Trevor Steven: I feel lucky to have shared a pitch with the greatest footballer of all, Diego Maradona
My initial reaction when I heard about the death of Diego Maradona was real sadness.
I think there was a bit of sadness about his existence too. For all of his footballing genius, he often seemed a troubled soul away from the field.
Of course it’s all subjective, but I consider Maradona probably the greatest who has ever played.
What he could do with a football was unbelievable. He played a kind of street football all the way up to international level and that made him unique.
Maradona was the greatest for absolute raw ability, but also for what he achieved. For taking Argentina to the 1986 World Cup, and then what he went on to do in Serie A.
Playing in Europe was something that separated him from Pele, the only other player who I’d put in the same bracket.
Playing against him at the 1986 World Cup
I was 21 and a young international footballer when Maradona scored his Hand of God goal against our England team at the 1986 World Cup.
There were players far more long in the tooth alongside me who were probably more angry about what happened. At the time, I accepted that there was nothing we could do about it.
Later, I looked back on my life and wondered what difference it could have made to my career, my life, if it hadn’t happened.
It’s a very individual, personal way of looking at it, and the incident did become more important to me for a while.
But as time goes on emotions change and those feelings subsided. And Maradona’s passing now is a time for all of us to really focus on the football.
The second goal that Maradona scored against us in that game is the greatest goal ever.
As a team we were a little bit shellshocked that everyone in the stadium saw that the handball and only the referee and linesman didn’t.
Before we could pull ourselves together, Maradona had conjured this piece of magic.
When you consider the circumstances – the surface, the heat, the social context of that game – it’s without doubt the greatest goal of all time.
It was an unreal moment, but a lot of these feelings have only been rationalised over the years.
The ups and downs of his personal life sometimes distracted from his football, but when you think back to all the joyous things he was capable of, it was genius.
Maradona’s game was just on a completely different level even from the international players he was shoulder to shoulder with.
Starstruck by chance meeting with Maradona
I never actually spoke to him, but I did unexpectedly encounter him in Dubai a few years ago.
My teenage daughter was playing a match against another women’s team, who it turned out had Maradona’s girlfriend up front.
There he was, on the touchline with his entourage, all sitting on fold-up chairs, at this pitch in a suburban park. It was surreal.
Standing there with my dog, I wondered whether I should go and say ‘hello, remember me?’. And I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was starstruck. In awe.
So I can’t say I knew him as a man, but I’m fortunate enough to say I played against probably the greatest footballer of all time.