Indian cricket was almost at its best in 1986. Kapil Dev was our hero. He was athletic, aggressive, swift and had caught the attention of the nation like no other. It had to take a herculean effort for someone from any other sport to shift that attention away from cricket.
Maradona did exactly that during the 86 World Cup at Mexico. We knew of Mexico only from our textbooks. Any mention of that place henceforth is associated with Football and Maradona. By 1984 he was already a famed personality in football due to his record-breaking contract of $7.5m with Napoli Club. It did not matter to us. Our first glimpse of him was of course the 1986 World Cup.
I am not sure if any single player earlier had such an impact on a World Cup event. 1986 was his and completely his. Critics hate him for that goal, but even other than that he had his moments in that event and in plenty.
The divinity and the devil in his game came to the fore in that single match, the quarterfinals against England. If you hated him for the ‘Hand of God’ goal, in minutes he made you adore him with that magical goal going past half of the England players. The goal is considered the ‘Goal of the Century’.
He was a pale shadow of himself by 1990, but still managed to take his team to the finals. He almost lost his way by 1994.
The argument of who was better, Pele or Maradona will go on. For us it is Maradona because he was of our time and we watched him live.
