“I remember it very well, even today. », says Vata to the Portuguese sports daily AND SHE WAS. On April 18, 1990, the Angolan player crucified Olympique Marseille in the semi-final of the Champions League, in the 83rd minute of a decisive return match. In the first leg, the Marseillais won 2-1 at the Vélodrome.
At the fall of a corner played by Valdo – PSG player from 91 to 95 – the Swede Mats Magnusson deflects the ball towards Vata, who gets the better of Éric Di Meco and pushes the ball into the back of the net. The Portuguese are exultant, the Luz stadium capsizes, the Marseille players rush towards the Belgian referee Marcel Van Langenhove. The slow motion is explained, the Angolan from Benfica scored his goal with his hand.
However, 34 years later, Vata still disputes the irregularity of his goal: “It’s a goal that will go down in Benfica’s history. A lot of people say it was with the hand, but the referee himself never said it was with the hand, and I also say it wasn’t with the hand, it was with the shoulder. It’s been 34 years and I still say the same thing. If it had been with my hand, why would I have lied? »
Faced with the protests that its goal has generated, Vata still designates itself today as the only legitimate word. “People still interpret it how they want to interpret it, but I was the one who scored the goal, the only person who can say if it was with the hand or not is me. »
An injustice from which one of Bernard Tapie’s most famous tirades was born: “I understood what it took to win a European Cup. » Three years later, Olympique de Marseille lifted the cup with big ears.
