Sports of The Times; Silly Kick Will Haunt England
GLENN HODDLE hears the word in Eng land  'vendetta.' He calls it 'a horrible expression.'
The English coach has had to live 12 years with the emotion of being on the field when Diego Armando Maradona punched the ball into the net for the cynical Hand of God goal that still haunts England, unabated.
'More than revenge, I dream of turning the score back to zero,' Hoddle said the other day. 'That was the most bitter defeat in my career.'
Now England has another ghastly memory, the penalty-kick shootout that ended with Argentina on top last night, 4-3, after a 2-2 tie in the World Cup. As it was, the spirit of Maradona hunkered down over the foothills of the Alps. The cynical chicanery and the glittering skill of Maradona were renewed in his absence.
One goal per side was produced by an egregious flop, but then there was a dazzling 50-yard run and a crisp goal worthy of the stubby old master -- committed by an 18-year-old with a big grin, Michael Owen, playing in his first World Cup.
Owen dominated this game for a half, and might have won it with his natural moves and unnatural poise. However, he was effectively taken out of the game by a teammate, who drew one of the more stupid red cards in this World Cup of mandated mass ejections.
In the second minute of the second half, with the score already tied, Diego Simeone, the Argentine captain, fell heavily on David Beckham, grinding his hand into Beckham's back, as soccer players are wont to do. Beckham, on the ground, retaliated with a backward kick, but he foolishly did it with Kim Nielsen, the Danish official, standing right there.
In 1986, the referee missed the flailing left hand of Maradona and permitted the goal that won a quarterfinal game. This time, Nielsen, under orders to keep law and order, waved a red card, tossing Beckham out of the game. A yellow warning card would have more than sufficed.
The display of authority meant England would play 1 hour 13 minutes a man short. It also meant that Owen's wonderful darts and dashes were finished, because he had to stay home and help on defense.
The two teams wobbled to a 2-2 tie, and then they indulged in the only humane tie breaker known to man, the penalty-kick shootout, as haphazard as buying a lottery ticket down at the local stationery store.
The English fans went out into the dewy mountain night, outside the walls and gates, where phalanxes of police and dogs and horses and chemical sprays awaited any lager louts who crossed the line.
There was a history to this game, this rivalry, this resentment, this 'vendetta,' the word Hoddle hates. This was not just some random soccer pairing, some Denmark-Nigeria game. This was a reverberation of the nasty little episode in 1982, called the Falklands War by the British and the Malvinas War by the Argentines. Their soccer encounter came on June 22, 1986, in Mexico City, when Maradona punched in one goal with his hand and scored a second with a glorious hipper-dipper run through six or seven British defenders. Argentina would go on to win the World Cup.
Argentine fans still chanted, 'Argentina without Maradona is like a dance without women,' but his scandal-addled career is over.
'We want to be original,' said Daniel Passarella, the Argentina coach and Maradona's  1986 teammate. 'We won't do a Maradona. We'll do our best to practice fair play.'
The English coach also was on the field that day in 1986.
'It was an even game until Maradona scored with a hand ball,' Hoddle recalled this week. 'Without that, Argentina would not have won. Sure, the second goal by Maradona was extraordinary, but he never would have scored that killer goal if the score had been 0-0.'
Hoddle also recalled how he and Maradona happened to be called in for the random drug testing after the game: 'We didn't talk, as I remember, but we shook hands. I remember standing next to me was Terry Butcher, and he was in another state.' Butcher wanted to strangle Maradona, in fact, but somehow refrained.
'It took me two or three days before I could find any serenity,' Hoddle said. 'I was on vacation when Argentina played Germany in the finals. I saw the game at the beach with 11 Germans, and I don't have to tell you who I rooted for.'
Hoddle will have to watch the World Cup on the tube again this year, thinking about the bit of mutual foolishness that took Michael Owen and England out of the World Cup.