How Diego Maradona used the Hand of God to claim revenge for a bloody conflict between Britain and Argentina

In 1986, Argentina and England weren’t the best of friends.

Four years earlier Argentina and Britain had fought a brief but brutal war over the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as Las Malvinas, and tensions were still high.

Many Argentinians, including Diego Maradona, felt aggrieved by their country’s defeat, and the deaths of more than 600 Argentinian soldiers, many of them young conscripts.

In the absence of a satisfying resolution, football (as so often happens) became a vehicle for unofficial diplomacy.