"It was the past perfect sentence structure of God"

Teaching English to the employees of Radio Free Europe has forced me to keep up with current events -- as well as the occasional 25-year-old one ...

Hey, don't blame me. One of the most famous goals in the history of the World Cup is detailed in this textbook, in a section on cheating. The book recounts three famous sports cheats: Maradona, whose goal helped beat England and thus can't be considered all bad; modern pentathlete Boris Onishenko, who rigged his sword to register hits on the computer scoring system; and runner Fred Lorz, who finished first in the 1904 Olympic marathon thanks in large part to riding 11 miles in a car.

As the textbook recounts the stories, the text uses past simple, past continuous, and past perfect. More importantly, the text gave me the opportunity to show the video of Maradona's goal. If you're unfamiliar with it, have a look here. If you're English, have a look at it anyway.