The day that Maradona finished with all Athletic Bilbao
The final of the Copa del Rey 1984 went down in history by Maradona's fight and his teammates with the Athletic Bilbao players. A ‘revelry’ that was preceded by old accounts that at one point exploded and were collected in just a few minutes. And it is that what happened in that final that the Basque team led by Javier Clemente won, I was coming from afar.
The antecedent of the Copa del Rey final in 1984
It all started almost a year before, on the day 4 from that same league 1983-84. In the match that Athletic and Barça played at the Camp Nou and that the Catalans won for 4 a 0, Andoni Goikoetxea went beyond the limit and made a hard entrance to the ‘Fluff’ fracturing the Argentine's left ankle. Because of this injury, Maradona was a few months off.
Javier Clemente himself did not help by stating without shame about the action: "I told Goiko to be tough on Maradona, but they told me that Maradona was a God of football, Since when did gods injure themselves? It's not my fault, they misinformed me ... "
With all these conditions and that Athletic had already won the League ahead of Barça itself a few days before the final, the fuss was served. Even Menotti himself, culé coach, came to affirm: “We are prepared for everything, even for the field of violence”. And so it happened.
Maradona lost his nerves and the thing could end in tragedy
With all the conditions that we have counted, it was clear that things were going to get messy in that final at the Bernabéu. The match was terrible tension with constant picks and kicks that reached their most boiling point when the referee signaled the end of the match. Maradona, without thinking twice he kicked Miguel Ángel Sola.
This triggered a pitched battle with players, technicians and other components of both squads involved in a huge fight that could end in tragedy when Maradona hit with his knee on the head a member of the Basque team's coaching staff who was on the ground and fell collapsed. This fight cost him a penalty of up to 3 months to several of those involved, between them of course, Maradona.
