Mexico 1986 exists like a step outside my memory between the wonders of Brazil in 1982 and the opening Pavarotti credits of 1990.
Four years older but I can still tell you more about what happened in Spain then in Mexico. I'll blame the newly discovered phenomenon of time zones. Mexico? Who sent the World Cup there. Oh yes, probably the same people who originally picked Colombia who sent out a "phone a friend" after they realized they didn't quite have the money. Maybe the most honest (non) world cup organizers ever, Colombia. Ironic, somewhat?
So there we were, six hours ahead of what's happening in Mexico. I took a nap before England played Morocco at midnight. I was now a devoted England fan, and had to be well rested. When people ask me if I enjoyed a movie, I very often say I don't remember watching it so it must have been bad. That's my gauge. It was a terrible match, as anti-Brazil '82 as one could get, so boring that I can barely even remember how bad it was. . There was one lesson from this disastrous reason to be going to bed at 2am. Bryan Robson had a dodgy shoulder, dislocated they said. It was to be a recurring thing, Robson and his shoulder that kept popping out. The first of many major injuries I heard about, soon to be followed by ACL's and metartarsals.
Uruguay were the fascinating team of 1986. They were the small South American team who had won the whole thing twice before. That's all I knew, 2-time World Cup champions. What I didn't know was that it was in 1930, when they pretty much invited, and paid for, the European teams to come to Uruguay, and the Europeans were very gracious visitors. The second was 1950 when they inflicted a defeat of enormous proportions on the hosts Brazil in the final that wasn't really a final. And they hadn't done much since then. But when it came to the fantasy world cup organized by a teacher at school, I picked Uruguay to get to the semi-finals, because they were, as I told everybody, 2-time winners. It didn't quite turn out as I hoped. They got walloped 6-1 by Denmark and managed to get a player sent off against Scotland before the referee had barely taken the whistle out of his mouth after kick off. But after terrorizing the poor Scots into not beating them, and with a point against West Germany, they made into the second round with 2 points. Two points! They were one of the best third placed teams. Fifa had allowed 24 teams at this World Cup and this was their new system to deal with the unusual tournament number of participants. Many years later they solved the problem, by extending it to 32 teams. But that was it for my heroes from Uruguay after that. There was no triumphant march beyond the second round.
England had another middle of the night match and they came through the must win match against Poland thanks to a new hat-trick hero, Gary Lineker. This time I couldn't muster another night of torture. But I slept happily after waking up to the sounds of distant car horns driving through the streets. This was Malta, where celebrating an English or Italian win was probably done as fervently as in England or Italy. England marched on and suddenly looked unstoppable after beating Paraguay 3-0 in the second round. Paraguay were another exotic sounding team, and South American, so England muts be world beaters by now, I thought.
Then Diego Maradona happened. The proverbial ugly and good side of the Argentinian who was supposed to have been the star of 1982 but took another 4 years to own a world cup, came out. The fight for the high ball bouncing between him and Peter Shilton is quite amusing. Probably the two littlest guys on the pitch, up they went together. If you could have slowed the moment down and been able to analyse rationally what should have happened next, you would have thought: the goalkeeper can use his hands so surely he has that added height advantage of his outstretched hands. Now if you forget the rational analysis, and thought like Maradona, you would have understood that Maradona, despite not being a goalkeeper, also has hands that can reach out. He could physically use them, only the small matter of the rules should have stopped him. And, hey, why not try and hope that you're being watched by a Tunisian referee who's never seen this before. If you eyes witness something for the first time, the brain may not register it's abnormality. And so it was that the Hand of God was born, some of certain belief may say re-incarnated.
Our little Diego was a man with a conscience, though. A few minutes later, with his guilt still burning away inside him, he decided to show the world what he can do what his feet. The English players obliged by forgetting they could tackle him and as he slalomed through the whole English team and scored the second goal, he managed to score the two most talked about goals in world cup history.
Strangely, I was at home with one of my brothers watching this historic moment. It was odd because, I remember World Cups as the time that the whole family gathered around the tv. My mother may have feigned interest for the good of the family. But as she did for many years to come she still knew every player and all their stories. She came back from a trip to England in 1986 and asked what the latest was on Karl Heniz Rummenige's back injury. She sat with us and watched, when she probably would have been happier with a bit of Frank Spencer. This was Malta, so there wasn't much on, but it might have all been more enjoyable than another night with the (in)famous Italian commentator, Bruno Pizzul. And my other 4 siblings, and my Dad? Where were they? It was left to the two of us to rue the injustice that had befallen the poor English again.
Maradona went on to toy with Belgium in the semi-final. The other semi-final was a re-match of the 1982 classic. This time, there was no unpunished Harold Schumacher attack on a French player and the West Germans went on to a clinical win against the French, who had become the Dutch of the eighties. They had the players, the skill, the admiration of the world, but no World Cup. They were part of, along with Brazil, what I believe to be one of the greatest World Cup matches. The quarter final, decided on penalties, stands out as an amazing memory of clean attacking football, a cut above the rest of the tournament. It was the whole of Brazil '82 in 120 minutes.
Mexico '86 also brought a new personal worry: end of year school exams that had to be studied for. And the last minute cramming had to be compacted ever more to be finished by the time the matches started in the evenings. I must have been working slowly on the night of the France-West Germany semi-final as I only caught fleeting glimpses of it.
A couple of amazing things about growing up in Malta were flat roofs and the heat in June. Our roof was my Platini free kick training ground, and my new study area. It was a large roof with an area over the extension to the main building where my Dad had constructed what I remember as an outdoor classroom; tables and chairs with no walls, covered by a corrugated tin roof. This is where I spent many hours after school in June, trying to conjugate my French and Italian verbs while I looked across my adjoining football "field" and wondering what Platini was doing on the tv.
Argentina won what must be the best final of my World Cup life. Jorge Burruchaga scored the winning goal after an exquisite (and I use that word with it's true full meaning) pass from Maradona. West Germany had come back from 2-0 down, to think they had at least earned extra time. But it was not to be as, again, Maradona decided a statement needed to be made. Four years later these two teams played the final again, and it was sadly not quite the same.
The summer of '86 was also supposed to be the year of a family holiday in Tunisia. This is what my Dad had told us. But I'm not sure if this was before or after he also told us that we couldn't go because Ronald Reagan had sent his air force to drop bombs on Libya. It was a little too close, but where we really supposed to go, I don't know. The Libyans fired a missile in our general direction. It landed off the island of Lampedusa, which on looking at a map was not as close as I thought. But for a few weeks, bombs and missiles were real, not just on tv. This was in April. In 1982 it had been the Falklands War that was followed closely by a World Cup. In my simple mind at the time it was good timing. War was an inconvenience, that had to be over before the World Cup started.
Mexico was over, World Cup done for another 4 years. Two years later, Holland were European Champions and Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard were the players who were supposed to lead Holland to it's destiny in Italy, 1990. The story was not to have a happy ending.
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