Steve Hodge, former footballer of the English football team, ruled out on multiple occasions the possibility of detaching himself from the shirt with which Diego Maradona made “The hand of God” and “The goal of the century”. On June 22, 1986, the former Tottenham player was left with the iconic blue 10 that the soccer star wore that day. However, he seems to have changed his mind. The number 10 of the former captain of the National Team, which since 2003 is exhibited at the Manchester Museum, will be auctioned from April 20 and they hope to raise between 4 and 6 million pounds, about 7 million dollars if sold for the highest amount. The auction will be held through the website of the Sotheby’s agency and will be open until May 4. After the defeat of his national team, Hodge went directly to Maradona to ask him to exchange shirts: “I thought: ‘I will not be here again, I will try to get a shirt’. I shook hands with Maradona. He was being harassed by his peers. So I thought, ‘It doesn’t make sense, just leave it.'” But after a television interview, Hodge had a chance again.” I went down to the locker room. As he went down, Maradona walked with two of his teammates. I looked into his eyes, pulled my shirt as if to say ‘Is there any possibility of exchange?’ He came over and said yes. And there we exchanged them,” he said.
Hodge posing in Diego’s shirt.
To corroborate that it is indeed the shirt that Diego wore in Mexico, the Sotheby’s agency reported: “Part of the challenge when evaluating the shirt was to identify the shirt with the two historic goals. As part of this effort, Sotheby’s worked with Resolution Photomatching to match the t-shirt to both lenses, examining unique details in various elements of the article, including the patch, stripes, and numbering. The Photomatching resolution determined that Maradona changed his shirt during the match, but that he wore this shirt for the two historic goals in the second half of the match.”
