If we added up how much the western world stole, pilfered, and murdered from the global south (and continues to profit of the labor of the global south) vs. a fucking goal… well. I think we can forgive the goal, maybe.
But yeah.
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I agree, 100%. It’s a silly thing to hold a grudge over, especially 34 years later. But it also happened right after the falklands, and people hook things into international sports that shouldn’t be. It’s a dumb headline and they should feel bad. But it’s not a surprising headline from the sun.
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Are you serious?
1990: Semi finals, lost on penalties
1994: Didn’t qualify
1998: Knockout rounds, lost on penalties (David Beckham deserved to get sent off for kicking Diego Simeone)
2002: Quarter Finals
2006: Quarter Finals, lost on penalties
2010: Knockout Rounds
2014: Group Stage
2018: Semi Finals
Did the ball cross the line for Geoff Hurst’s second goal in the 1966 final? How would it have changed the rest of the match if it had been disallowed?
It goes both ways, so just accept that England have a good record at showing they are among the best teams in the world, and feel happy that by winning one World Cup they did better than other great teams such as Hungary in 1954 and the Netherlands in the 1970s.
If you look at the dead celebrity thread I have put up the deaths of many ex-England players. Some of them have reasons to be criticised too, but no-one does.
Imagine that it was Gary Lineker who died (hopefully that day is a long way ahead of us) and all the rest of the world could talk about was the time he shat himself while playing against Ireland in the 1990 world cup? It’s not cool and ignores the rest of his life.
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“Hand of the God” goal is again popular.
The Great Maradona
World Never Forget You
In Germany there are a lot of clubs who live on the cusp, always going up or down. My “local pride” club, the 1. FC Nuremberg, is one such Achterbahnverein (rollercoaster club).
As for Maradona, I think his popularity had a lot to do with his lack of shame, his whole “poor kid makes it big” mythos. Not to say it isn’t true, but it was a big part of why he was so popular long after he retired from playing to be a commentator and a middling coach.
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I still say that the Goal of the Century in the same match showed the true talent of Maradona.
Arsenal tried to sign him in 1982, but the EFA refused to give him a work permit. This was when Tottenham Hotspur had Ossie Ardiles playing for them. Imagine seeing a North London derby with two of the best Argentine international players at the time on opposite sides.
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Britain also still has Anguila, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Tonga, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Pitcairn islands, St Helena, and what is left of Montserrat. I would have thought that any of those would be more hospitable than the Falkland Islands*.
Maybe it’s because the Falklands will be a good source of sheep and penguins when the post-Brexit food shortages start.
* My apologies to the inhabitants of the remnants of the British Empire. I’m sorry that we’re going to pull you down with us. I really hope you don’t get lots of retired racist arseholes invading when things get really bad.
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No.
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And even more to do with his being a man of the people – with lacking the shame instilled in so many of the victims of imperialist conquest.
The mainstream press is also remembering the football titan but consciously shying away from his political commitments. Other outlets are accusing Maradona of being anti-American. Like the political leadership he so admired, Maradona never expressed ire towards the people of the United States but rather towards its political leadership who thought they were “the county sheriff.”[13]
Through the years of the Pink Tide, Maradona was a regular on television programs and at rallies with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Daniel Ortega, José “Pepe” Mujica and other anti-imperialist figures of the continent. His tattoos of Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro brought a new meaning to the phrase “he wore his feelings on his sleeve.” His program “De Zurda” on TeleSUR in 2014 with Víctor Hugo Morales, the famed Uruguayan sportscaster, combined humor, sports analysis and leftist political commentary. Last year, following a coaching win in April, he stated: “I want to dedicate this victory to Nicolás Maduro and all Venezuelans, who are suffering. These Yankees, the sheriffs of the world, think just because they have the world’s biggest bomb they can push us around. But no, not us.”
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I’m not sure if that’s true even in NL. The Netherlands has so-called LOOT* high schools which will make allowances in terms of flexible class schedules for students who are training at a high level, but they are ordinary schools which also have students who aren’t top-level athletes. An example is the Thorbecke high school in Rotterdam, where the boys in Feyenoord’s youth team study- 9 of the 25-man Dutch squad for the 2014 World Cup went there.
*Landelijke Organisatie Onderwijs en Topsport- National Organisation for Education and Top-level Sport
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The other side of the idol.
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This is really what bugs me about him. Many players in just about every sport tries to get away with things here and there. “working the refs is part of the game” they’ll say (even though that’s a big turn off). But how he handled it afterwards, justifying it because he got away with it, was garbage that should never be respected in anyone so why should he be just because he was super talented. Go ahead and admire the greats’ work but don’t tell me their shit don’t stink.
Not the penguins!!!
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If I remember correctly, one of the characters from Brave New World asked to be exiled to a remote and inhospitable island like the Malvinas / Falklands because he needed a dramatic and desolate place to think.
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That’s an amazing story… I wish he’d done it.
All of us in lockdown, doomscrolling away, knowing we should be productive! 
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To be fair, I think each of the Gallagher brothers have probably threatened to shoot each other, too?
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When controversial people meet.
So Maradona was stupid. If he wanted this so badly, he should have given each of them a gun.
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What’s sauce for the goose…
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