MADRID, 24 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Argentine journalist Víctor Hugo Morales, who entered history with his narration of Diego Armando Maradona’s goal against England in the 1986 World Cup, acknowledges that “it was impossible to imagine” what happened to him afterwards, although as “there were no social networks” , so “the turn was not as fast” as it might be today.
“Things happened and it was impossible to imagine that day when I finished my story. There were no social networks at that time, so the turnaround was not as fast as what is happening now, that from noon to night the world seems different with what they move social networks. I think that when I got back to Argentina I began to take on dimension because of what people told me about the story, “Morales declared in an interview with Europa Press.
Little by little, the narrator realized that he had left a legacy that still accompanies him today. “Later I realized that colleagues who had nothing to do with me passed the goal on their radios, that they were not from my team, and this meant that it was special, that it was deserving of respect that exceeded the natural vanities and jealousy that we have in the profession, and I said to myself ‘This turned out better than I thought, this is going to have some weight in my life,'” he said.
“And then everything happened, it happened that there are songs that take the lyrics of Diego, last night the choir of the city of Córdoba, which is one of the most important, a choir, sang the lyrics of the goal, and there are three or four songs minimally that I know are made”, added Morales, who has been forever linked to the second goal scored by Diego Armando Maradona against England, the same day that the famous ‘hand of God’ was produced.
Despite having been in the Azteca Stadium during the 1986 World Cup final, the journalist had not been as close to Maradona’s shirt as during its reception last August in Madrid, where it will be exhibited in the museum of Legends. “I did not see him that day, I was in my gallery broadcasting and Diego living his life and we went our separate ways, I never had a great personal relationship,” he acknowledged.
“I loved Diego, I loved that person deeply, we had a lot of respect for each other in the natural game of the protagonist and the journalist. I just dealt with him deeply in the 2014 and 2018 World Cups when we did programs together for Telesur and that was indeed an experience in what Extraordinary human being because I was able to discover the human dimension of Diego and for me that has been as important as having met that footballer”, assured Morales.
The Argentine was the presenter at the arrival ceremony of the shirt that Diego Armando Maradona wore during the 1986 World Cup final, which Lothar Matthäus donated to Legends, who will exhibit it in his football museum in Madrid. “That entry into the legend allows for things like this, for a simple jersey to be an event of this nature,” he said.
The Argentine also does not forget that it is “a very big blow” that Qatar 2022 is the first World Cup after the death of Diego Armando Maradona and possibly the last for Leo Messi as a footballer. “I had not added what is Leo’s last to the emotional fact that adds to the fact of not having Diego in the World Cup. Something that we are going to take note of when we arrive,” he declared.
The journalist knows that “it is going to be a great pain” the fact of “getting to a World Championship and Diego not being there”. “It has inhabited me at all times, since I talk about World Cups or narrate them, Diego has had to do with my life, and that he is neither as a journalist nor as a technical director or as a player, that he is not really there, it goes to be a great pain,” he confessed.
Looking ahead to Qatar 2022, Morales believes that “Argentina is among the four or five favorites for the world championship and then anything happens.” “There are seven or eight teams that beat each other every day. They play on Sunday and one wins, they play the following Sunday and the other wins, you have to see which Sunday you get,” said the journalist.
Regarding the shirt donated by Lothar Matthäus, he admits that “it has a lot of meaning”. “We spend our lives touring museums and looking at the clothes that Napoleon or Felipe II wore. We are delighted with the possibility of seeing what that was like then, what it meant and now we can say that it was wrapping Maradona’s body, She had it on, she was sweating for Diego, she was running before the eyes of millions and millions of people and now she’s here,” he explained.
To Víctor Hugo Morales this seems “a bit simple, it is almost naive”, but also “there is something so great in all this that that is why museums exist”. “That’s why we now have a soccer museum soon in which this relic is going to be practically Napoleon’s clothing, we’re going to look at it that way,” said the journalist.