But yeah, just talk us through this goal as if and the players' reaction to what had just happened.

Yes, so you mentioned the foul on Glenn Hoddle, and even before that, straight after the first goal, we attacked, and Gary Lineker hardly had a touch in the match, turned and shot, and it hit Oscar Ruggieri's hand.

It probably wasn't a penalty in those days, but in today's kind of VAR age, I think that would have definitely been a penalty for handball.

So I've watched his goal a billion times, as you might have gathered in the and researched for this book and talked to all the players about it.

And the thing that really, when I think about it now, is what made this goal so special and shows what a clever player Maradona was.

When he received the ball, he turned onto his left foot.

And the natural thing for a left footer to do in that situation is to turn onto his stronger foot and go through the middle of the field.

He sends it wide for Barnes, who... jinks his way past the Argentine defence again to the byline sends a deep cross towards the back post Lineker comes in to meet it it looks like an open goal all he's got to do is get his head on it but remarkably Julio Olatica Chea the Argentine defender gets something on the ball and manages to scramble it away I mean even watching the replays now 40 years on I don't understand how it doesn't end up in the back of the net how different could things have been as if that one had gone in?

Asif, can you just tell us a bit more about what England's preparations were in the lead up to this first friendly against Mexico?

Yeah, so Bobby Robson flew his squad out.

before the FA Cup final minus the Everton players and I believe Alvin Martin maybe didn't travel as well at that time because West Ham were in a title challenge title race themselves and they flew not to Mexico they flew to Colorado they stayed in Colorado Springs in the Rocky Mountains at the US Air Force Base because there were I believe the altitude there was higher than it was in Mexico City.

And they figured that if they could train in those conditions, then Mexico City would be kind of easy for them after that.

And they trained up in the mountains.

They had the use of the US Air Force Base facilities, loads of really plush hotel, swimming pools.

They invited the players' wives out for a few days.

But in a way, as if this seems to, for the second half of this game anyway, England react well and it stirs them up for that second half.

But coming to you, Asif, what was the significance of this tour to Mexico just a year before the 86th World Cup?

Yeah, so I think before the 1970 World Cup, Alf Ramsey's England won made a similar tour to Mexico to kind of acclimatize and get used to the altitude.

I think Bobby Robson was sort of scouting different hotels in Mexico city.

I believe that they were in Mexico when the news of the high school stadium disaster broke.

And then they had a few days to kind of, I think one week before they were due to play Italy.

And of course, like of all the teams to play in the world, Italy seven or eight days after high so it was made for a huge kind of public relations exercise the match was Bobby Robson was happy to call the match off but it was actually the Italian counterparts who wanted the game to go on to show as an act of friendship that football can exist without violence and I think I seem to remember that the teams lined up with the players alternating between Italian and English to kind of show this kind of unity but yeah I think the Bobby Robson learned a lot from this tour to Mexico and a lot of information that he used the following year and that kind of differed with what the West Germans did.

The West Germans kind of flew in a day before they played England using the other kind of method of treating altitude and effects of altitude and it didn't kind of work as well for them.

of March it's in Tbilisi and England pick up an impressive victory away to the USSR who are seen as one of Europe's strongest teams at the time and a side that could potentially go deep into the World Cup in Mexico the goal comes from Chris Waddle on 67 minutes and considering that this is away from home England up against a USSR team who two years ago they'd struggled against at Wembley I'd say Asif that this showed just how far England had come under Bobby Robson in those two years because they put in a good performance here and they're worthy of the victory

and also joining us for the first time on magnificent goal is journalist and author of the brand new book the other side of the hand of god asif berhan welcome asif hi steven thanks for having me on so what is it about mexico 86 and in particular that game between england and argentina that made you want to write a book about it

So I was seven during Mexico 86 and my memories of the tournament are a little bit hazy.

Italian 90 was really my first World Cup and in the build up to 1990 I of course got all the magazines, sticker albums, anything I could find to kind of learn about international football and all of those things had reports and pictures from Mexico 86 and this player called Maradona who kind of cheated England out of a semi-final place in the World Cup and I've always been sort of fascinated by Maradona.

I think speaking to other journalists who covered the tournament, even they have a sort of fascination with him and he has lived on until 2022.

Argentina didn't win another World Cup and his kind of legend and aura kind of grew in that time.

And in the last few years, I've been involved with a couple of events to do with memorabilia from the match.

Obviously the shirt that was auctioned, I was in Sotheby's on the moment that the hammer hit the The gavel and the price of seven million was announced to the world.

But considering that they'd made hard work of qualification for Euro 84 and eventually failed to get there, was there a bit of a worry that they could struggle through this group again, considering some of the opposition they were up against?

Two incidences, really, but there's so much more to it, isn't there? Tell us about it.

Yeah, so growing up, I think Italian 90 was probably the first World Cup I remember.

As any kid would have done, I got a lot of magazines and sticker albums leading up to that tournament.

A lot of the images were focused on the previous World Cup, which is in Mexico, and Maradona winning it and knocking England out.

As a kid, it always fascinated me that a guy could cheat in a World Cup and get away with it.

And it's always sort of been famous because of that.

And I think it kind of assumed more kind of more significance as the years passed, especially as Argentina in particular didn't win World Cups after 86 until 2022, always assumed more significance in their country.

Where else did you go?

So you've covered all the ground, Asif, on this day.

Yeah, it's, it's always been a match that's fascinated not just me, but I think everyone around the world.

I mean, um, there's a quote in there from Gary Lineker who said that it's probably the most famous football match ever played, and it's hard to disagree with that.

40 years on, we're still talking about it.

We still...

It kind of still captivates everybody around the world.

Yeah, it, the, the politics was important, Asif, wasn't it?

Yeah, so, uh, four years earlier, the, the war was ongoing, and there was quite a bit of talk at the time that should England actually play in a tournament where Argentina were competing as holders at the time.