THERE are three defining moments in England's World Cup history, three images etched forever into the collective consciousness of a people.

One is the 1966 Final (Moore lifting the trophy, Nobby Stiles' dance, Geoff Hurst's hat-trick, all of that); a second is the semi-final against West Germany in 1990 and the horrible agony of defeat by penalties; and the third is the livid, unforgiving heat of the Aztec Stadium, Mexico City, in 1986 and Maradona's 'Hand Of God' goal.

The first one was wonderful, of course; but it happened before half of the current English population were even born. The second was terrible, but even reaching the semi-final was a triumph of sorts. And so it is the third incident, remembered by most of the country and unsalved by any comforting circumstance, that is the low point of our national memory of the World Cup, an ugly wound that, for 12 years, has wept and oozed. Tonight's match is a chance for the team, and the nation, to put a giant mental Band Aid on the scar.

On TV at the weekend, Michael Owen, bless him, said that he has no memory of the match. Well, he was only six at the time so we'll let him off. But for every other person who saw that quarter-final, it remains a recurring trauma. I recall every moment like it was yesterday.

The crackling tension had been generated, by events on the football pitch and the battlefield, long before the actual game. Ever since 1966, when Argentine captain Antonio Rattin had been sent off in the quarter-final and England manager Alf Ramsey had physically prevented his players from swapping shirts with opponents he'd subsequently call "animals", footballing relations between the two nations had been at the lowest ebb imaginable. Add to all that the proximity of the Falklands war, where several thousand young Britons and Argentines gave their lives in a politically-motivated spat between two ugly, self-regarding regimes, and it's easier to understand the near-hysteria that preceded the match in both countries.

It is no surprise, then, that the actual match was preceded by a diplomatic skirmish. FIFA, only too well aware of the huge importance of the game, found themselves walking on hot coals with regard to the referee. Unable to trust a South American, they decided to appoint a European referee. Argentina protested. An African compromise (the inexperienced Mr Ali Ben Naceur of Tunisia) was found; it was a decision that England and FIFA (given the awful damage to the game's international reputation done by the high profile, unpunished, cheating) would live to bitterly regret.

The English sense of foreboding was added to by the fact that they were not a great team. Not bad, but not great. They'd stumbled through the group matches before manager Bobby Robson had happened upon the pairing of Gary Lineker and Peter Beardsley and the goals began to flow. Still, though, they essentially relied on the defensive qualities of Terry Butcher, Kenny Sansom, Terry Fenwick, Gary Stevens and Peter Reid, and the unmatched keeping of Peter Shilton. Argentina, on the other hand, had Diego Armando Maradona, the barrio urchin turned toreador and tormentor, then clearly the best player in the world, maybe - given the increased pace and athleticism against which he played - the greatest ever.

England were underdogs. Their plan was to rely on the combativeness of those defenders and hope that some combination of Lineker, Beardsley and Glenn Hoddle (other attacking options like John Barnes and Chris Waddle were confined initially to the bench, their places taken by the more workmanlike Steve Hodge and Trevor Steven) would somehow produce a telling thrust. For 55 minutes, the scheme worked well. Though England had made just one chance (Beardsley hitting the side netting from an unpromising angle), the Argentines had been held at arm's length. As the moment of disaster approached, an acorn of English confidence had even begun to grow.

Then, with a suddenness that made you blink, and a shockingness that seeing it a thousand times since has done nothing to emoliate, it happened� Maradona bore into the centre of a packed defence. For the umpteenth time, someone got an anonymous, vital foot in. The ball ran loose, bounced off Jorge Valdano, then bounced loose again. Now Steve Hodge swung at it. Maybe he mis-hit it, maybe he was genuinely trying to be cool and hook it over his shoulder, back to Shilton (your kindness knows no bounds, Danny - Ed). Whatever, the ball looped up off the Nottingham Forest man's boot, and arched into that now-famous parabola that would see it land on the edge of England's six-yard box.

Ninety nine times out of 100, the hulking figure of Shilton would have come and claimed the ball. Ninety nine forwards out of 100 wouldn't have made a challenge, knowing that they could never beat the keeper to the ball. Ninety nine referees out of 100 would have seen the hand that snaked up and made crucial contact. But this was the one time in a hundred; this was Maradona; this was Mr Ben Naceur. The ball popped over Shilton's onrushing arms and into the net. To the astonishment of the England players with the best view of the incident (Hoddle, Fenwick and the goalkeeper) referee and lineman started running back to the centre circle. Fenwick and Hoddle, gesticulating wildly, chased the ref all the way back to the centre circle in a protest entirely typical of the former but equally out of character for the latter. The now-England manager recently recalled the awful feeling in his stomach as he realised that the ref was not going to change his mind and that this titanic match was going to turn on a sneaky piece of cheating.

For my part, I knew how he felt. I was watching the match in the living room of my 16th floor council flat in East London. I could not believe what had happened/was happening. I stood in front of the television, half crying, half bellowing with rage. Alerted by the noise, my girlfriend came into the room (this was in the days before it was compulsory for everyone to love football) and demanded to know what the hell was going on. By now, purple-faced and blubbering, I was threatening to throw the TV out the window and down onto the East India Dock Road, a hundred or so feet below. As I waved my arms and tried to explain the enormity of what had happened, she fixed me with a steely look, told me to sit down and stop carrying on: "Don't be so bloody stupid� no-one will even remember this by the weekend�" And the silly cow was serious!

Even at that moment, before Maradona scored his second goal and before the result of the match was known (though I knew damn well that that would be the turning point and that England would now surely lose), I knew she was wrong. And how. Far from being forgotten, Maradona's crime has become one of the abiding images for a whole generation of English people. No week goes by without an advert appearing in which the photo or the film of the incident is central. Grown men who have long since forgotten the miner's strike, Bros, Ronald Reagan and the christian name of their first wife, still meet and mull every nanosecond of the incident over and beerily over. Because of the Falklands factor, because of Maradona's sheer audacity (both in the actual handling and, afterwards, in invoking the idea that The Almighty may have been in some way involved with his chicanery), because England were knocked out of the World Cup, and because the Argentinian turned out to be an habitual cheat, a junkie and an all-round useless human being to boot, that goal has become, here at least, the very paradigm of all that is low, unsporting, underhand and vile.

Liberals and those who like to pretend that football is only a game like to point out that, minutes later, Maradona got a second goal of superlative quality and so England weren't actually beaten by his cheating. This is so much chattering-class twaddle. Or, to put it in the venacular of the pub, utter bollocks. His second goal was made easy by the England team still being deep in shock, sleepwalking shadows of their former selves. The second goal may have eased Maradona's conscience, and allowed the yellow, self-satisfied time servers of FIFA to squirm just a little less in their free, premium seats, but it was not the goal that knocked Robon's team out of the World Cup.

All these years later, my feelings about Maradona remain ambivalent. As a footballer, I adored him. Just 53 days before the events in the Azteca, he had come to England to play in Ossie Ardiles' benefit match. The Spurs' midfield that afternoon was Maradona, Ardiles and Hoddle. They kept trying to score (against Inter Milan!) without letting the ball touch the ground, and more than once they almost succeeded. It was mesmerising stuff and I loved it. Equally, I admired him for having escaped a background of such crushing poverty (as an infant, his uncle had saved him from drowning in the local communal cess pit!) that no western European can really grasp it. I've even had the occasional titter at his cocaine-fuelled antics; to bend the knee to rock stars while vilifying the Argentine for his lifestyle would be pure humbug.

Yet that goal sticks in my craw. Perhaps it would have been different if he'd scored it against another country. Perhaps it would have been different if England's limited team hadn't toiled so diligently (like Paraguay against France on Sunday) for their precarious toe-hold in a match that most expected them to lose. Perhaps it would have been different if it had taken him anything less than 20 full years to say sorry (and this week's "apology" would have been more acceptable if it hadn't been immediately followed by the revelation that the now-desperate Diego wants to manage in the Premiership). In any event, I now find it very hard to see his face without a shudder passing through me. A shudder that accompanies the words (once raw and painful, now, despite the tone of this piece, largely distant and dealt with) "cheating little bastard".

And I was delighted (for my own sanity as much as anything) to note in the last few days that I am not alone in these dark, repressed, feelings. On TV, both Hoddle and Alan Shearer had relived their pain. Hoddle said no match and no football incident had ever affected him so much. The pain clearly still burns. And Shearer, who you'd expect to bury the past beneath an avalanche of let-bygones-be-bygones platitudes, instead recounted how the incident had ruined his teenage summer. Of course, the England coach went on to say that he blames the officials and not Maradona, and of course, Shearer says that revenge will have no part in his motivation tonight, but clearly neither has forgotten, nor forgiven. Good for them!

How wonderful it is, then (how proving that there is a living, active god and that he/she is a football fan), that England and Argentina should now meet in this World Cup. The horrible hatred caused by the Falklands war is now, thankfully, largely passed; both countries are once again democracies with much to be proud of; but, for England at least, there is still unfinished business to be settled. Again England are the underdogs, and I fear that the South Americans, in a match of frightful tension and closeness, may have just too much for them.

But in my heart, if not my head, I see payback for 1986 and the pain it inflicted on a nation. And if the winning goal could be scored by a man-child who doesn't even remember the Hand Of God, who was only six at the time, well, that wouldn't be so bad either�