Geoff Hurst, the Hand of God and the Biggest Rows in World Football
Note that it does not say that the Fourth Official has to see the violent conduct with his own eyes. There is nothing in the letter of the Law which stipulates that the Fourth Official cannot consult a TV replay. In fact, there is nothing anywhere in the Laws, or in any of the additional information, which mentions TV replays at all, let alone specifically precludes their use.
SLOW WAY TO SUCCEED
Zinedine Zidane’s jibe about giving his shirt to Marco Materazzi started the verbal exchange which ended with the Italian flat on the floor, but the Frenchman gave me one of his shirts without a fight—although not without some shameless begging on my part. I tell the story inSeeing Red, so now let me just say that the shirt is on the wall of my study in my home, in Tring, in Hertfordshire (guarded by Toffee, our dog, in case you were wondering).
I am immensely proud to have that shirt because, regardless of how his career ended, ‘Zizou’ was a wonderful player. I am proud of the fact that I was considered good enough to referee several games in which he took part. I am very lucky that I was able to see his sublime skills at close hand.
It is said that great players have more time on the ball and in my experience that is certainly true. In Zidane’s case, the extra time came from his anticipation, his speed of thought and his great technical ability. Before a pass reached him, he had already looked and thought ahead. He knew what he would do when the ball got to him. And when it did reach him, there was no fumbling or dithering. His first touch was sufficient to control the ball or to move it on in the direction he wanted it to go.
All of that meant that, although the modern game is played at a frenetic pace, Zidane had an unhurried tranquillity. When he wasn't nutting people, of course.
Good referees also try to give themselves time. They try to anticipate where and when incidents will happen, and try to think in advance about giving themselves a good view of those incidents. Then, when something happens, they try to give themselves a moment to think before reacting.
THE RELUCTANT VIEWER
The 2006 World Cup Final in Berlin was the one I might have refereed and then became the one I didn't want to watch.
I certainly didn't expect to referee it, or even allow myself to hope I would, but I now know that, if I had not made my infamous mistake with three yellow cards, there was a strong possibility that I might have been selected for the Final. Instead, I was sent home before the quarterfinals and was in such terrible, black despair that I did not think I would watch any of the remaining games. I didn't think I would be able to bear watching. But people—friends and family—said, ‘You were there. You were part of that tournament. You've got no reason not to see how it finishes.’
And the day I got back from Germany to the safe harbour of my home in Tring, the very first telephone call I received was from David Beckham. The England captain was preparing for a World Cup quarterfinal but took time to telephone me, empathizing with me in my desperate unhappiness and reaching out in friendship to me and my family. So I decided I definitely wanted to see Becks and the boys in action against Portugal.
Having been in Germany, where the people had been fantastic and the atmosphere fabulous, I was conscious of an overriding sense that the Germans were going to win. The World Cup was a statement of nationhood for the united Germany, and winning it seemed to be their destiny. I decided I definitely wanted to see their quarterfinal against Argentina. Then I realized I wanted to watch Italy against Ukraine, because I've always loved Italian football. And of course I wanted to watch France against Brazil, because those countries have produced some of the best players to walk the earth.
So that was all the quarterfinals I had to watch, and by the time the Final came around, I was hooked on the beautiful game again and the great unscripted drama of the World Cup.
THE FIRST AND LAST REFEREE
The referee who sent off Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup Final, Horacio Elizondo from Argentina, was also in charge of the tournament's opening match, and that was remarkable.
The man who does the opening game (which is itself regarded as a great honour) has never before been given the Final as well. In fact, if you get the opening game, it is usually a clear indication that you are not going to get the Final.
When the referees all reported for duty in 2006, Mario van der Ende, one of the FIFA referees' committee guys from Holland, asked me what games I hoped to get. I said, ‘The opening game would be nice.’ His reply was, ‘Why would you want that one? That would mean that you won't do the Final.’
Those in the European delegation were quite pleased when Elizondo from Argentina was appointed for the opening game. They believed that if a South American had been given that fixture, it was more likely that a European would get the Final. That was the logic. That was the politics.
Yet Elizondo did the first and last games in 2006. He did something else as well: he refereed England's quarterfinal against Portugal and sent off Wayne Rooney. In all, he refereed five games. Again, that was unheard of before 2006.
I had not met Elizondo, I don't believe, before we met up during the tournament, and even then we didn't bump into each other very often. His English was very, very poor and he tended to stick with the guys who spoke Spanish. I do know that he was a PE teacher, was the same age as me and that he retired from refereeing soon after the World Cup Final.
That last fact interests me. Elizondo retired six years before he needed to because he had achieved all his goals. That makes me think that my dad was right when he said that what happened to me in Germany made no difference to my retirement. Whether I had messed up (as I did) or refereed the Final (as I might have done) I would have had the same feeling—that my race was run—and would have stopped refereeing at the same time.
FACT! RULES NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE
THE Fourth Official for the 2006 Final was, as I have said, Luis Medina Cantalejo. Liverpool supporters should know that name, because he was the man who gave their team a controversial penalty for a foul on Steven Gerrard in the last seconds of a Champions League match against Atletico Madrid in 2008.
He went to the 2006 World Cup because another Spaniard, Mejuto Gonzalez, was ruled out when one of the assistants in his team failed the fitness test. If FIFA had been selecting the top referees in the world, without worrying about giving every federation a share, then Luis would have been chosen in the first place. But imagine the disappointment for Gonzalez, after all the years of working and hoping, to be denied the chance to officiate in a World Cup because someone else was not fit.
YELLOW CARD FOR FOURTH OFFICIALS
AS mentioned previously, the role of the Fourth Official was only introduced in 1991. Before that time, there were reserve officials named for major matches but they played no part at all unless the referee or one of his linesmen (as they were then) suffered illness or injury.
A lot of people question the need for Fourth Officials, and to some extent I understand and share their doubts. Do we really need a guy to hold a board up to show the numbers of substitutes and how many minutes are being added on by the referee at the end of each half? Why can't that information be displayed on the big screens at most grounds?
Similarly, does the Fourth Official really have to keep jumping up to enforce the rules of the technical area—that there is only one person from each team standing in his area at any one time, and so on? All that policing the technical areas achieves is to aggravate the managers and fans and make the Fourth Official seem like a busybody. In theory, the Fourth Official is supposed to watch for and report any ‘improper conduct’ by managers and coaches, but so much of that goes on at every game that most is not reported.
I hated being the Fourth Official. You travel up to a hotel the night before the match, yet you know you are not one of the main officials. It's like being the substitute goalkeeper: you get all the kit on but then sit there knowing you don't have a proper part to play. It's very frustrating.
I don't think some other referees were too keen having me as their Fourth Official. It was all right if it was a really big game—say Arsenal against Manchester United—because then the referee concerned would be a top man and would not have a problem with me being there. He would know that I would sort out anything that really needed sorting in the technical area and let him get on with his job.
The problems arose sometimes when, in common with other senior match officials, I was appointed Fourth Official to mentor a young ref. Then the managers would sometimes talk to me instead of him, and that was not helpful. On one occasion, I was Fourth Official to Matt Messias at Derby versus Coventry. Matt was very young and trying out for the Premier League. During the game I tried to encourage him with thumbs-up gestures and positive body language. But one of the Coventry coaches was less impressed than I was and filled in a sub card and handed it to me. It said, ‘Player off: Messias. Player on: Poll’.
When I was refereeing matches, I tried to make good use of the Fourth Official. He changed in the ref's room with me and the assistants, attended all the pre-match briefings, got miked up and so on, and was part of the refereeing team. But I didn't have him warming up with me and the two assistants. That was partly because there was no point and partly because he was more use staying in the refs room. That was where the phone would ring if anyone wanted to contact me about something, like delaying the kick-off because of trouble outside the ground. That was also where he could deal with late administrative stuff, like changes to the team-sheets if a player was injured during the warm-up.
When the time came for me to brief my team, my instructions to the Fourth Official would be, ‘Don't be too pedantic. Don't be too picky. But make sure the managers let the assistant on their side of the pitch get on with his duties without any hassle.’
For me, that was and is the prime value of a Fourth Official: he takes the stick from angry managers instead of the assistant referee, who would otherwise get it in the ear as the nearest available man in black (or green, or yellow).
For matches abroad, I had a big say in who was the Fourth Official. The procedure was that UEFA or FIFA would inform the English FA that I had been appointed for such and such a match, and then the FA would appoint the two assistants and the Fourth Official. The FA knew that we would be away together for three days, and that it would not be a good idea to send a team of officials who didn't get on with each other. The FA knew who I was friendly with and, more importantly, whose company I did not enjoy. In case they were in any doubt, I blackballed a couple by saying, ‘don't put them on trips with me’.
You can't only take your mates though. Going abroad as a Fourth Official is a chance to learn and get experience, so when I was a senior ref I was sometimes asked to take someone on his way up.
On the whole though, I think the Fourth Official function is fraught with difficulties—not least in circumstances such as the Zidane scenario. The choice for Luis Medina Cantalejo in Berlin at the World Cup Final might have been to ignore the letter of the law or ignore a head-butt. That cannot be right.
And consider, once again, the ‘phantom goal’ awarded to Reading at Watford (on 20 September 2008). There was no television monitor in the technical areas that day. The rules had been changed at the start of the season for the Premier League and Football League to stop managers seeing mistakes by referees and immediately confronting them about them.
Watford manager Aidy Boothroyd, standing next to the Fourth Official, saw with his own eyes that the ball had gone nowhere near the goal. The Fourth Official decided, properly according to the Laws, not to say anything to referee Stuart Attwell. Later in the game, however, Boothroyd, who was understandably still incensed about the ‘goal’, said something rude about a throw-in decision and the Fourth Official said he would report him. Boothroyd replied, ‘Oh, you couldn't tell a ref about a goal that wasn't, but you can tell the ref about that all right, can't you?’ The Fourth Official did report Boothroyd, who was sent to the stand by the ref.
MORE RED CARDS FOR ZIDANE
AFTER his sending off, but before the end of extra-time and before the penalties were taken, there was an announcement over the public address system at the stadium which summed up the paradoxical Zinedine Zidane. It was announced that he had won the Golden Ball award for the World Cup's best player. The award was determined by a vote of journalists at the Final. The votes were collected at half-time, and by the time the count had been conducted, Zidane was back in the dressing room in disgrace and those same journalists were compiling reports which condemned him for resorting to violence. That conflict, between celebrating Zidane's skills and castigating him for savagery, was a constant throughout his career.
If we start to play the role of amateur psychologists, there is a danger we will make assumptions that are not accurate. But it must be right that Zidane's childhood helped shape the man he became, so we have to record that he was the youngest of five children born to immigrant parents in a housing project in a rough part of Marseille. Football, played beautifully, was his escape route from that tough start, but did he take some of the instincts of a street fighter with him?
Vinnie Jones, now known for acting as a ‘baddie’ in films, really was a baddie when I was refereeing. He probably had the reputation as the hardest player of my era and was sent off 13 times. Zidane was sent off a total of 14 times.
The Scottish referee Stuart Dougal set some kind of record by sending off both Zidane and the Dutchman Edgar Davids in the same Juventus Champions League match in 2000. It is not every ref who red cards two of the best players of the world in the same evening. Zidane's sending off was for a retaliatory head-butt. At least two of the French-man's other dismissals were also for head-butts. One was for stamping on an opponent. So perhaps we should not have been so shocked that he erupted with fury in the World Cup Final. In some ways, it was an entirely appropriate way for his career to end because it was in keeping with what had gone before.
But this complicated man, who could be so violent towards opponents, could bring a football under control with the deftest, gentle touch and was capable of great artistry on the football pitch. Bixente Lizarazu, who played with him for Bordeaux and France, said, ‘When we didn't know what to do, we just gave the ball to Zizou and he worked something out.’
From the back streets of Marseille came the most expensive player in the world. He won league titles in Italy and Spain. He won the World Cup and the European Championship. He was FIFA's world player of the year three times. His two goals as France won in 1998, together with his penalty in 2006, mean that he scored in two World Cup Finals. Yet his last act as a pro was to head-butt an opponent.
3 A Big Hand for Maradona
THE MATCH
Like Zinedine Zidane, Diego Armando Maradona grew up in a humble family and went on to become the pre-eminent player of his generation. Some will tell you that Maradona was the greatest of all time. But, as with Zidane, it is impossible to assess the Argentine without factoring in an offence committed at a World Cup—and I am an England fan, so you know where I stand. As far as I am concerned, the notorious ‘Hand of God’ goal against England during the 1986 World Cup disqualifies Maradona from inclusion alongside Pele and Johan Cruyff in the very top bracket of the best ever to have played the game. And, from a modern perspective, the way Maradona cheated that day asks some questions for referees and for the game itself. So let's get in the time machine again. Set the dial for 1986.
In Mexico, the 13th staging of the World Cup finals involved three teams from the United Kingdom. Scotland were eliminated at the group stage, losing to Denmark and West Germany and gleaning their single point from a goalless game against Uruguay. Their only goal in three matches was scored by Gordon Strachan. Northern Ireland were also knocked out with just one point, although their group included Brazil and Spain, and they did finish above Algeria.
England, meanwhile, stuttered along unconvincingly until, on 11 June, a Gary Lineker hat-trick gave them victory against Poland. That made them group runners-up behind Morocco and saw them through to the first knock-out stage, the ‘round of 16’. England did not appear to be in the sort of form to worry anyone, least of all Argentina, who breezed through their group with two wins and a draw, and for whom Maradona was living up to his pre-tournament billing as a major talent.
But England were getting into their stride at the right time and two more goals from Lineker and one from Peter Beardsley saw them ease past Paraguay 3-0 (in Mexico City on 18 June) to set up a quarterfinal against Argentina, 1-0 winners against Uruguay. The three other quarterfinals all went to penalties. The attendance for England's quarterfinal in the Aztec Stadium in Mexico City (on 22 June) was an astonishing 115,000. The fateful moment came after 51 scoreless minutes.
England had just dealt with one attack and most players were still in our half. Maradona, dropping deep, took possession about 40 yards from our goal, about ten metres in from our right touchline, and started motoring forwards. Two rows of England players were stationed in front of him and Glenn Hoddle stepped forward from the ranks to close him down. The little Argentine simply swayed away to his right and left the future England coach stranded. As Barry Davies said on the BBC television commentary, with a tone of mounting concern, ‘Maradona just walked away from Hoddle.’
Peter Reid, playing left midfield, ran back and across but the ArgentineD/B/A KENNEBEC BEHAVIORAL HEALTH's acceleration had carried him away before Reid got there. Three defenders came out from the edge of the penalty area to try to deal with the obvious and increasing threat but they too were left marooned out of position as Maradona, now equidistant between the two sidelines, used his left foot to stab the ball to his right towards a team-mate, Jorge Valdano, who was standing inside the D of the penalty area, with his back to goal.
Valdano's attempt to control the pass sent the ball spiralling upwards. The player marking him, Steve Hodge, stuck up his left leg and miskicked the ball higher into the air and back towards his own goalkeeper, Peter Shilton. Maradona had continued his run, hoping for a one-two with Valdano. Shilton came out to punch away Hodge's miscued attempted clearance. Maradona arrived at the same time as the ball. Up went Maradona. Up went Maradona's left arm. Cue pandemonium.
Maradona used his clenched hand to flip the ball up and over Shilton's attempted punch and into the goal. Maradona immediately started celebrating but, at first, none of his team-mates joined in. So he waved them towards him. Shilton pointed to his own arm, in a gesture that the watching world knew meant, ‘Handball!’ The goalkeeper sprinted out to the referee to protest and other England players joined him. But the ref had already signalled a goal and the goal stood.
Four minutes later, Maradona scored a second goal, one of the best ever seen in a major match. Watching it again now, you wonder whether you're playing the clip in fast mode. Maradona had his back to our goal when he gained possession inside his own half but a trail of flailing defenders was left like flotsam in his wake as he span around and just kept running before beating Shilton legitimately. Lineker collected a goal for England ten minutes before the end, his sixth of the tournament. But Argentina won 2-1. They beat Belgium in the semi-final, and then, in front of another 115,000 crowd at the Aztec (on 29 June), Argentina beat West Germany 3-2 in the Final. Maradona was carried around the pitch shoulder high, holding the trophy aloft. Like Zidane 20 years later, he was voted the tournament's best player despite his moment of infamy in the match against England.
THE ISSUES
Immediately after the quarterfinal against England, Maradona was interviewed by media representatives from around the world. He was asked, ‘Wasn't your first goal handball?’ He replied that it was ‘un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios’(a little with the head of Maradona and another little with the hand of God).
Hand of God. The phrase has echoed down the years, but it was an ambiguous answer; certainly not an admission. The admission came many years later. In his autobiography, published in 2002, Maradona said, ‘It was the hand of Diego and it felt a little like pick-pocketing the English.’ Yet, although he has come clean about what happened, he has remained ambivalent about the act, appearing apologetic in some interviews given to English media but steadfastly defiant when talking for Argentine audiences about the incident.
There is no ambivalence in Argentina. La Mano de Dioscame only four years after Argentina had been at war with Britain in the Falklands and Maradona's compatriots were overjoyed by the football victory after defeat in battle. Argentina worships Maradona, not despite the fact that he scored with his hand against England, but because of it.
Scottish football fans revere Maradona for exactly the same reason: he put one over England. When Maradona became coach to the Argentine national team, his first game in charge (on 21 November 2008) was at Hampden Park against Scotland. The Daily Record newspaper created a logo for all their extensive coverage of the fixture. It read, ‘A big hand for Diego’. The newspaper also reported a terrace song. Gleefully sung to the tune of the Hokey Cokey, it went, ‘You put your left hand in and you shake it all about. You do the hokeycokey and you score a goal, that's what it's all about. Oh-ohh, Diego Maradona!’
So, to many people, what Maradona did was not only acceptable, it was admirable. But before English readers get too censorious, let's consider this: should an Englishman have up-ended Maradona in 1986 when he was homing in on our penalty area for his second goal? Bobby Robson, who was England's manager that day in 1986, wrote in 2008 that if Bryan Robson had been fit to play against Argentina he would have stopped Maradona ‘one way or another’. Would we have complained? I doubt it very much.
Yet, surely, deliberately fouling an opponent is a form of cheating. Or is it? For me, the Hand of God incident raises two intriguing questions: what constitutes cheating in football, and when is cheating acceptable on the field of play? You might think it is easy to answer both questions. You might believe that any deliberate act that is outside the laws of the game is cheating and that it is never acceptable. Yet when I was refereeing I was constantly reminded that the line between what is legal and illicit is often blurred.