Lourdes Heredia was 17, had never been to a football match and was not interested in the sport. But that afternoon, walking into the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, she was about to watch Argentina play England in a World Cup quarter-final — and to witness something she would only fully understand many years later. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
That morning, they had no plans. Then the phone rang. A friend of her father had two tickets he could not use. Her mother did not hesitate. This was the World Cup, after all. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she was not going to let her daughter miss out.
The excitement started as soon as they were en route, crossing the city to the stadium. Flags hung from car windows and strangers shouted chants across traffic. She joined in, shouting "Viva México!" with everyone else, even though her team had already been knocked out of the tournament. Football did not matter much to her, but being part of the moment did.
When the match started, she barely followed what was happening on the pitch. She was too busy joining in the Mexican wave, caught up in the rhythm of the crowd. The football felt distant, almost secondary. Suddenly, everyone was on their feet. For a second there was celebration then confusion, arguments, noise swelling in different directions. It was a moment that would be talked about for decades.
The ball was airborne above the England penalty area. Argentina's star player Diego Maradona launched himself into an aerial contest with English goalkeeper Peter Shilton. But instead it bounced off Maradona and crossed the goal line. It looked as if he had headed the first goal — and that is when things changed for her. Suddenly it was the football that mattered.
People around her started questioning whether it was really a goal or not — did he head the ball into the net or... was it his hand that pushed it in? She turned to the man next to her: "Porque tanto alboroto [what happened]?" she asked. He said Maradona had punched the ball into the net with his hand but the referee did not see it, and allowed the goal.
In time, it became known globally as the "Hand of God" incident — coined by Maradona himself: "[The goal was scored] a little bit with my head and a little bit with the hand of God," he famously said. But so intense was the debate in the stands that day that, four minutes later when the next goal came from Maradona, they almost missed it.
And here is the thing. When she thinks back to being one of thousands of people in the stadium that day, it is not the "Hand of God" that she immediately recalls — it was that second goal. Unlike Maradona's first spectacle, the whole stadium went quiet when he was charging forward with the ball. He began in his own half with a pirouette to escape the attention of two England players, then advanced up the pitch, weaving from one side to the other, eluding tackles, then into England's penalty box and then — boom! The ball in the back of the net. The stadium exploded. She thought: "This is why people love football — now it makes sense."
After the game ended with the now famous 2-1 Argentinian victory, she and her mother left the stadium and walked towards their car. At that moment, what stayed with her was not the match but the overwhelming feeling of having been inside the Azteca itself — this vast, iconic place that carried so much of Mexico's history within its walls. It was not just a stadium; it was part of their collective memory.
Even then, the echoes of the 1985 earthquake, when whole sections of Mexico City were reduced to rubble, were still vivid for her — the weeks when the air smelled of dust and loss, and the city seemed to hold its breath. She knew that the Azteca had been one of the great places of refuge, where families who had lost everything found shelter and hope. Being there felt deeply moving, almost solemn, and yet outside it transformed into something joyful and alive.
As she and her mother walked, talking and eating tacos and fruit drenched in chilli and lime from street vendors, they felt immense pride in being Mexican. They laughed about how they embraced every stereotype — the sombreros, bright colours, all of it worn with humour and defiance, and how, as hosts, they gave warmth, laughter and generosity to the world. Even the World Cup mascot, a chilli pepper with a sombrero, seemed to capture that spirit perfectly — bold, playful, and unmistakably theirs.
It was only years later that she understood that she had witnessed a truly magical moment. Football itself never really became that exciting for her, but the memory of that day remains forever.