Shirt Stories: Hand of God II, Maradona's 1990 controversy

Words by Oscar O'Connor

The handball story you haven't heard

The greatest footballer of all time is a hot topic. But one name is pretty much guaranteed to be on any football fan’s Mount Rushmore: Diego Maradona. A technical genius with the ball at his feet, Maradona’s supernatural dribbling ability, mercurial personality and fiery temperament are the stuff of legend.

Decades after his retirement, the late Maradona is still a folk hero the world over. His number 10 shirt remains one of the most iconic in football history, and this classic Argentina shirt he wore against the USSR at the 1990 World Cup is woven with one of football history’s most dramatic chapters. 

This Diego Maradona Argentina 1990 shirt will be displayed as part of The MWS Legend Collection NYC exhibition, a celebration of football history told through some of the game’s most iconic shirts and unforgettable moments.

A talisman for club and country

By the summer of 1990, Maradona had already bent reality itself to his whim, having captained Argentina to glory at the 1986 tournament in Mexico; winning the tournament’s golden ball for his efforts, and scoring perhaps the most infamous goal of all time against England, the notorious ‘Hand of God’.

Maradona arrived at Italia ‘90 with the world’s expectations on his shoulders, and the wear and tear of early ‘90s Serie A tackles on his left ankle…

Argentina lost their opening match to Cameroon, and needed a result in their second game against the USSR in Naples. So Maradona pulled on this shirt and stepped out onto a pitch he knew very well.

The setting of the match added a layer of intrigue to proceedings, as it took place in Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo (renamed the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in 2020). Naples was the city that adored Maradona more than any other outside of Buenos Aires.

By 1990, Maradona had transformed Napoli from outsiders into champions, becoming a near-mythical figure in southern Italy. He was both Argentina’s captain and Naples’ adopted son, so you can imagine the goosebumps Maradona got while wearing this shirt as he led his country out onto the pitch he lit up so many times.

Where the Maradona of 1986 was effervescent skill personified, as he glided like a ghost through entire defences and put on some of the greatest individual performances the world has ever seen, the match-worn shirt he played in against the USSR remembers a different Maradona. 

This was a player that was noticeably injured, who adapted his pacey dribbling style to a more gritty playmaking performance, passing through the lines, breaking up play, and giving the USSR as good as he got in the tackling department.

Maradona, a player famously touched by god, looked almost human for the first time on the world stage. But he still had a divine trick or two up his sleeve…

The moment

The match itself was frantic and physical. Argentina took the lead through Pedro Troglio, but it was what happened moments later that would become part of football folklore, as once again, in back-to-back tournaments no less, Maradona called on divine intervention to aid his nation. 

A whipped inswinging corner from the USSR was met with a flicked header at the near post. With the ball goal bound, and the keeper scrambling back to his line, Maradona instinctively threw out his arm to deflect the ball from going in.

The Hand of God had struck again, and amazingly, as with four years prior, no whistle came.

Before the era of stars above the badge

The images of Maradona’s infamous handball incidents have since become one of the defining contradictions of his legacy.

Here was the world’s greatest player cheating on the world’s biggest stage, and getting away with it! Against England in 1986 it was for glory. Against the USSR in 1990, it was for survival.

Playing through injury and putting on a relentless box-to-box performance, Maradona showed that behind all the flair, talent, and mesmerising tricks was a man whose national pride, passion and determination to win were the real cornerstone of his game.

Passion over principle

Every mark, stitch and detail of the shirt belongs to a match that captured this version of Maradona, exhausted but unyielding, a tragic hero unable to play at the height of his powers, but unwilling to accept anything less than an Argentina victory.

A number that belongs to Argentina

There were still plenty of silky flicks around defenders – this is still Diego Maradona we’re talking about here! And he capped off a complete captain’s performance by setting up Argentina’s second goal, eventually winning the match 2-0.

Decades later, the Argentina shirt Maradona wore against the USSR is one of the most storied pieces of sporting memorabilia in the world. The shirt represents an era when football felt raw and unpredictable, when the world’s greatest player played nearly every position on the pitch, including would-be goalkeeper. 

The facts and stats of football history survive through archive footage, but this shirt contains the very blood, sweat and tears of moments where history itself pivoted around godlike talent meeting human limits.