Argentina arrived to Dublin in May 1980 to face a Republic of Ireland team managed by Eoin Hand in an international friendly match. Argentine Maradona was only a teenager at the time, but his silky skills exhibited to the public why he was the next big thing in football.
‘Diego Armando Maradona’ was playing his club trade for Argentinos Juniors when he arrived to play in Lansdowne Road on the 16th of May 1980. Maradona, who was 19 at the time, was considered to be Argentina’s next brightest prospect. In the following years, this prospect would soon become the world’s best player, stapling his name down as one of football’s greats.
Dave Langan, who was full-back for Ireland that day, had the job of marking a young Maradona.
Langan told The Irish Post:
“I remember, the ball broke and I clattered into him. Maradona looked at me as if to say “Is that the best you got?”
“I thought: I’m in trouble here. ‘But there had been a rugby match the Saturday before and the grass was still a bit long so anytime he went running he couldn’t get away with the ball.”
The former Irish full-back continued:
“I remember we shook hands after and he gave me a smile. It was a highlight of my career, the best player I have ever marked.”
“You know, if I give a talk in any school, the students will always ask: ‘Who is the best player you have played against?’ It’s strange to hear myself say ‘it was Maradona’…their eyes light up.”
The international friendly would finish 0-1 in favour of Argentina. Although Maradona didn’t score in the game, his flicks and tricks impressed the Irish team.
Gerry Peyton was the Irish goalkeeper the day they faced Argentina in a packed Lansdowne Road. He described Maradona as a “wonderkid coming out of Argentina.”
"We were more concerned about the World Cup stars like Passarella and Tarantini. But ultimately the star of the game was Maradona, no shadow of a doubt,” Peyton told the Irish Independent.
"The great players like Messi and Ronaldo now and Maradona then, they have this awareness about them. It's like the ball is part of their body, like they own the ball, you can't get it off them, they read your movement as you come at them to get the ball and they can deal with that. He was special. I came off the pitch that day knowing that,” said the former Irish shot stopper.
Fellow Irish team mate Paul Mcgee also recalled a memory he had of Maradona during the game, which he shared with the Irish Independent.
"In one situation the ball went up in the air, myself and Maradona went for it, and I flattened him, we shouldered each other but he was smaller than me, I knocked him over and won the ball and on I went. I showed that clip to the kids, there's Maradona and there's me," joked the former Irish striker.
Five days later, the Argentine Artist would score a hat-trick against a helpless Austrian side. Dublin had just witnessed a star in the making.
This encounter was Eoin Hand’s first game in charge of the Republic of Ireland national team. Hand could see the potential of Maradona from the get go. “You'd probably need two players to mark someone like him but you can't do that," said the Irish manager.
“He was very strong, that's what people forget sometimes, it wasn't all skills and passing, he was a huge physical presence."
"People knew about Maradona, his name was out there already but he wasn't yet the global star, it probably took until 1982 for the world to wake up to Maradona but he was special,” Hand told the Irish Independent.
Rare Footage of Maradonas’s performance V Ireland https://youtu.be/oEb6Rv4Bghw
The former Boca Juniors, FC Barcelona, Napoli and Sevilla FC player went on to win the World Cup in 1986 for Argentina. Maradona was awarded many individual awards as a player and is considered to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, player in football history.
RIP Diego Maradona
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