England against Argentina is one of international football’s most intense rivalries and one that will be renewed at the crucial stage of the FIFA World Cup 2026™, with a place in the final at stake.
Wednesday’s semi-final brings together an Argentina side seeking to retain their title and an England team looking to end a 60-year wait for a major trophy.
It will also see two prolific goalscorers, Lionel Messi and Harry Kane, go head-to-head in the race for the adidas Golden Boot.
However, when these two giants of football meet, thoughts will inevitably turn to the legendary encounter played in front of almost 120,000 spectators at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca on 22 June 1986.
And at the heart of it all was, of course, Diego Armando Maradona.
First came the goal that went down in history as the ‘Hand of God’, followed by the ‘Goal of the Century’, scored after he collected the ball near the halfway line and dribbled past an entire defence.
It was a match played against a backdrop of considerable tension and settled in epic fashion by the man Salvatore Carmando considers “the greatest player of all time”.
Salvatore Carmando may not be a familiar name to many, but he was one of the most important figures in Maradona’s career. Carmando spent more than three decades on Napoli’s medical staff and was considered so indispensable by El Pibe de Oro that Maradona brought him to the 1986 World Cup as Argentina’s official masseur.
Carmando recalled in an interview with FIFA: “In January 1986, Diego told me, ‘Get everything ready – we’re going to the World Cup.’ And so off we went to Mexico together. I was there for almost two months.”
Maradona could not do without the man who helped him recover physically after every match and enabled him to be the player the world still remembers.
It was for that reason that the Argentinian brought Carmando into his side’s camp, effectively prising him away from Italy.
Argentina and England have faced each other twice at the World Cup since 1986, in 1998 and 2002, but the importance of the match in Atlanta makes this meeting feel different.
“It may have been 40 years ago, but things like that never leave you,” Carmando explained. “To think Argentina and England are going to meet again, well, it’s a historic occasion”.
And yet Maradona had seen it all coming. He even predicted the ‘Goal of the Century’. “After he scored his second, Diego came up to me, hugged me and said, ‘I told you I’d do it and I did’”. Before the match, he’d said to me, ‘I have to score an amazing goal today. I don’t know how exactly, but somehow I have to do it.’ And that’s just what he did.
“If ever he said he was going to do something, he always would. The same thing happened before a Napoli-Juventus match, when he scored a wonderful goal from an indirect free-kick inside the penalty area.”
Carmando has a more playful response when asked about the ’Hand of God’.
“Everyone says he scored it with his hand, but that is not true – he scored it with his head,” he says with a laugh.
Carmando remained by Maradona’s side throughout the tournament and travelled to Argentina to celebrate with the squad, where, as he recalled, “a million people were waiting for us”.
His most cherished souvenir from the tournament is a replica of the World Cup trophy. “Unfortunately, it’s in a bank vault rather than at home, so I don’t get to see it every day, but it is my pride and joy. For me, it represents Diego.”
It was a relationship built on genuine affection. As Carmando concludes, Maradona was “the best person in the world, a wonderful man who helped countless people. Men like Diego no longer exist.”
fifa.com
