Diego Maradona played at four World Cups: 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1994. He played 21 matches, scored 8 goals and won the trophy once, in Mexico in 1986, as captain. He also reached a second final in 1990 and lost it. That much is well known.
What gets less attention is how his World Cups ended. The first one finished with a red card against Brazil. The last one finished off the pitch, with a failed drug test after his second match in the United States. In between sit the best tournament any player has had, by a lot of people’s reckoning, and a strange, painful one in Italy. This is the Maradona World Cup record match by match, with the numbers recounted from the match reports rather than copied from a summary.
Maradona’s World Cup record by tournament
| Tournament | Age | Argentina played | Maradona played | Goals | Argentina’s finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982, Spain | 21 | 5 | 5 | 2 | Second round |
| 1986, Mexico | 25 | 7 | 7 | 5 | Champions |
| 1990, Italy | 29 | 7 | 7 | 0 | Runners-up |
| 1994, United States | 33 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Round of 16 |
| Total | 23 | 21 | 8 |
With him on the pitch Argentina won 12 of the 21, drew 4 and lost 5, with 33 goals for and 17 against. Two of those draws were knockout matches in 1990 that Argentina won on penalties. He started all 21 and was substituted only once, against Greece in 1994. From 1986 on he was captain in all 16 matches he played.
Every World Cup match Diego Maradona played
| Date | Stage | Opponent | Argentina’s result | Maradona | Goals | Minute of each goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 June 1982 | First round | Belgium | 0-1 | Started | 0 | — |
| 18 June 1982 | First round | Hungary | 4-1 | Started | 2 | 28, 57 |
| 23 June 1982 | First round | El Salvador | 2-0 | Started | 0 | — |
| 29 June 1982 | Second round | Italy | 1-2 | Started, booked | 0 | — |
| 2 July 1982 | Second round | Brazil | 1-3 | Started, sent off | 0 | — |
| 2 June 1986 | First round | South Korea | 3-1 | Captain | 0 | — |
| 5 June 1986 | First round | Italy | 1-1 | Captain | 1 | 34 |
| 10 June 1986 | First round | Bulgaria | 2-0 | Captain | 0 | — |
| 16 June 1986 | Round of 16 | Uruguay | 1-0 | Captain | 0 | — |
| 22 June 1986 | Quarter-final | England | 2-1 | Captain | 2 | 51, 55 |
| 25 June 1986 | Semi-final | Belgium | 2-0 | Captain | 2 | 51, 63 |
| 29 June 1986 | Final | West Germany | 3-2 | Captain, booked | 0 | — |
| 8 June 1990 | First round | Cameroon | 0-1 | Captain | 0 | — |
| 13 June 1990 | First round | Soviet Union | 2-0 | Captain, booked | 0 | — |
| 18 June 1990 | First round | Romania | 1-1 | Captain | 0 | — |
| 24 June 1990 | Round of 16 | Brazil | 1-0 | Captain | 0 | — |
| 30 June 1990 | Quarter-final | Yugoslavia | 0-0 (3-2 on penalties) | Captain | 0 | — |
| 3 July 1990 | Semi-final | Italy | 1-1 (4-3 on penalties) | Captain | 0 | — |
| 8 July 1990 | Final | West Germany | 0-1 | Captain, booked | 0 | — |
| 21 June 1994 | First round | Greece | 4-0 | Captain, substituted | 1 | 60 |
| 25 June 1994 | First round | Nigeria | 2-1 | Captain | 0 | — |
He missed two matches in all, both in 1994 and both after the positive test: a 2-0 defeat by Bulgaria on 30 June and a 3-2 defeat by Romania in the round of 16 on 3 July. Argentina did not win again once he was gone.
1982: marked out of the game, then sent off
He could have gone to one earlier. César Luis Menotti left him out of the 1978 squad, at home in Argentina, because he thought a 17-year-old was too young. So Maradona’s first World Cup was Spain in 1982, as a 21-year-old who had just signed for Barcelona.
It started badly. Argentina, the holders, lost the opening match 1-0 to Belgium at the Camp Nou. Then they beat Hungary 4-1 in Alicante, and Maradona scored twice, after 28 and 57 minutes. Those were his first World Cup goals. A 2-0 win over El Salvador took Argentina into a second-round group with Italy and Brazil. Wikipedia notes that the squad was split, with the younger players at odds with the older ones.
Against Italy at the Sarrià in Barcelona, Claudio Gentile man-marked him for the whole match. The match is remembered mainly for that marking. Italy won 2-1, Maradona was booked, and Paolo Rossi‘s Italy went on to win the tournament. Against Brazil, in the same stadium, Argentina were 3-0 down when Maradona lost his temper and committed a retaliatory foul on Batista. He was sent off with five minutes left. Brazil won 3-1.
Five matches, two goals, a booking and a red card. Wikipedia says he was fouled repeatedly in all five. It is a fair summary of a tournament where he was the player everyone planned against.
Maradona at the 1986 World Cup
Four years later he was the captain, and Mexico 1986 is the tournament people mean when they talk about Maradona. He played every minute of all seven Argentina matches. He scored five goals and, by Wikipedia’s count, set up five more. Argentina scored 14 goals in total, so he had a direct hand in ten of them.
In the group stage he set up all three goals in a 3-1 win over South Korea, according to Wikipedia’s match summary. Against Italy, the holders, he equalised after 34 minutes with a left-foot shot into the far corner. Against Bulgaria he laid on the second goal for Jorge Burruchaga. In the round of 16 Argentina beat Uruguay 1-0; he hit the crossbar with a free kick, and later said it was his best game of the tournament.
Then England, in the quarter-final at the Azteca, four years after the Falklands War. Maradona scored both goals in a 2-1 win, and the two could hardly be more different. The first, after 51 minutes, he knocked in with his left hand, beating Peter Shilton to the ball. The referee allowed it. Afterwards Maradona said it was scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”, and in 2005 he admitted he had used his hand on purpose. The full story of that goal is on our Hand of God page. Four minutes later he picked the ball up in his own half and ran through the England team, past Shilton, to score what FIFA’s online poll in 2002 voted the Goal of the Century. Two goals, four minutes, one of them illegal and one of them the most famous goal ever scored at a World Cup. I still find that hard to hold in my head at the same time.
He scored twice more in the semi-final against Belgium, after 51 and 63 minutes, both with his left foot, and Argentina won 2-0. In the final against West Germany the Germans put two men on him. He was booked after 17 minutes, but Argentina led 2-0 anyway, with the second goal coming from a move he started. West Germany pulled back to 2-2 with goals after 74 and 81 minutes. Three minutes later Maradona slipped the ball through to Burruchaga, who scored the winner. Argentina won 3-2 and Maradona lifted the trophy.
He won the Golden Ball as the best player of the tournament, by a unanimous vote. Wikipedia also records that he was fouled 53 times in Mexico, which it gives as a World Cup record. A statue of him scoring the Goal of the Century was later put up at the entrance of the Azteca.
1990: a bad ankle, a handball and Naples
Italy 1990 is the opposite story. Maradona arrived as captain of the holders, with an ankle injury that needed painkilling injections, and he did not score in seven matches. Argentina lost the opening game 1-0 to Cameroon in Milan.
In the second game, a 2-0 win over the Soviet Union in Naples, he stopped a shot with his hand on his own goal line. The referee did not see it. He was booked in the same match. Against Romania he set up Pedro Monzón’s goal from a corner in a 1-1 draw, and Argentina went through.
Against Brazil in the round of 16, Brazil had most of the ball. Late in the game Maradona ran from the halfway line, drew defenders towards him and passed with his right foot to Claudio Caniggia, who went round Taffarel and scored. Argentina won 1-0. Wikipedia points out he used his weaker foot because two Brazilians had closed off his left.
The quarter-final against Yugoslavia in Florence ended 0-0 after extra time. In the shoot-out Maradona took Argentina’s third kick and missed. Argentina won it 3-2 anyway. The semi-final was against Italy, in Naples, at the stadium where he played his club football for Napoli. It finished 1-1, went to penalties again, and this time he scored his kick, the fourth, to put Argentina through 4-3. Roberto Baggio scored for Italy in the same shoot-out. Wikipedia notes that he faced a backlash from some local fans in Naples afterwards.
The final in Rome was a rematch with West Germany, and it was nothing like 1986. Andreas Brehme scored a disputed penalty late in the game, Germany won 1-0, and Maradona was booked in the closing minutes. At the final whistle he cried on the pitch and blamed the referee.
1994: one goal, one test, then out
By 1994 he was 33, and still captain. In the first match, against Greece in Foxborough, Argentina won 4-0. Gabriel Batistuta scored a hat-trick and Maradona scored the third goal, after 60 minutes. It was his last goal for Argentina. He was substituted late in that game, the only time in 21 World Cup matches that he was taken off.
Four days later, on the same ground, Argentina beat Nigeria 2-1. Both goals were Caniggia’s, and Wikipedia credits Maradona with setting up both from free kicks. He was tested after that match. The sample showed ephedrine, a stimulant, and FIFA sent him home. That Nigeria game was his last for Argentina.
His own explanation, reported by Wikipedia, was that his personal trainer ran out of a supplement called Ripped Fast after the Greece game and bought one called Ripped Fuel instead, not knowing it contained ephedrine. Without him Argentina lost to Bulgaria and then to Romania, 3-2, and went out in the round of 16.
How many World Cup goals did Maradona score?
Eight, in 21 matches: 2 in 1982, 5 in 1986, none in 1990 and 1 in 1994. Four came in the group stages and four in the knockout rounds, all of those in 1986. He never scored in a final. For comparison, Pelé scored 12 in 14 matches; Maradona’s 8 leave him well down the all-time World Cup scorers list. His numbers at the World Cup were never about goals alone; the assist column and the 1986 title matter at least as much.
For Argentina in all matches he won 91 caps and scored 34 goals. Wikipedia notes that he and Pelé were joint winners of FIFA’s Player of the Century award. He came back to the World Cup as Argentina’s coach in 2010, when Miroslav Klose scored twice against his team in a 4-0 quarter-final defeat. He died on 25 November 2020, aged 60.
He is one of the players on our player profiles page. If you want a single line on Diego Maradona’s World Cup record, it is this: 21 matches across four tournaments, one of them won almost on his own, and two that ended with him leaving early.
Sources and method
RSSSF’s match records for 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1994; FIFA’s match centre for all 23 Argentina matches at those four tournaments; Wikipedia’s page on Diego Maradona and its match reports for each tournament.
Appearances, results, scorers, bookings and the red card were recounted from RSSSF and checked against FIFA and Wikipedia. Assists are not recorded by FIFA’s match data for these years, so the assist figures above are Wikipedia’s. The penalty shoot-out order in 1990 is also from Wikipedia. Only matches at World Cup final tournaments count; qualifiers do not. Ages are calculated from his date of birth, 30 October 1960. The rules are in How we verify.
Where the sources disagree
The three sources agree on all 21 matches, every result and all 8 goals. They differ on a few minutes, listed below. The widest gap is his substitution against Greece in 1994: FIFA and Wikipedia have him going off late in the game, RSSSF after 62 minutes, so we give no minute. One slip worth noting: Wikipedia’s article on the 1986 final describes the semi-final against Belgium as a 2-1 win in its text, while its own match box, FIFA and RSSSF all give 2-0.
| Event | FIFA | Wikipedia | RSSSF | Used |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red card v Brazil, 1982 | 85′ | 85′ | 82′ | 85′ |
| 2nd goal v England, 1986 | 55′ | 55′ | 56′ | 55′ |
| 1st goal v Belgium, 1986 | 51′ | 51′ | 52′ | 51′ |
| Substituted v Greece, 1994 | 83′ | 84′ | 62′ | Not given |