Diego Maradona was both a football genius and a cheat that will forever be welcomed by every England fan with a two-fingered salute. You literally need not watch more than a two minute highlight reel of the 1986 quarter-final clash between Argentina and England to see both the beautiful and ugly side of the game - each demonstrated by Maradona. Madonna was the type of player opposing fans loathed, but dreamed would one day represent their own club much like Cristiano Ronaldo today. The Argentine's display against England on that fateful night in Mexico was nothing short of incredible (excluding the handball) and his second goal was one of the greatest, if not the greatest goal ever scored in a World Cup competition. He took the ball from inside his own half and nonchalantly bypassed five England players including the goalkeeper, before prodding the ball into an empty net. England piled on the pressure in the last ten minutes and pulled a goal back through a Gary Lineker header. Lineker very nearly notch a second moments later, when fans agonisingly watched an Argentinean defender beat the forward by a whisker to a cross that looped over the oppositions goal line but we just couldn't find the necessary equaliser and went crashing out of the competition. As good as Maradona was on the day, the simple fact is that his blatant cheating in such a tight game cost England dearly, in a narrowly 2-1 defeat making the 1986 tournament Englands most devastating World Cup exit ever.
A wrestling enthusiast, currently educating the youth of Taiwan English; there are now a bunch of Asian kids running around with Yorkshire accents. Read about that trip and others at dragonstravel.com.
