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By Reuters 
3h ago
Martyn herman
London – Became the most iconic sports commentary of all time, but the English-speaking world almost missed Diego Maradona’s concise reflection on his infamous goal in Argentina’s 2-1 loss to England at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
Reuters sports correspondent Rex Gowar was in the bowels of the Azteca Stadium after the game when Maradona confessed to having made the most talked about cheat in soccer history. “It was my first World Cup with Reuters,” recalled Gowar, who first met a teenager Maradona in Buenos Aires as a photographer for an Argentine newspaper, recalled Wednesday after hearing the news of Maradona’s death, at age 60. .
“We were near the locker room with a group of Argentine soccer chroniclers, it was the kind of normal tumult you had after a game of that importance.”
While it was long before the days of cell phones, social media, and 24-hour news coverage, outrage was already brewing after television replays clearly showed that Maradona had used his hand to bring down the England goalkeeper Peter Shilton for Argentina’s first goal in their 2-1 victory.
The fact that his second goal, a few minutes later, was a work of art was overshadowed by the furious controversy over the first. To put gasoline on the fire, Maradona spoke the words that filled the subsequent pages around the world.
“A little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”, (“a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”) Maradona said to the select few reporters who were looking for the murderous quote of the day . It was gold dust.
“I was part of the tumult that heard the quote,” said Gowar, who covered all four of Maradona’s World Cups and ten in total. “The quote came out of us testing it. No one knows who exactly he told it to but of course as soon as I heard the quote, it impressed me and it certainly impressed my desk.”
The English media herd picked up the bones of another failed bid for glory by a team attempting to recreate their 1966 triumph, bonding their copy with a sense of injustice at Maradona’s blatant act of deception.
However, without official translations, they were not to hear about Maradona’s admission until the Reuters cable reached their offices. Some, Gowar says, didn’t believe he actually said it, perhaps upset that they had missed the quote of the decade.
As England’s soccer writers boiled, his Argentine counterparts praised Maradona.
“They weren’t trying to argue that he had used his hand,” recalls Gowar. “They knew what had happened, but they thought it was very cheeky of him, they were impressed that he had managed to get away with it.”
Interestingly, Gowar almost missed the iconic moment after a slip in his hotel bathroom the morning of the game. “After stopping my fall with my right elbow, which still bears the scar, I improvised a bandage and went to the Azteca stadium,” said his story of the day.
“Did we Argentines think then that England would be an easier obstacle to overcome on the road to their second world title? It’s easy to think that now, but Maradona had a trick up his sleeve just in case.”
At the top of the media rostrum, Gowar described the moment that would become part of the sport’s legend.
“My Reuters colleagues were surprised when Maradona, pretending to have headed the opening goal, ran off and celebrated. The referee, pointing to the center point, was surrounded by England players demanding a hand decision,” he said.
“The press box at the top of the third tier of the giant stadium and very far from the goal where he immediately scored buzzed, without believing that the referee had failed the trick.”
Few journalists can boast of Gowar’s insight into Maradona’s remarkable career.
He got an exclusive interview with a 19-year-old Maradona in April 1980, weeks before he hypnotized England at Wembley on a European tour by then-world champions Argentina, and was in the United States 14 years later when the dream of Maradona’s winning a second World Cup was shattered by a positive doping test.
“It also shattered our dream,” Gowar said.
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