Forty years. Forty long, gin-soaked years since Diego Maradona, that bloated cherub of Argentine excess, punched a football past Peter Shilton and into the annals of infamy. The Hand of God, they call it. A term so absurdly reverent you'd think the Almighty himself had descended from on high to palm a leather sphere past a bemused goalkeeper. But let us not mince words, dear reader. That hand belonged to Diego, and its primary function that day was not prayer but cheeky, glorious, illegal goal-scoring.
We are told by the BBC, that bastion of sober reportage, that the debate rages on. Does the 1986 quarter-final goal represent the pinnacle of human ingenuity or the nadir of sporting integrity? The answer, as with all great questions, lies in a bottle of Beefeater. It was both. It was a crime scene and a masterpiece, a moment of such breathtaking audacity that it transcends mere football and enters the realm of performance art. Icons like Peter Shilton, still nursing a grudge and possibly a 40-year-old bruise, call it a disgrace. But Shilton, you must understand, is a man whose job it was to stop things. He stopped that ball with his chest, but he could not stop Diego's magic mitt.
England's Gary Lineker, ever the gentleman, tries to be diplomatic. 'It's part of football folklore,' he says, as if that sanitises the memory of a cheat who became a god. And Maradona himself? He called it a 'little bit of Maradona's head and a little bit of the Hand of God.' A masterful deflection, worthy of a politician or a conman. In a world where politicians lie about wars and bankers steal pensions, a handball goal seems almost quaint. Almost.
The controversy persists because we need it to. We need to argue about something that ultimately doesn't matter, because the things that do matter are too terrifying to contemplate. Climate change, nuclear war, the price of a decent gin and tonic. So we argue about a handball. We argue about whether Maradona was a god or a rogue, a hero or a villain. He was, of course, both. That is the human condition. We are all gods and rogues, heroes and villains, depending on which way the wind blows and whether the referee is looking.
In the end, the Hand of God goal is a perfect metaphor for the absurdity of modern life. It's a cheat that became a legend, a sin that was celebrated, a mistake that was immortalised. It's a reminder that we love the flawed, the broken, the dishonest who reach beyond their station. Maradona, with his cocaine and his excesses, was a deeply flawed man. But for that one moment, he was transcendent. He was the little man who took on the establishment and won, using nothing but his wits and his left hand.
So raise a glass, I say. A gin and tonic, heavy on the gin. To Diego Maradona, the hand of God, and the beautiful, glorious, utterly ridiculous game of football. The debate will rage for another 40 years, and that is precisely how it should be.
