ARGENTINA 2, BELGIUM 0
—Mexico City, Wednesday, June 25
No, please, don’t. Don’t compare the goal against England to the goals against Belgium. That is what I said to my brother, who was the first one to make the comparison, and I later said it to everyone else: don’t tell me that that goal is better than the one I scored against the English. The goal against the Belgians was a nice goal, but it’s a goal you could score in any match. You start off with strong legs, to shake off your marker, and then angle the ball toward the far post. I was so fast that diving wasn’t even necessary—I was killing them with speed alone. So there are no secrets to that goal, to those goals. Or maybe there’s one: at that point in the World Cup, when it came time for the semifinals, we felt invincible. And we didn’t know at the time that we were playing against the best Belgian team in history. So that goal against the Belgians has nothing on those other goals. Nothing at all.
They played a great game against us, I have to say. And you want to know something? They want to replay that match. Seriously, they called me not too long ago to say they’d like to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary with a friendly match. I would love to, because I thought they were a fantastic team and because I am really grateful for what their coach, Guy Thys, said at the time: “If Maradona had been playing for us, we would have won, two to zero.” I was critical to that game: I outplayed myself, even though I didn’t score a goal better than the one I had scored against England and I didn’t play better than I had against Uruguay, which was undoubtedly my best match in that World Cup.
I was able to outplay myself because I had finally gotten across the idea that we were a force to be reckoned with. I told the guys, “We’re going to really keep our head in the game, got it? These Belgians are no fools. There’s a reason they made it to semifinals. We have to be strong right from the very start. As soon as we think we’ve won it, these guys will stick it to us, like they did against the Soviets.”
The Belgians had gotten to that point playing it cool. When asked, they would say, “We’ve got nothing to lose.” Well, yeah, the only game they had lost so far was their first game, against the Mexicans. And beating Iraq—I think it was—was no trouble, after which they tied against Paraguay, which had Romerito and Cabañas, who scored two goals against them. In the round of sixteen, they played the Soviet Union and won, four to three, though—if my memory doesn’t fail me—the ref totally screwed the Soviets. Scifo scored a goal in that game, and in an interview he said that we were going to be the World Cup’s biggest losers. Jan Ceulemans, a big guy who formed a great duo with Nico Claesen—another player I admired—played an amazing game.
Before they met up with us, they eliminated Spain, which had come from scoring five—five!—goals against Denmark, with Emilio Butragueño playing an amazing game. “El Buitre” Butragueño had this nice-boy face, the face of a kid who does all his homework, but he would rip you apart on the field. Nothing got past him, least of all Olsen when he messed up after an interception. He scored four out of five of those goals.
The truth is, rethinking that game, we should have been up against Spain, where José Camacho was a defender. How could I forget Camacho, who stomped all over me when I played for Barça? That’s why now, with all the talk of marking and foul play, I would love to see the videos of those Barça-Madrid matches. My God, did those guys hack at us! There’s a final in the Copa del Rey where one of them kicked me right in the ass. Just the same, that Spanish team coached by old Miguel Muñoz wanted to play the game, not just play dirty. And the one who came off looking great in Mexico was Calderé, whom I would remember a few years later, at the US World Cup.
It turned out that after a game against Northern Ireland in the ’90 World Cup—a game Spain won, but it wasn’t easy—Calderé tested positive for . . . ephedrine! They said he had been taking something for bronchitis, that he had gotten the runs just like Passarella, but some dope said that he had gotten high.
The difference between him and me is that, in his case, a doctor came out to take the heat. The Spanish soccer federation had to pay a fine and that was that: Calderé kept on playing as if nothing had happened. When I tested positive, everyone washed their hands of it, from Grondona all the way down to Dr. Ugalde.
Calderé was a starter in the match against the Belgians, which ended one to one in overtime, with Pfaff playing an amazing game. Ceulemans scored again, and so it ended in sudden death. Pfaff blocked one of the penalty kicks and the Belgians won. We had decided they wouldn’t make it past the semis, but to make sure of that, we really had to concentrate, I mean really concentrate.
At the World Cup in Brazil, when Argentina beat Belgium to get past the famous hurdle of the quarterfinals (which we hadn’t done in twenty-four years), a lot of guys asked me whether that match we played in ’86 came to my mind. The truth is, it didn’t. First of all, because we were in the semifinals. And, second, because I think the whole situation was different. In Brazil, Belgium played against the United States. Their midfielders were strong and aggressive. Witsel, a midfielder for the Belgian team, was strong and aggressive. Then they had Fellaini, Mertens, and Hazard—a player I admire. They had a fighting spirit and you could tell that they had really come together as a team. I saw how the whole team would respond to Wilmots, tuning into even his slightest move. You could tell they knew their game. They could have beaten Argentina, sure, if we hadn’t woken up.
As for us, well, we were on our way up, for real.
Everything I already thought about Mascherano was confirmed when Argentina played against Belgium in Brazil. And to think that people used to laugh when I said the national team was “Mascherano plus ten.” Please, Masche is brilliant. But there’s no word for what Masche did that afternoon. I remember him—little though he was—facing up to Fellaini and Witsel. A colossal player in a small package.
If we kept doing everything right in the game against Belgium, if we didn’t get distracted, we were a shoo-in for the finals. We started off on the top of our game, but we got distracted pretty quickly.
When I watch this game again, I see it all so clearly. They put Renquin in as a sort of sweeper, and three guys in front of him: Gerets, Demol, and Vervoort. Grün was working with them and also upfield, where he would try to play with Vercauteren and Veyt, and then on up to Claesen and Ceulemans for them to score. I was still mad at Scifo for what he said about us being the biggest losers.
I think this was the first game where they didn’t send anyone over to mark me. In the first five minutes, I got in a few passes, one rabona, and a few feints. And as soon as I could, I ruffled Pfaff’s curls. He blocked a kick of mine toward the corner of the net, and Valdano knocked it in with his hand on the rebound.
I don’t know if it was because we started out so strong, or what, but about ten minutes into the game, we got distracted. It was our very first game in Azteca stadium, and I didn’t want it to be our last, no sir!
Back then, you didn’t have cameras watching your every move. All the better, because there would have been quite a controversy over what happened on our way in, after we went down the ramp that’s out back behind the goal. We had a meeting right there, because I felt like we were letting them trample all over us. We had let them get cocky, and for what? It didn’t matter that they were the best Belgian team in history. I grabbed Ruggeri and said, “Cabezón, get rowdy back there because this isn’t going our way!”
And in the second half, we came out like a whole different team, with a whole different attitude. When Ruggeri, Valdano, and I got riled up, everyone was scared shitless—even our guys, so you can imagine the others. But I had to run things; more than ever I had to be on top of what was going on. I had to come out and win it alone. But it was thanks to my teammates that I got to be the star.
And six minutes into the second half, I started winning it.
We were playing slightly downfield, and they weren’t able to get the ball upfield, which gave us some maneuvering room. At one point, we started from way downfield, with Enrique bringing the ball up and passing it to Burruchaga, who was right of center. I motioned for him to pass, and ran into the penalty area. What he did was amazing, just amazing. I ran in on a diagonal like a figure eight, and as soon as two of their defenders closed in (now I see that it was Veyt and Demol) and Pfaff came running out in a craze, I smacked the ball sideways, with my left foot, high up. The secret to that goal was beating the two defenders to the ball. I saw Pfaff coming over to block me and I chipped it past him.
I had—or we had, more like—paved the way. After that, it was just a question of holding steady. Still, it wasn’t easy. They had possession of the ball more than we did, but they were also limited to square passes. I was somewhat isolated, so I had to make the most of every chance I got, every ball that came my way. I was really proud of that rainbow kick against Scifo, who fouled me, but I went right on. Once again the ref—a Mexican guy, Márquez—stopped me when I was heading right for the goal. That bastard should have let us play on—the advantage rule. But our strategy was clear: go for it, go for it. When it was one-on-one, no one could stop me.
I made my way out of a foul play and left “El Vasco” Olarticoechea all alone. He liked running up the left side. And, two minutes later, on the right, I lobbed it right to where Enrique was running. At midfield, the Belgians had knocked me down something ugly when I was just starting a run, but that Mexican ref didn’t call a foul. On the left, on the right, down the middle. Those were the best minutes of the game and El Vasco got another shot, which Pfaff blocked with his chest. We were close to scoring the second goal, really close . . .
And finally we did.
The Belgians walloped the ball from their downfield, straight against Cuciuffo’s chest; Cuciuffo made it there before the forward he was supposed to mark. And then that daredevil Cuciuffo got all cocky because he had gotten the ball. His official position was stopper on the left, but he headed straight for Pfaff, with total control of the ball. He soared through midfield, passed the ball to me because I happened to be right there, and expected me to pass it back. A daredevil, right? And I went along with it. That’s why I say that I won that game with the help of my teammates (after all, any distraction comes in handy).
Why did I use Cuciuffo? Because the defenders always thought I would pass it back to him, which I never did. I hooked it against Grün and moved in on a diagonal, from midfield left, but straight into the penalty area. Cuciuffo continued running to my left, opening up the field for me, with all the Belgians off to my right.
The secret to that goal was my leg strength. I was so fast with the ball, so fast, that when poor Gerets got close enough to block me, I had already made the kick. And, once again, Pfaff had come out too fast, his yellow sweatshirt letting me know right where he was.
In the first goal, I had smacked the ball with my left foot to the goalpost right of the goalie; here I did the opposite, but with the same foot: I kicked the ball full on and knocked it straight into the left side of the net.
There was something special about that goal, something that “El Zurdo” López spotted and tried to explain to me later at the training camp. He said that there were two reasons I might stick my tongue out during a game: first, because I liked the way it felt and, second, because it helped me keep my balance. And if you watch that goal, I’m always leaning left but I never fall, not even when I run off to celebrate with a closed fist in the air, because I knew I had kicked it at just the right moment. From then on, El Zurdo would always say, “Diego, don’t forget to stick out your tongue, don’t forget.” But things like that didn’t cross my mind, they just happened.
The thing that did cross my mind every time I scored—I am not sure why—was my mother, doña Tota, and how happy she must have been. And when I came back to midfield, after hugging Olarticoechea, who was the first one to make it over, I looked over into the stands where I knew my old man, don Diego, was sitting, and held up my closed fist.
I thought of them the way you think of the people who have always believed in you, not the fair-weather fans. And that was the moment. At that point, everyone was behind us, and I didn’t like that one bit: it scared the shit out of me. With so many people against me, it would have been easy to relax, to let things be, to rest on my laurels. But we were not an easy group. We had really gotten used to having everyone against us, to it being us against the world. We needed that to enjoy things even more. And boy, did we enjoy things. We enjoyed winning like crazy.
We had scored two goals against Belgium. I wanted to score a thousand! Not because of them, but because of all the others, those who had attacked us with no mercy.
Earlier that same day, Rummenigge’s West Germany had taken Platini’s France out of the cup and Zico’s Brazil was already back in Copacabana. Just one game left to show them what I knew inside: I was the best. I had enough confidence to beat anyone: Platini or Rummenigge, who was quite a gentleman. But what mattered most was that there was only one game left for us to prove that we were the best and show how much we had grown as a team. If you saw how Batista and Burruchaga played the final match, oh Lord!
We were so relaxed by the end of that game that we gave “Bocha” Bochini the pleasure of playing. When there were five minutes left, he came in for Burruchaga, of all people. For me, that was something special: everyone knows he had been my idol when I was a boy. I loved the way he played. He was a pleasure to watch on the field. Even though he said he didn’t feel like one of the champs, I think having played that match was like a trophy for him. I think he came to understand that later on. El Bocha is a little crazy, but he’s going down in history as a great player. And we were all champions, each and every one of us, even the guys who never left the bench. Even Passarella, though he doesn’t deserve to be. And that’s why, when they made a movie out of that World Cup, they called it Hero. By this point in the cup, we had proven that that’s just what we were: heroes.
I remember that in the middle of the cup the Italians at RAI decided to do one of those typical TV specials they were known for, mixing musicians with celebrities and soccer players. Right smack in the middle of the World Cup. And they asked me, Platini, and—I think—Rummenigge to each choose a guest singer. I think Platini chose a French woman—I don’t remember her name—and I chose Valeria Lynch, who was really popular in Argentina then. They brought in Astor Piazzolla, the tango musician, too. When the Italians put something together, they do it big.
They were expecting me to be there too, even if no one had bothered to inform me; I mean, it would have been crazy to leave right in the middle of the cup. My mind was on the game and nothing else. When a car showed up at the training camp to pick me up, I said, no way, no one told me I was going anywhere. But the Italians knew what to do. They did the program, Valeria sang, and later—with everyone’s permission—they flew her to the training camp. I told her she was my idol, and she said the same for me.
Even today, I get chills down my spine every time I see the scene in the movie Hero where Valeria Lynch sings “Me Das Cada Día Más” (“Every Day You Give Me More”) while I am doing warm-ups in slow motion. I wanted to give the Argentines a little more every day. And at that World Cup that’s what I was doing. We weren’t quite there yet—there was one last step.