Twenty-five years to the day since Diego Maradona’s infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal against our still-bitter neighbours, we look back on five of the most controversial goals ever scored in football.
Diego Maradona, Argentina v England World Cup 1986
Anglo-Argentine relations, which were already at a massive low due to the Falklands War, deteriorated even further when the two sides went to battle in Mexico in 1986.
Bobby Robson’s side had kept ‘El Diego’ relatively quiet up to the opening goal when he chanced his arm contesting a looping ball with Peter Shilton and knocked the ball to the net with his raised fist.
Maradona and his team-mates celebrated while the English players raged (look at how angry Peter Reid is) and one of the greatest players of all time added insult to injury with one of the greatest goals of all time later in the match.
Only a game? This is what Maradona had to say at the time: “This was revenge. It was like recovering a little bit of the Malvinas. We had all said beforehand football and politics shouldn’t be mixed together, but that was a lie. Bollo**s was it just another match.”
William Gallas, France v Ireland November 2009
In fairness to English supporters still reeling at the ‘Hand Of God’, we’ll probably still be pissed off at the ‘Hand of Frog’ on its 25th anniversary in November 2034.
A crafty piece of gamesmanship from Thierry Henry cost Ireland a place in the World Cup, prompted outrage amongst across the nation for weeks afterwards and was the precursor to an embarrassing attempt to be named as the 33rd team at the tournament in South Africa last summer.
What conspired at that tournament proved that karma is indeed a bitch as a woeful French side were knocked out in the group stages and humiliated in front of a global audience thanks to some stereotypical sulking, in-fighting and moody behaviour that saw Nicolas Anelka sent home and Raymond Domenech mercifully lose his job.
Geoff Hurst, England v Germany World Cup Final 1966
Sympathy for Frank Lampard was in short supply after his perfectly legal goal against Germany at the last summer’s World Cup was ruled out, seeing that Ze Germans were the victims of an even greater injustice in the World Cup Final 44 years previously.
With the score tied at 2-2 after 90 minutes, the game went into extra-time and England gained an early advantage when Hurst crashed an effort in off the crossbar to give the hosts the lead. Convinced that the ball didn’t cross the line, the Germans protested furiously, but the goal was given thanks to the advice of Azerbaijan linesman, Tofik Bakhramov.
England went on to win 4-2 thanks to a hat-trick from Hurst, who remains the only man ever to have scored a hat-trick in a World Cup Final. Despite trying to convince the world every four years that they will win it again, however, habitual bottlers England haven’t appeared in a World Cup final since.
Darren Bent, Sunderland v Liverpool October 2009
Liverpool fan Callum Campbell wasn’t exactly flavour of the month with his friends after being outed as the man responsible for the wayward beach ball that caused Liverpool to lose to Sunderland at the Stadium of Light in October 2009.
Darren Bent’s harmless enough shot was probably going straight into the arms of Pepe Reina in the Liverpool goal before taking an unfortunate deflection off said beachball into the back of the net, giving the Black Cats a fifth-minute lead they wouldn’t relinquish for the rest of the game.
Shortly after the much-publicised incident, the Liverpool club shop sold out of beach balls, although it’s probably safe to assume they weren’t purchased by home supporters.
John Eustace, Reading v Watford September 2008
The four previous entries have all been genuinely controversial, but at least the ball actually went into the net in every case.
We had thought that for a goal to be awarded, the ball has to be somewhere in the vicinity of the goal, never mind crossing the line, but that didn’t seem to occur to linesman Nigel Bannister, who convinced referee Stuart Atwell to award a goal to Reading in a game that finished 2-2 after 90 minutes.
Then Reading manager Steve Coppell offered to replay the game, but it never materialised and Watford were left to lick their wounds.
Watford manager Aidy Bothroyd described the incident as like ‘witnessing a UFO landing’ while Stephen Hunt said: ‘It was probably the worst decision I’ve ever witnessed.
“But what could we do? It wasn’t our mistake”.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
