In an extract from his new book, David Squires looks back at an infamous moment from the 1986 World Cup …

It’s fair to say that England and Argentina had ‘history’. Their football rivalry had taken on a bitter edge in the aftermath of Antonio Rattin’s sending off at the 1966 World Cup and, on the political front, the two countries had been at war just four years before they met in the heat of the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Both teams had publicly played down the relationship between the sporting rivalry and the war, but away from the microphones it was a different story. In his autobiography El Diego, a typically restrained Maradona explains: ‘In a way, we blamed the English players for everything that happened, for all the suffering of the Argentine people.’ In a way, I blame Steve Hodge’s inability to volley a football in its intended direction for everything that followed