Argentina football legend Diego Maradona has admitted that his infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico would have been ruled out by the Video Assistant Referees if it was in effect 31 years ago.
Maradona scored with his hand as eventual champions Argentina defeated England 2-1 in the quarterfinals. He also scored one of the best individual goals in World Cup history in that match.
“I thought about it and, sure, that goal wouldn’t have stood if technology had been around,” Maradona told FIFA.com about the goal he cheekily refers to as the ‘hand of God’ goal.
“And I’ll tell you something else: at the 1990 World Cup I used my hand to clear the ball off the line against the Soviet Union. We were lucky because the referee didn’t see it.
“You couldn’t use technology back then, but it’s a different story today.
“It’s not just my goal in ’86 that wouldn’t have counted. Let’s not forget that England won the World Cup in ’66 with a shot that didn’t go over the line.
“Then it happened to them in 2010, when [Frank] Lampard’s shot crossed the line against Germany but wasn’t given. England had the ball and scored the goal they deserved, but Germany grew in confidence after that and it changed the match completely.”
“There have been lots of incidents where World Cup history would have been different if technology had been used. It’s time to change all that.
“People used to say that we’d waste a lot of time, that it would cause a lot of annoyance. But that’s not the case.
“People get annoyed when something that shouldn’t be given is given, or when you have a goal wrongly disallowed.
“Technology brings transparency and quality, and it provides a positive outcome for teams who decide to attack and take risks.”
VAR was trialled at the FIFA Confederations Cup in June to mixed results as keys officiating errors were corrected but with too much time and too many disruptions.
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