The Hand of God

On 22 June 1986, in the World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and England at Mexico City's Estadio Azteca, Diego Maradona rose to meet a looping ball alongside England goalkeeper Peter Shilton — nearly a foot taller — and punched it into the net with his left fist, tucked close enough to his head that neither the referee nor the linesman saw it. The goal stood. Argentina led 1–0. Asked about it afterward, Maradona offered one of football's most quoted lines: the goal was scored "a little with the head of Maradona, and a little with the hand of God."

Four minutes later, in the same match, Maradona scored what is still routinely called the greatest goal in football history: picking the ball up in his own half, he beat five England players — Peter Beardsley, Peter Reid, Terry Butcher twice, and Terry Fenwick — before rounding Shilton entirely and rolling the ball into an empty net. Argentina won 2–1 and went on to win the tournament.

The two goals, scored minutes apart by the same player in the same game, capture something this whole "Famous Moments" category is really about: football's history isn't only made of rule changes and governance reports. Sometimes it's made of one man doing the worst and best thing possible in the same World Cup quarter-final, and both becoming permanent parts of how the sport understands itself.