Not until eleven minutes after half-time did the anxious Germans equalise, and Schoen must have been particularly pleased that it should come from the co-operation of Seeler and Muller, the old warhorse driving home Muller’s pass. Twelve minutes from the end, Grabowski got away on one of his characteristic runs, Loehr, the other winger, headed against the bar and Muller, forever in the imminent, deadly breach, scored the first of his ten World Cup goals.
The second game in Group I saw Belgium’s talented team make a good enough start, easily defeating, 3–0, an E1 Salvador side which clearly had no real business to be there; indeed, would not have been, had Mexico’s status as hosts not exempted them even from their customary facile passage to the Finals. Wilfried Van Moer, the sturdy and dynamic little Standard Liège midfield player, scored two of the goals, Raul Lambert, the powerful Bruges striker, the other. With Van Himst and another fine opportunist in Devrindt also in the attack, goals seemed potentially abundant. In fact, this was the merest flash in the pan.
The Puebla-Toluca Group II produced a couple of deadly dull games. Uruguay made very heavy weather of winning 2–0 against a determined Israeli team. Worst of all, their splendid midfield inside-forward, the lithe, dark Pedro Rocha, hurt himself so badly after twelve minutes that he would take no further part in the competition.
The Italians, in all their three opening games, played in a lather of foreboding, as if defeat would result in execution. In the first match, against Sweden at Toluca, they scored through Domenghini after eleven minutes, with a shot that might have been saved, then sat on their lead. Domenghini’s was the only goal Italy would get in their group matches.
The remaining games, against Uruguay and Israel, were both of them grim and goalless. Not unexpectedly, the exaltation of Riva had inhibited the functioning of the team; for what star footballer, used to earning his 40 million lire a year, takes kindly to being reduced to a kind of water carrier?
Uruguay were lucky to join Italy in the quarter-finals, for they lost 1–0 to the Swedes in the final game, Grahn heading the only goal. Previously, they had been held to a draw by the determined Israelis, who had surpassed themselves in their results and their competent displays.
Meeting of Champions Brazil v. England
The meeting of England, the holders, with Brazil, for former holders, was without doubt the pièce de résistance of the qualifying rounds. The conditions would certainly favour Brazil, but news that Gerson, with an injured thigh, would probably miss the game, threw it open.
On the previous afternoon, Romania beat the disappointing Czechs 2–1, though Petras, with a fine, glancing header, got his customary early goal. Petras ran powerfully and dangerously on either flank, but the Romanians came back into the game, equalised through Neagu after half-time, and won through a penalty by the blond, talented Florea Dumitrache.
As in 1958, England had elected to stay at an hotel in the middle of town, and now it would cost them still dearer. The previous year, on their arrival from Mexico City on their tour, to them the Guadalajara Hilton, with its swimming pool, its sham-colonial style, had seemed a quiet haven. What no one had been percipient enough to realise was that it would be flooded with supporters, and within easy access of the malevolent.
Day by day, as the rows of half-naked bodies formed around the swimming pool, the England players in their blue tracksuits looked like wistful trusties out on parole, denied the benefits of sun and still water. Considerably worse was to befall them on the eve of the Brazilian match.
From quite early in the evening, the advance guard of the besieging army began to arrive; on foot, in cars, on motor cycles, shouting, honking and chanting. The chant was largely for ‘BRA-sil, BRA-sil!’ though its intention was fundamentally hostile to England. Round and round the hotel drove the cars and motor cycles, honking obscenely and provocatively, while the crowd in front of the hotel steadily grew.
There was to be no remission. As the night wore on, so the noise increased—now an obvious, malign attempt to disturb the English players’ slumbers. It succeeded and many of the English team were forced to add the effects of a broken night to the already formidable hazards of the next day’s game.
Ramsey made only one change for the match. Mullery would again look after Pelé; Brian Labone, the strong Everton defender, would play stopper. At right-back, however, Keith Newton, who had been one of those kicked by Mocanu, was replaced by Tommy Wright of Everton. ‘He can beat you,’ Ramsey warned Wright of Paulo Cesar, who played on Brazil’s left wing; and he did. He was picked to replace Gerson, to advance from deep positions and give help in midfield to Rivelino and the young right-half Clodoaldo, a player who would not come fully into his own till later on.
‘It’s when they get to the eighteen-yard box,’ said Bobby Charlton of the Brazilians, ‘if you let them get to the eighteen-yard box.’ He himself had shown greater fire and efficiency against Romania than he had for a long time—the unquestioned prince of midfield, where only a year before he had been threatened by the excellence of Colin Bell. Though Bell would substitute him in both this match and against the West Germans, he would never show the form he had shown the previous year, when he played so hearteningly well, with such stamina and versatility.
Many have seen the England versus Brazil game as the ‘real’ Final, England as the ‘real’ runners-up, and there is no doubt that they gave Brazil a far more courageous and substantial fight than craven Italy. Yet the absence of Gerson cannot be discounted, while if England missed a couple of fine chances, then only Gordon Banks could have made the miraculous save from Pelé’s header that came in the tenth minute of the game.
The groundwork was done by Jairzinho, confirming fears that Cooper would not be able to hold him, nor be able to attack as he had done against largely wingless Romania. Brushing past the left-back with all the strength and acceleration of his predecessors, Garrincha and Julinho, Jairzinho dashed to the line and centred perfectly. Pelé headed the ball down hard, on the bounce, inside the left-hand post, and was already shouting, ‘Goal!’ when Banks, with incredible, gymnastic agility, somehow launched himself across his goal from the opposite post, to flail the ball, one-handed, over the bar.
With the dry, blazing heat reaching ninety-eight degrees, it was extraordinary, even with their slow sodium tablets, that England resisted as they did. No English player lost less than ten pounds in weight, and their doctor pointed out that an American Army manual forbade even training to be done when the thermometer exceeded eighty-five degrees. The World Cup Committee had prostituted their tournament and sacrificed its players to the demands of European television.
England threw away a couple of good opportunities in each half. In the first, Geoff Hurst, clear through the Brazilian defence, made the elementary mistake of presuming himself in an offside position, hesitating, and at length shooting hastily and feebly. Francis Lee, when a right-wing cross by Tommy Wright put the goal at his mercy, contrived to head straight at Felix.
The goalkeeper again betrayed his fallibility with high centres, but England’s long inimicality to orthodox wingers meant that he was not often under pressure. It was only late in the game that Ramsey at last sent on the tall Jeff Astle, whose greatest strength was in the air, while Charlton gave way to Bell. Astle, though he would miss horribly, at once set the Brazilians problems; but by this time England were a goal down.
It came after fourteen minutes of the second half, and Tostao was its motivating force. His splendid dribbling on the left took him past three English defenders; though he certainly pushed off Bobby Moore, who played throughout with superb aplomb. Finally, he passed to Pelé in the goalmouth, and Pelé, without ado, laid the ball off beautifully to his right, for Jairzinho to dart in and score.
A cross headed down by Astle gave Alan Ball a chance which he squandered; Astle himself contrived to shoot over the bar when a panicky defender headed the ball straight to his feet, and another shot by Ball clipped the bar. Brazil, however, held out. It had
been a magnificent, enthralling display of football, admirably referred by the obscure Israeli referee, Abraham Klein; an inspired appointment. In the English defence, Alan Mullery had played Pelé as cleanly and resourcefully as he had a year before in Rio. Next morning, Ball sat disconsolate by the swimming pool: ‘How could Jeff miss that chance?’
Towards the Finals
In Group I, the Russians suddenly cut loose against a surprisingly feeble Belgium, thrashing them 4–1. Two of the goals went to the Dynamo Kiev striker, Bychevetz, and the Russian midfield functioned sweetly with another Kiev player, the elegant Muntijan, in incisive form.
Mexico then disposed of El Salvador 4–0, though they owed their first goal to an abominable refereeing error; one which presaged the decision which would win them their match against Belgium. El Salvador in fact began well, Rodriguez, in the ninth minute, hitting the post, then Calderon with successive shots. A couple of minutes from half-time, however, Hussain Kandil, the Egyptian referee, gave El Salvador a free kick. It was promptly taken by Perez of Mexico, who pushed to it Padilla. The latter centred, Valdivia scored, and Kandil gave a goal. In vain did the El Salvador players argue, weep and lie on the ground; the goal, disgracefully, stood. Mexico went on to score three more against a demoralised side.
So to Belgium, a crowd of 112,000 in the immense Azteca, and another gravely dubious goal. This time it was the only one of the game; a penalty, given after fifteen minutes. Jeck cleared the ball, Valdivia, rushing onward after the event, fell over his leg. Señor Coerezza, of Argentina, gave a penalty kick. Despite two minutes of Belgian protests, Pena took it and scored, and Mexico narrowly survived the remainder of the game. ‘The penalty,’ said Goethals, Belgium’s manager, ‘was the worst I have ever seen, nor have I ever experienced such a hostile, biased crowd.’ So Mexico attained the quarter-finals for the first time in their long World Cup career.
Russia beat El Salvador 2–0 in the ante-penultimate game.
In Leon, Peru, with a couple of goals from the exciting Cubillas, disposed of Morocco 3–0, while the West Germans thrashed a flaccid Bulgaria 5–2, Gerd Muller scoring three, one from the penalty spot. The blond Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, playing, like Seeler, in his fourth World Cup, took over from Willie Schulz as sweeper.
It was plain that Brazil would win Group III, probable that England would accompany them. The Brazilians put out a diminished team against Romania, lacking both Rivelino and Gerson, pushing Piazza into midfield, and winning only by 3–2. Pelé got a couple of crisp goals, Jairzinho the other when Paulo Cesar—again emphasising what Brazil could do and wingless England could not—went to the by-line and pulled the ball back. The Romanians, after a poor start, played brightly, Dumitrache once more casting doubt on Brazil’s central defence with his first-half goal, Dembrowski heading a second near the end. Felix again looked vulnerable, but Brazil were hardly extended.
England, next day, looked quite abysmal. Drafting in a bevy of reserves, they struggled pitifully to find rhythm against the Czech team who, as Keith Newton ruefully observed, never stopped running, and ridiculed their previous form. Allan Clarke, far from a success, scored the only goal of the match early in the second half, from a penalty so dubious that even the French referee, M. Machin, gave a mysterious explanation. When Kuna tackled Bell he appeared to fall on the ball and handle it, yet Machin said afterwards he had given the penalty for tripping. With Jackie Charlton sadly at sea in defence, Astle easily mastered in the air and ineffectual on the ground (the Czech defence was not Brazil’s), the English display was embarrassing. Indeed, the enterprising Czech right-back, Dobias, almost equalised with a shot which deceived Banks but hit the bar. As against that, Ball hit the bar, for England.
The Quarter-Finals Italy v. Mexico
The quarter-finals drew West Germany against England in Leon, Brazil against Peru in Guadalajara, Italy against Mexico on the heights of Toluca, Uruguay against Russia in Mexico City, where the rejoicing at the home team’s success had reached frightening proportions. Santiago, eight years before, was almost docile by comparison, as the mobs gave vent to their fearful joy.
It would not last long. Freed at last from the Korean complex, Italy and Riva came out of their shell; their extravagantly talented players, for once allowed to express themselves, swept the weak Mexican team aside.
Though Riva scored two goals, it was Gianni Rivera’s day. Valcareggi’s compromise was to play Mazzola for the first half, Rivera in the second, and it was with Rivera’s arrival that Italy took charge of the game. At half-time, the score was 1–1, Gonzalez giving the Mexicans a false dawn with a goal in twelve minutes, which was equalised when Domenghini’s shot was deflected home. In the second period, Rivera ruled the field.
Exchanging passes with the clever little Picchio De Sisti, Rivera crossed to Riva, who burst past two defenders, then beat Calderon from a sharp angle. Next his shot, then Domenghini’s, were blocked, but Rivera drove the second rebound home. Finally, Rivera’s immaculate pass sent Riva through for the fourth. There would be no more rowdy rejoicings in Mexico City.
Uruguay v. Russia
The Azteca Stadium confirmed its recent reputation for dubious goals when Uruguay defeated Russia 1–0 in the last seconds of extra time. As little, dark Cubilla, the serpentine Uruguayan right-winger, pulled the ball back, it seemed quite clearly to have crossed the goal-line. But neither the referee nor his linesman thought so, and when Esparrago scored the goal stood. So the Russian team, purportedly fed up that promises to pay them a large bonus had not been kept, went out of the Cup. Their attack had again lacked flair and punch, but disappointment may have had something to do with that.
As for the Uruguayans, their achievement in reaching the semi-finals without Rocha had to be saluted. Apart from the experienced Cubilla, who had not long since returned from playing in Buenos Aires for River Plate, their stars were in defence; Ancheta, the big, dark, young centre-half, splendid on the ground and in the air, and of course the famous Mazurkiewiecz, keeping a superb goal in his third World Cup.
Brazil v. Peru
In Guadalajara, Brazil, still the darlings of the crowd, accounted for Peru in a spectacular and effervescent game, a game in which both sides delighted in attack and scorned caution. That Peru’s defence was very far from the equal of their shining attack had been plain in their concluding group game with West Germany. Again, the persisting importance of wingers was shown as the Germans, despite their catenaccio formation, used Libuda—then Grabowski—and Loehr wide on the flanks, to pour out a cornucopia of centres. Gerd Muller, seldom troubling to move out of the middle, as his future opponent Brian Labone remarked, made superb use of them, scoring three times; once with a magnificent header. Indeed, despite his lack of height, or perhaps because of its lulling effect on opposing defences, he was surprisingly dangerous in the air. Curiously enough, he also missed a very good chance, when the score was still 0–0, and the subtle Beckenbauer lobbed a free kick above the wall to find him unguarded. Peru scored just before half-time, and had the better of the second half, when the height and heat seemed to have sapped the Germans and given the Peruvians the advantage their native conditions implied. But there were no more goals, and a dull 1–1 draw between Bulgaria and Morocco completed the group.
Now, against Brazil, Peru played with dash and spirit but ultimately with little hope. Brazil had Gerson back again; and Rivelino, with his thumping left foot and his bandit’s moustache. Both left feet, indeed, thumped to excellent purpose, with Rivelino often working alongside Gerson in midfield. Peru brought back their black winger, Baylon, of whom so much had initially been expected, but though Brazil had to use the young Marco Antonio in place of the injured Everaldo, Baylon got little change out of him. On Brazil’s right wing the muscular Jairzinho was ill, and even though he scored Brazil’s fourth from Tostao’s insidious pass, was not the force he had been in the group matches.
Brazil went ahead after eleven minutes with a goal which emphasised their quick think
ing and equally swift reflexes. When Campos, trying to breast the ball down, slipped, Tostao instantly found Rivelino, whose deadly left foot struck again. The ball beat Rubiños, to go in off the post. Hard on the heels of that Tostao, now moving with all his old provocative sleight of foot, feinted right to unbalance an opponent, then beat Rubiños with his left.
Peru, inevitably depressed, were allowed to come back into the game on the half-hour, with the complicity of Felix, who totally misjudged Gallardo’s long spinning cross from the left.
It didn’t matter. Just after the interval, Pelé’s long shot was deflected home by Tostao. Again Peru reacted, Sotil, who had replaced Baylon as he did in their first match, having a shot which Brito could not clear, Subillas driving in from twenty yards. Then came Brazil’s fourth, from Jairzinho.
West Germany v. England
At Leon, it may with hindsight be said that England lost the match at the moment when Gordon Banks inexplicably fell sick. ‘The world’s best goalkeeper!’ his colleagues had jokingly been calling him throughout the tour, but it was no more than the truth. On the Saturday, however, he was taken ill, and on the Sunday morning, on the large green lawn of the English team’s hotel in Leon, he was to be seen hobbling, white and manifestly sick, on the arm of the England team doctor, Neil Phillips. There was plainly no hope of his playing and so it might be said, a little callously, that his place went to Peter Bonetti and the match to West Germany.
That it was by no means so simple as this is shown by the controversy which has surrounded the game ever since; not the kind of controversy evoked by Hurst’s goal in the two teams’ previous World Cup meeting, but by the question of tactics, the question of Ramsey, the question of Bonetti’s fallibility. Was it an oversimplification, too easy an escape for Ramsey, to say that if Banks had played England would have won—or had his mistaken tactics, his ill-handled substitutions, been fundamentally responsible?
The Story of the World Cup Page 20