off in the 1998 World Cup when he had been floored by
Simeone-against??? You guessed it Argentina. Without him, England
drew 2-2 aet and lost 4-3 on penalties, but it was his penalty that
put his team through in the WC in 2002, 1-0, after Michael Owen had
been tipped over. There was no bad behaviour this time round.
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