Back to the Scene of the Crime: A Full-Circle Return to the Azteca
Diego Maradona in Argentina’s national team jersey, World Cup 1990 / GettyImages
Thursday, June 11, will be a significant milestone for me. I will have the honor of broadcasting the opening match of the World Cup, the seventh World Cup of my career. For me, this is also a full-circle moment, and I am glad that the World Cup broadcast editors understood the emotional and television potential of my return to the “scene of the crime.” The match between host Mexico and South Africa, which I will broadcast, will be played at the Azteca Stadium, where 40 years ago I broadcast the biggest match of my career, a game that included one of the defining and most controversial moments in the history of world football, and in the history of the tournament in particular.
In the quarterfinal match of that World Cup, England and Argentina faced each other. The backdrop to the game included the tense relations between the two countries at the time, against the background of the Falklands War, which was still a fresh memory, and was followed by two extraordinary moments that took place in that match. Diego Maradona, the greatest footballer in history, scored an illegal goal with his hand. There is no way Maradona’s head rose higher than Shilton’s hands. A few minutes later, he provided football fans around the world with an unforgettable slalom that ended with a goal that sealed his team’s victory.
Much has been said in the 40 years since that goal Maradona scored with his hand. The main provocation was not the illegal move itself, but the way the giant star chose to behave afterward, from the way he called his teammates to hug him after the goal, to his overt and defiant decision to call the goal “the Hand of God,” and the connection he made to his slalom, which he claimed he managed to pull off because he was facing an English team, known for fair play, which prevented its players from committing a foul against him as he charged toward goal. In my view, at least, it became the greatest goal scored in the 20th century, greater than any goal by Messi or Ronaldo. The two of them have never produced a performance like that, on that stage, for their national teams.
Azteca Stadium in Mexico City / GettyImages
I am happy to return and broadcast from the Azteca after four decades at Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, and at Sport 1, for what may also be my last World Cup as a commentator. I arrived at my first World Cup in 1978 in Argentina under the military junta, after 16 years in print, radio and television. Even then, I was fortunate enough to broadcast interesting moments, such as the 6-0 thrashing the host nation inflicted on Peru. It was probably one of the most outrageous match-fixing scandals in the history of world football, but it is important to note that no conclusive proof was ever presented.
In the upcoming World Cup I will be 84, and I no longer feel like running around in search of flights. The time has come to discover the “star of the future” in sports broadcasting and hand over the microphone and headphones to him. Personally, I am sorry that the late Meir Einstein and Rami Wiess are not with me at this World Cup, because this generation, my generation, still has something to give and pass on to the next generation of broadcasters.
Broadcast style is changing, and as technology advances and people at home have the means to know more about what is happening on the field, the broadcaster’s role as a describer of events on the grass is diminishing. In my view, the great significance of the football commentator’s role is in creating atmosphere and in the ability to make the viewer feel as if he himself is in the stadium, something that requires talent, experience and a great love of the game. Everything else is already technique. It is more of a broadcast of “reaction” than of “description,” certainly in an era when everything is filmed, there is VAR and the number of replays is endless.
Over the course of my career, I have had the privilege of broadcasting thousands of games, and I have witnessed many events in sports journalism, including major tragedies, from the Heysel disaster in 1985, through the assassination of Rabin, which I had to report on in the program “The 91st Minute” in 1995, to the collapse of Meni Levy in the match between Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv, and the crowd invasion at the Kiryat Eliezer stadium and the mauling of fan Amir Rand, who was then a young boy and never recovered.
What is notably missing today in football broadcasts is the magazine-style side, whose glory days are long gone. I would be very happy to revive it and bring back to the screen programs in the style of the legendary “Mabat Sport.” Kan and the program “The 91st Minute” have a splendid archive that can be used very effectively. It is a matter of will and budget, and I very much hope that one day I will have the chance to do it. Until then, we are in for a once-in-a-lifetime World Cup at Kan. I am proud and excited to be there, and I am waiting for all of you on the other side of the microphone. Happy World Cup at Kan and Charlton!
World Cup final 2022 / GettyImages
*Yoram Arbel will broadcast the World Cup opening match on June 11 from Azteca Stadium in Mexico, as part of Kan, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation’s major World Cup broadcast operation for the 2026 World Cup. Kan will bring the world’s biggest sporting event to every home in Israel, live and free, across all digital platforms, on the website, on mobile, in the smart TV app and on Kan BOX, and all the major and dramatic matches will be broadcast on Kan 11. The broadcast operation will launch some of the world’s most innovative broadcasting, information transfer and statistical processing technologies, extensive content areas and a digital archive of major World Cup matches over the years. At the same time throughout the day, on television, radio and digital, in Hebrew and Arabic, Kan, with its team of commentators and reporters, will bring the stories of the World Cup, including those that go beyond sport.
