As part of the tribute to the late Diego Maradona, Gary Lineker has a special account of the goal everybody considers the best in football history.
Diego Maradona’s legendary status became impossible to ignore while he was facing Gary Lineker’s England in the 1986 World Cup. The context of the match was incredibly important due to the geopolitical problems that transpired between the two nations.
Argentina lost the Falkland Islands’ conflict with the English Government. All the South American nation wanted was a sense of revenge when these two national teams faced each other at Azteca Stadium. On one side, the Three Lions had Gary Lineker as their biggest star but he had little to do against Maradona in his prime.
Diego was about to have the most incredible performance of his entire career and the England legend had front row tickets to see it. We always look at the video of that famous goal that he scored after the famous ‘Hand of God’. However, we never heard details about the state of the pitch that afternoon.
Lineker’s own account of Maradona’s goal.
During an interview on talkSPORT, Lineker recalled Diego’s goal and compared it to Messi’s against Getafe. He only mistakenly said Leo scored it in La Liga, when he actually scored it in Copa del Rey. “On a playing surface that was so poor, to do what he did was truly extraordinary,” he said.
“It was the only time in my career where I genuinely felt that I ought to put my hands together and applaud that goal. A part of me was also gutted. It was definitely the best thing I’ve ever seen on a football pitch. It’s the best goal that’s ever been scored.
“You see great goals every now and again, I’ve seen [Lionel] Messi score very similar to that, but it was in a LaLiga game, not in a quarter-final of a World Cup against England on a dodgy pitch. Some of the things he could do were truly breathtaking. It was almost like he’d been planted down from some other planet.”
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