FIFA World Cup rewind: You've got to 'hand' it to Maradona

It was Diego Maradona’s World Cup. The world witnessed Maradona dribble his way to greatness at Mexico — fans in India were able to watch it live with Doordarshan telecasting the matches. Maradona’s wizardry with the ball had football lovers gasping in admiration. He scored five goals, each a story in itself, and provided five assists to lead Argentina to its second World Cup triumph.
But the world wouldn’t have witnessed Maradona in full bloom had Tunisian referee Ali Bin Nasser or his Bulgarian assistant Bogdan Dochev spotted the Argentine using his outstretched left hand to fist the ball past England goalkeeper Peter Shilton in the quarterfinals. After the match, Maradona quipped that he scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God” after which it became popular as the ‘Hand of God’ goal.
Four minutes later, the maverick’s genius surfaced as Maradona produced one of the all-time great goals in the game as it took him only 44 strides and 12 touches – all with his left foot -- to score what is widely considered as the ‘goal of the century’.
Picking up the ball inside his own half, Maradona danced past two rival players to enter the opposition half through the right wing. He then breezed past England skipper Peter Reid, skipped inside Terry Butcher and outfoxed Terry Fenwick to slip the ball under goalkeeper Shilton towards goal and left the Englishmen bewildered and fans in the stadium and those watching on television astonished.
The two goals in the space of four minutes, one known for its notoriety and the other for its sheer-brilliance, were a reflection of the two sides of a genius and gave Argentina a 2-1 win over their rivals.
Their next opponents, Belgium, were too at the receiving end of Maradona’s dreaded left-foot as he struck twice to take Argentina to the final.
In the summit clash, Argentina took on West Germany and manager Franz Beckenbauer tried to neutralize the ‘Maradona threat’ by assigning the task of shadow marking him to Lothar Matthaus. But it opened up spaces for Maradona’s teammates and Jose Brown and Jorge Valdano put Argentina 2-0 up. But West Germany made a strong comeback by scoring two goals in the space of six minutes, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (74) and Rudi Voller (80), to draw level.
But then Maradona chose to leave his imprint in the final in the 83rd minute. With the game heading for extra-time, for once Matthaus left Maradona free inside his own half and the Argentine provided a defence-splitting pass to Jorge Burruchaga, who slotted it into the German net. West Germany’s attempt to stage another comeback went in vain as Maradona held aloft the World Cup trophy at Azteca stadium.