Argentina fans, players and coaching staff kept Diego Maradona close to their hearts on Monday as the reigning world champions prepared to \u200bface Austria in their second World Cup Group J match in Dallas, with \u200cthe late icon’s presence as vivid as ever.<\/p>\n
Monday marks 40 years since Maradona’s defining performance in Argentina’s 2-1 win over England in the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium.<\/p>\n
On June \u200b22, 1986, he scored both the infamous “Hand of God” goal and the sublime “Goal \u200bof the Century,” dribbling past half the England team. The anniversary is \u2060commemorated in Argentina as the Day of the Argentine Footballer.<\/p>\n
More than five years after \u200bhis death, Maradona remains a ubiquitous figure among Argentina supporters, the only true rival to \u200bLionel Messi’s towering popularity.
\nAs fans gathered last week for a party in Kansas City, which has been serving as Argentina’s tournament base, giant flags bearing Maradona references rippled through the crowds.<\/p>\n
One banner placed \u200bhim side by side with Messi and carried a single word: “simbiosis.”<\/p>\n
The devotion followed the \u200bteam south to Texas, where fans on Sunday chanted that “Maradona is greater than Pele,” in a dig \u200cat \u2060their Brazilian rivals.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a press conference ahead of the match, coach Lionel Scaloni reflected on the 1986 moment.<\/p>\n
“I think I was at home, at my grandmother’s house, because we all lived there. There were I don’t know how many of us living there, \u200bwe didn’t have our \u200bown home. It \u2060was a very small TV,” reminisced Scaloni, who was eight at the time.<\/p>\n
“Emotional. I didn’t know tomorrow was the anniversary of that \u200bgreat goal, so let’s enjoy it. We will see it everywhere \u200btomorrow. We’ll \u2060cry a little too,” Scaloni told reporters on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Austria, Monday’s opponents, also have a place in Maradona lore.
\nHe scored his only international hat-trick against them in a 5-1 win in \u20601980. The \u200bsides met again in 1990, each time with Argentina \u200bas defending world champions.<\/p>\n
Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack while he was \u200brecuperating from brain surgery to remove a blood clot.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31834,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-37765","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack.","published_date":"","news_description":"Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37766,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37765\/revisions\/37766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}