The best goal ever by an Argentinian made immortal also by the words of an exiled Uruguayan reporter, who experienced the darkness of a prison and the light of Diego
What effect does the best goal ever have? For the Argentines it was the most sublime hour of their lives, the perfect moment, the one that erased the darkness of the dictatorship, which equalized the Malvinas war with a victory in football. For those born later, it became the touchstone for eternity, a myth that belongs to everyone and is passed down from one generation to the next. Stefan Zweig has collected fourteen fatal moments in history in a book: Handel who composed his Messiah without eating or sleeping, Dostoevsky saved at the last moment from being shot, the man who caused Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. “It is necessary for a people to generate millions of men for a genius to be born, and millions of amorphous hours must always pass over the world before a truly historical hour, a stellar hour of humanity, appears.” If the Austrian writer had lived to see Diego Armando Maradona’s 2-0 win against England in the quarter-finals of Mexico 1986, there would probably have been fifteen fatal moments. But Zweig was no longer there. It fell to a Uruguayan singer to describe that golden moment to Argentina.
