Football

by Michael Sells

  Maradona has received a certain degree of leniency from the wider footballing community. The events of 1994 have been written off as unfortunate but ultimately inconsequential. Even his infamous handball goal against England in 1986, the ‘Hand of God’, which proved to be a deciding factor in Argentina’s victorious World Cup campaign, was overlooked by many following the stunning solo effort he scored later in the same game. However, any further involvement in 1994 would probably have been a step too far even for his countless admirers, not just because of the harmful impact it would have had on one of sport’s most beloved competitions but also because of the doubt it would have cast over his own career.

  A knowing air is almost unavoidable when recounting Maradona’s involvement in ’94. His poor form prior to the tournament, his previous cocaine convictions, the demonic celebration against Greece – all these elements make his doping seem obvious. Maradona’s wildly unpredictable streak was used by many at the time to explain it away – a footballing genius turning on the style when it was least expected and most desired. If he had not been caught in 1994 he would probably not have been so open in 2011 about the qualifier against Australia. The revelations could have broken from elsewhere, and without the immediate isolation of the qualifying match and the two World Cup fixtures his entire career would have been cast under suspicion.

  When news broke of Maradona’s dismissal from USA 1994, Argentina was left in a state of disarray. Their hero had been caught cheating, their chances of success had evaporated and an illustrious international career had come to a shameful end. In his homeland, the sports editor at Argentine daily paper Clarín, Luis Vinker, said: ‘People are in shock, they can’t believe this has happened, but mostly they are sad.’ There was little to be angry at, since they had witnessed the side without Maradona in their final two matches. His departure had not robbed them of anything; rather his presence early on had provided them with something that was not legitimately theirs in the first place. Perhaps the sadness would have turned to anger if they had faced retrospective elimination against Brazil, but the comparatively low-key nature of the consequences meant that the nation was simply reminded of the star they had lost.

  The whole sorry episode had the potential to sully the good name of football and the FIFA World Cup for years to come, but ultimately came to be seen as evidence that cheats never prosper. This philosophy is of course verging on naïve and, as can be seen by the destructive wake left by drug cheats in other sports, football got away extremely lightly.

  Chapter 8

  Imagine that …

  Honduras rout El Salvador in 1970 World Cup qualifiers … and a brutal conflict is avoided

  Football has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

  These are the words of George Orwell, a poetic if rather negative assessment of the game of football. It is an excerpt from his 1945 essay ‘The Sporting Spirit’, but could just as easily have come from the pages of Nineteen Eighty-four, so oppressive and dystopian is the tone. Nonetheless it stands as a highly provocative argument. While thousands would agree wholeheartedly with Orwell’s view, thousands more would argue that fair play and the spirit of war are not mutually exclusive. If two teams sign up to battle on the pitch, are the realms of fair play not dictated by their willingness to compete? Orwell’s fellow wordsmith and one-time professional goalkeeper Albert Camus valued football somewhat more highly, stating: ‘All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football.’ Yet even the most fervent advocate of the merits of the game cannot deny that there are times when the sport crosses the line between moral validity and barbarity. In 1969 this line was crossed in the most dramatic of fashions.

  At the time a great deal of tension existed between the neighbouring Central American nations of Honduras and El Salvador. In terms of population El Salvador was by far the larger, with over 3 million recognised nationals compared to Honduras’s 2.3 million. However, while El Salvador’s population was compacted into a nation of only 8,000 square miles, the people of Honduras were spread across a country more than five times the size. The overcrowding of El Salvador led thousands to cross the border in search of a greater quality of life, much to the anger of the Hondurans. It was estimated that at the peak of the migration around 300,000 Salvadorans inhabited the land of their neighbours. Bitter arguments ensued, with El Salvador pleading for the borders to be altered to grant them more land. Border disputes rarely conclude amicably and this one was no different. As El Salvador continued to argue its case, Honduras predictably set about controlling the influx of Salvadorans through eviction, an act which only served to aggravate matters.

  This is where football comes in. With relations between the two nations at an all-time low and the 1970 World Cup looming, qualification had reached the final stages. Both El Salvador and Honduras had managed to emerge from their preliminary groups, only to be paired together in a two-game semi-final. Unusually, this was structured in such a way that only the overall outcomes – wins, draws and losses – would determine who progressed; the aggregate scoreline was not significant. The first match was to be played in Honduras with the return fixture scheduled a week later in El Salvador. Not only did this present the potential for on-pitch fallings-out, it also gave cause for thousands of supporters to cross the border, placing further stress on the relationship.

  The first match appeared to be drawing towards a stalemate, perhaps the most desirable outcome for the sake of peace. However, as the game strayed into injury time, the home side found a late winner – Honduras 1–0 El Salvador. Riots erupted as the Salvadorans protested the outcome, claiming the match should have already ended; the referee’s interpretation of injury time differed to that of the travelling fans. But all was not lost. If El Salvador could win their home tie, they would avoid exit. When Honduras crossed the border for the second match the rioting began downtown long before the match, with three Salvadoran fatalities. After two people had been killed outside their hotel, the Honduras team was relocated to an undisclosed location for their own safety, later revealed to be the Honduran embassy.

  Inside the ground things were comparatively peaceful. Stringent policing measures ensured that both sets of fans were well marshalled throughout. The effects of the disruptions the previous night were clear for all to see as a weary Honduras succumbed to a resounding 3–0 Salvadoran victory. There was to be no repeat of the dramatic controversy that had sparked unrest at the end of the previous match. Rather than bemoan the defeat, Honduras’ coach spoke of his relief shortly after the match: ‘We’re awfully lucky that we lost, otherwise we wouldn’t be alive today.’ The disquiet outside was immediately reignited post-match, however, with Honduran fans pelted with missiles as they filtered back to their homeland. A conclusion had not been reached, either on or off the pitch. With their ire increased by the post-match attacks, the Hondurans increased pressure on the Salvadorans to exit their country. Meanwhile, the football would enter into a third and final match, a decider to be played in Mexico City. Despite removing the need for either set of fans to set foot on the land of their opponent, it still provided an unwanted focal point and a chance for further dispute. The rest of Central and South America looked on as the two nations battled it out.

  The deciding match was a characteristically unpredictable affair. With El Salvador leading for most of the match, Honduras forced extra time with an 89th-minute equaliser. They then proceeded to take the lead before El Salvador exacted their revenge, scoring twice in injury time to claim victory and advance to the final qualifying stage. It was the most inflammatory outcome imaginable. After three gruelling battles and a whole host of dramatic late twists, Honduras were humiliated. They had been dealt the most crushing blow by their bitterest foes; the very men they felt were forcing them out of work and invading their homeland.

  Within hours of
the final whistle came the inevitable fall-out. El Salvador and Honduras severed diplomatic ties, beginning a rapid descent into chaos as border skirmishes erupted. Within three weeks the two nations were at war. On 14 July 1969, the Salvadoran Air Force took to the skies with Honduras locked firmly in their sights. A hundred hours of bloody and costly conflict followed and the death toll soon reached the thousands, mainly Honduran civilians. Finally, after four days, pressure from the Honduran authorities and the surrounding nations led to a ceasefire, but it would be decades before the two nations truly resolved their differences.

  The situation in El Salvador and Honduras in 1969 was obviously a complex and fragile one. When the two nations were drawn together in World Cup qualification it was tantamount to dousing an already overstocked tinderbox in petrol. It would only require the smallest spark or injury-time controversy to send it up in flames.

  With so much ill feeling between the two nations it would be easy to assume that conflict was unavoidable, and the football incidental. Yet over those three weeks the ongoing conflicts were concentrated in a volatile environment that only football could provide: heated, immediate, tribal. Not just competition but knockout competition. The nature of the matchup dictated that one side would be lauded as victors, the other branded losers. In the long run there could be no draw, no amicable resolution. The prize of victory would be strung out over the course of a number of months should the victor overcome the last obstacle, in the form of Haiti, and reach the finals in Mexico – as El Salvador did. One clear question arises from the conflict, an anomaly that seems counterintuitive. If El Salvador won, why did they begin the conflict?

  One might have expected the fallen Hondurans to mete out their swift retaliation as El Salvador began their celebrations but, as we now know, the opposite occurred. Riding the momentum of their sporting victory, El Salvador saw a chance to capitalise on their temporary and unprecedented dominance in the region. Their victory march stretched all the way from Mexico City to the heart of Honduras. It was evident from looking at their aircraft that their strike was impulsive. It had been no secret that El Salvador lacked military might and that the Hondurans possessed far superior means. This was very much a function of El Salvador’s overcrowding, since the nation’s financial resources were distributed among an unmanageable population. However, when disharmony between the neighbouring nations escalated during the World Cup qualifiers, the US imposed an arms embargo upon both countries. This was a great leveller, forcing both sides to source their weaponry more creatively. The result was the recycling of archaic Second World War piston-engine aircraft and rudimentary artillery attachments. With Honduras hampered by the same restrictions, El Salvador realised that they would have no better chance in conflict than at that moment, so they flew their cobbled-together air force deep into Honduras before beginning the real assault on foot, storming the borders. Football hadn’t just riled the two nations, it had created a military situation that passively encouraged El Salvador to attack – a ‘now or never’ situation if ever there was one.

  The conflict might well have been postponed, if not avoided, had the result of the World Cup qualifier been different. Relations between any two sets of fans would have been tested by the topsy-turvy nature of the three-legged semi-final, especially with the late drama heaped on. With two nations already on the brink of conflict, and two sets of fans so determined to secure bragging rights and a spot in the World Cup finals, premature celebrations and dented pride provided a catalyst for war. Although any remotely inflammatory incident at any stage could have sparked the ensuing riots, if the first of the three matches had been a more one-sided then the war might not have followed with such crushing inevitability. Amid the unrest that followed Honduras’ late winner, it would be eighteen days until any further controversy would be played out. The return leg was rendered a procession in predictability, with the Hondurans too tired from their night in the embassy, and too scared to upset the baying crowds.

  Of course a Honduras defeat would have left the El Salvadorans far happier, but their later attack proved that a happy El Salvador was not necessarily a peaceful one. More intriguing is what might have happened had Honduras won the first leg more convincingly. In footballing terms the 1–0 lead they took from the first leg should have secured them a vital advantage, but the riots turned it into a burden. If Honduras had managed to pierce the Salvadoran defence earlier in their home tie, then the outrage of their defeated opponents would have been replaced by disheartenment and disappointment. The Salvadorans would have had no grounds on which to consider the goal illegitimate and as a result their collective anger would have been sapped, most likely sparing the ensuing riots. The fact that the two games were not decided by an aggregate scoreline, but rather an unusual two-team league system, meant that the second game was always going to hold meaning, regardless of what had happened in the first. Without the first-leg controversy, when Honduras crossed the border seven days later they would not have been greeted with quite the same vitriol, allowing them to avoid relocation to their embassy.

  On the pitch, it is difficult to gauge which team was the stronger. Honduras may have lost overall, but openly declared fears for their safety after the second and third fixtures. In the one match that was contested under relatively even conditions they were late winners. Of course there is no guarantee that they would have replicated the victory in front of a partisan El Salvador crowd, even after a good night’s sleep and minus the precedent for rioting. Home advantage so often tells in football and Honduras may well still have succumbed to their hosts. But this was not just another game. Form and expectations were secondary to national momentum. Such was the inseparability of football and national pride at the time that a more routine opening victory for Honduras could have led to despondency in the Salvadoran camp. As it happened, the perceived injustice of the first leg made victory all the more vital to them in the return fixture. Without this burning sense of unfairness, El Salvador might not have created such a formidable environment for the fixture, both inside and outside the ground.

  The collective calming of tempers would only have benefited Honduras. In retrospect, if El Salvador had to lose the first leg, they could not have lost in a more productive way. Their fury powered them to victory and a debut appearance in a World Cup. Without this propulsion they would have been a far less daunting opposition and Honduras would have been in a stronger position to capitalise on their positive start to the tie. Honduras did not require a second victory to progress – a draw would have sufficed due to the points system. The effect of this would have been colossal. The missiles which rained down upon Honduran fans following their 3–0 defeat are unlikely to have been thrown had they won both legs comfortably. It was a backlash born of the frustration of the first leg, a bitter taunt from the Salvadorans who would otherwise have been left ruing a comprehensive defeat.

  Above all, the bitter sporting battle would not have entered into a third match, a third country and a fourth week. The two nations would have been able to return their focus to the complex political matters that divided them, rather than have their minds clouded by the irrational immediacy of football. The short-lived war was so brief because it was not part of any long-term strategy. It was reactive and avoidable. Without the footballing backdrop conflict might well still have occurred, but it would undoubtedly have been more measured, necessary and most likely far less costly in terms of Honduran civilian casualties. It was a hugely regrettable 100-hour period in the history of Honduras and El Salvador, but with a slightly different outcome on the pitch George Orwell’s belief that football is ‘war minus the shooting’ need never have been proved wrong.

  Chapter 9

  Imagine that …

  Messi is unable to afford growth hormone treatment … and Spanish football loses its charitable nature

  As the Argentine prodigy Lionel Messi (pictured left) rapidly rose through Barcelona’s youth ranks at the start of the 21st century, few failed to be
seduced by his talents. With sublime close control, an unfeasibly low centre of gravity and immaculate finishing, those fortunate enough to have witnessed his beginnings claim that it was clear even then that Messi was special. However, some were not convinced, including one Frank de Boer. Having spent two successful seasons at Barcelona, de Boer has a better understanding than most of the qualities required to be a success at the club. In 2010, after the Argentine had collected his second Ballon d’Or award as Europe’s best performer over the course of the previous year, de Boer admitted that he had previously doubted Messi’s potential to scale such heights. His concerns, he explained, had emerged at a youth tournament five years earlier to which he had accompanied Barcelona’s manager at the time, Frank Rijkaard:

  Frank kept raving about him because he was already at Barcelona but I didn’t think he played a great tournament. I told Frank that he was trying to do too much and wasn’t focused enough. I said he needed to play more as a team player.

  In the years since, Messi has created a role that is all his own, managing to do what de Boer considered to be ‘too much’ with alarming success.

  De Boer’s concerns were understandable; few players manage to cope with the burden of duties under which Messi thrives. His success was far from a sure thing, but the battle he faced was against very different limitations to those de Boer had in mind. By the age of eleven Messi was standing out among his teammates at his club in Argentina, Newell’s Old Boys, but was also diagnosed with a career-threatening condition – growth hormone deficiency (GHD). At eleven years of age he could cope due to the still-diminutive build of his opponents, but that would change in time. Without growth hormone treatment he stood no chance of ever being able to compete at the highest level. Doctors priced up a course of treatment at nearly $1,000 a month, a sum which was quite simply unaffordable for Messi’s parents, who had three other children to provide for. The only hope was to find a club willing to foot the bill for him.