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A few weeks ago came the news that the shirt in which Maradona scored two goals against England at the 1986 World Cup — Argentina's last World Cup — was going up for auction.
For that tournament two shirts were designed: an albiceleste cotton home kit incorporating full-transpiration technology that allowed sweat to pass straight through without being absorbed into the fabric, and an away kit that, by contrast, allowed sweat to accumulate and remain damp.
The first few matches passed without incident. In the three opening games against South Korea, Italy and Bulgaria, the albiceleste wore that iconic home kit. But in the last-16 match against Uruguay, Argentina debuted the sweaty away kit — and won.
In a squad managed by Carlos Bilardo, every detail counts. Superstition was always the order of the day with the manager, and he decided it was a good idea — despite a positive result — to put both shirts on a pair of scales after the match. He noticed the away kit was a few grams heavier.
After such a "problem", Bilardo's strange mind went to work. He called his assistants together in the middle of the night to punch holes in the home shirt to replicate the transpiration effect of the away one. The plan didn't quite come off and an emergency decision was made to get hold of new shirts. Rubén Moschella was dispatched to find them in Mexico City.
Six shops and many kilometres of city streets later, the treasure was found in shirt form. They discovered lighter shirts that only needed the badge adding and some numbers. The numbers were printed with American screen-printing ink in a brilliant silver grey.
Bilardo, however, didn't like them when he saw them. He dismissed them — even threw one on the floor. Maradona's reaction could not have been more different. The Argentine wizard was convinced they were going to "tear it up" in that shirt. It was a long afternoon for Bilardo, who added to his to-do list the job of getting the badges sewn on in time.
It must have brought luck. Maradona knew something — because he went on to score the two goals he's most remembered for. A shirt manufactured against the clock to counter Bilardo's superstitions, the shirt Maradona wore to score both of those goals is today heading to auction with a starting price of $5.8 million.
