Argentina v England (1986 FIFA World Cup) is drawing 26x more Wikipedia traffic than normal

What this article is

Argentina 2 – 1 England was a football match played on 22 June 1986 between Argentina and England in the quarterfinals of the 1986 FIFA World Cup at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The game was held four years after the end of the Falklands War fought between Argentina and the United Kingdom, and was a key part in the already intense Argentina–England football rivalry. It was also a match which included two of the most well-known goals in football history, both scored by Argentina captain Diego Maradona.

Summary text from the Wikipedia article "Argentina v England (1986 FIFA World Cup)", available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article.

What changed that day

The article lost 1 characters on balance that day. The largest single addition was 15 characters. See everything that changed on 2026-07-15 in Wikipedia's own diff view — that is where the reason for a surge is usually visible, written and sourced by the editors who were following the story.

How this was measured

Views are Wikimedia's own pageview counts for en.wikipedia, filtered to agent=user so automated traffic is excluded. The baseline is the median of the previous 60 days, which is used instead of the mean so that an earlier surge cannot flatten a later one. The multiple is the day's views divided by that median.