Epilogue: Maradona in Mexico

Abstract

The highlight of the 1986 football world cup in Mexico was undoubtedly the quarter-final between Argentina and England, with the 2–1 victory of the South Americans who, from then, went on to lift the most prestigious trophy in the world. The reason why this particular game is often remembered as the game of the championship is very simple: the two extraordinary goals scored by Diego Armando Maradona, Argentina’s captain and, according to most commentators, the best footballer to have ever played the ‘beautiful game’. Now, what is the relationship between Maradona’s goals in Mexico 1986 and the theoretical ruminations that fill the pages of our book? Everything. One of the most exciting and valuable lessons of Žižek’s ideology critique is that we are encouraged to apply it to every field of human activity, including those where we would least expect to get some philosophical joy from (such as a football pitch). If this ‘exhortation to dare’ is not entirely original in method (1960s semiotics had already excelled in this kind of enquiries), it is certainly so in ambition, since from a Žižekian angle the lower and normally neglected manifestations of the human spirit allow us an insight into nothing other than the object of all philosophical investigations from time immemorial: truth, or rather universality.