Twenty years on and his name still angers people in the city. Vata or the "devil's hand", is sticking to his version of the story: he didn't score with his hand, but understands the distress of the Marseille followers at the time.
On Thursday, OM will have the chance to chase away some old demons. It is not eleven players which haunt the OM mind but one single hand, that of Vata. The «devil’s hand» has come back to the forefront. Since OM discovered their double confrontation with Benfica, one man has become the symbol of this duel.
From the moment that the qualification for the last 16 of both sides was established, the Angolan, now coach of a second division Australian side, was assailed with telephone calls and emails. "I followed the results of the European cup matches. Then I received a huge amount of phonecalls. A lot of people came to talk to me from all over. My telephone hasn’t stopped ringing!" he confided in us when we called him in Melbourne.
Far from the passion of OM or the Portuguese league, Vata was reminded of his past and the famous story. A story which is different from the reality when it comes from the mouth of the former striker: "From the corner, I was at the back post, next to Eric Di Meco. When Valdo fired it in, I stepped forward but then had to stop. Di Meco pushed me whilest pulling on my jersey. When the ball arrived, Magnusson flicked it on with his head. I didn’t have the time to react. The ball hit my shoulder, if it had hit my hand it would have just slowed it down. It couldn’t go in with so little force".
"What happened, can happn to anybody"
The shoulder, the hand, on purpose or not. It doesn’t matter, Vata will remain, in the eyes of OM’s supporters, the reason that Marseille did not make it to the final. A party that Carlos Mozer had asked his former team-mate not to spoil before the match. "I often speak to him, and each time the first thing we talk about is that match. He says: "you, you spoilt my party» Our conversations always start that way!"
If he understands the disappointment that OM experienced that night, the 49 year old Vata is not going to contradict the one who was 29 at the time. "Nobody likes losing, especially in the semi-final of the European cup. Every player dreams about playing in a final. When you think that you have already made it and then things change in the matter of minutes, of course it is upsetting. I remember just how disappointed the OM players were, Papin was really angry!"
He almost certainly regrets being the incarnation of the nightmare of all Marseille but he puts things into perspective. "These things happen in matches. What is done is done, what happened, can happen to anyone and it always happens to those who are on the pitch not those who are off it. That’s football".
Vata will probably not be able to be present at the match on Thursday, a match according to him which will be "very different, as the context is not the same". Far from the old continent, he still retains a professional up to date view: "Benfica play very good football at the moment. They are a lot better than they were two or three years ago, the team is very different. They score a lot of goals in each encounter, but Marseille also have a very good team and played really well against Copenhagen recently".
If OM managed to win at the Estadio da Luz, the sole goalscorer from the return leg of 1990 would not be too unhappy. A sort of «revenge» for the OM supporters to whom Vata sends a message: "I understand their post match reaction, but you have to keep supporting your team, something which they did as Marseille won the European Cup in 1993". The, finally very pleasant Vata, kicked off the match in his own way: "To everyone in Marseille, good luck for the match against Benfica. May the best side win!"
