The Story of the World Cup

by Brian Glanville

  In Mar del Plata, Brazil blundered their way into the second round, thanks chiefly to two shocking errors by their opposition. They were an unhappy ship—appropriately commanded by Admiral Heleno Nunes—from the first. Rivelino was overweight and unhappy; there were tense relations between Coutinho and another of his most gifted players, the little, attacking midfielder, Zico, unhappy at the long spell in training camp which prevented him seeing his baby son. Reinaldo, the clever, sharp mulatto centre-forward, reduced by an infinity of cartilage operations, had been under a cloud since making good-hearted if ingenuous remarks about Brazil’s political prisoners. There was no Luis Pereira to play sweeper. The 1974 captain had virtually withdrawn from the team after a poor season with Atletico Madrid. He was also afraid, he said, that if he played badly against Spain he’d be accused in Brazil of ‘throwing’ the match.

  Brazil began indifferently against Sweden in Mar del Plata, then played still worse against Spain and Austria. The Swedes running themselves to subsequent extinction, scored first. Reinaldo equalised for Brazil with delightful finesse when the first half was in injury time, but the Welsh referee, Clive Thomas, whimsically decided to blow for full time precisely as the ball was going into the net for what would have been Brazil’s winning goal. The Brazilians protested. The Swedes retorted that as the corner kick sailed over they had relaxed when they heard the final whistle. Thomas incurred the disapproval of FIFA not for this, however, but for covering his face theatrically with his hands when Bo Larsson almost put through his own goal.

  For the next game, against Spain, who had been beaten 2–1 in Buenos Aires by an unexpectedly lively Austria, Brazil omitted Rivelino, whose supposed unfitness would become a bone of contention, Rivelino subsequently insisting he was injured, Coutinho that he was not. Without his heavy-thighed, heavily moustached, sombre and irascible presence in midfield, Brazil were much diminished. Dirceu, who now filled the left midfield position, was much eulogised by the end of the competition, but despite abundant energy and a strong left-footed shot, he seemed prosaic by comparison with the likes of Rivelino and Gerson.

  It was a stupendous mistake in the second half by Julio Cardeñosa, the little Spanish midfielder, which permitted Brazil to draw 0–0. When the tall Real Madrid centre-forward Santillana flicked a high ball on to him, Brazil’s defence was left in chaos; even the greying Leao was out of goal. Perhaps if Cardeñosa had not had so much time, he would have scored, simply have put the ball into the empty net. Instead he hesitated pitifully, and was lost. By the time he shot, the black Amaral had scuttled back to clear from the line. Some players, observed a Buenos Aires paper, became famous for the goals they scored. Cardeñosa had achieved fame through the one he missed. It says something for Cardeñosa’s character and skill that in Spain’s final game, in Buenos Aires, he should be the inspiration of their win against Sweden.

  Brazil’s, and Coutinho’s, bankruptcy was shown by the fact that he used a right-back, Toninho, as his outside-right. Shades of Julinho, Garrincha and Jairzinho!

  Against Austria, once more at Mar del Plata, Brazil won 1–0 because a centre from that same Toninho, now at right-back was allowed to drift over his head by the tall Austrian stopper, Pezzey. Roberto, on the far post, had infinite time to control the ball and score. So Coutinho, who had been burned in effigy in the streets of Mar del Plata by enraged Brazilian fans and relieved publicly of full powers by the egregious Admiral Nunes, survived—with his team. Calm elegance had given way to a haunted anxiety. He banned foreign journalists from his Press conferences and sometimes refused to give conferences at all. He would be shamefully traduced by Nunes before the game against Poland, as a man of ‘scarce technical abilities’, the team had been saved by its players and by ‘wise officials’. If they were so wise, you wondered, then why had they appointed a man of ‘scarce abilities’ in the first place?

  The Final Groups

  The two final groups would be made up by: Italy, Holland, West Germany and Austria, in Buenos Aires and Cordoba; Argentina, Peru, Poland and Brazil in Rosario and Mendoza. The second was clearly the weaker, although Argentina won it only by goal difference. The question of goal difference had already caused extreme confusion when it seemed that Brazil might finish level on points with other teams in its group for second place; and level on goal difference, too. fifa’s rules on the subject were extremely vague, but Brazil’s lucky win against Austria made the matter academic, for the moment.

  Goal difference rendered Holland’s 5–1 win over Austria in their opening Group A game in Cordoba of colossal importance. Quite how the Austrians, who had played so well in their first two matches and would play so well in the last two, collapsed so ineptly was a mystery.

  The Dutch, much happier on the Cordoba surface than Mendoza’s, gave a glorious display of Total Football. They successfully introduced two young players, the midfielder Pieter Wildschut and the tall centre-back Erny Brandts, who headed the first goal after five minutes from a free kick. Resenbrink at last justified the hopes placed in him with an irresistible display, scoring another penalty, beating men at will, brilliantly making goals for Rep and Willy Van de Kerkhof. Aarie Haan returned to the midfield, though Neeskens was again absent.

  By contrast, Italy and West Germany played a stultifying goalless draw. ‘The Germans’, remarked Franco Causio next day, ‘built the Berlin Wall in Argentina.’ Though Dino Zoff made a wonderful save from Bernd Holzenbein in the first half, and West Germany fashioned several chances late in the second, the German attitude was cravenly defensive, Rummenigge more full-back than winger. Only two spectacular goalmouth clearances by Manny Kaltz from Roberto Bettega—much less incisive than usual—prevented Italy from deservedly winning. Maier, moreover, was once exceedingly lucky when he completely misjudged a lob by Cabrini which came back from the post, though he atoned with a fine save from Bettega’s header.

  The Italians, however, were running out of steam. Their next game in the River Plate Stadium against Austria saw them begin superbly but fade embarrassingly. That lack of stamina which had bedevilled Italian football so long was all too manifest. After the disastrous Dutch game Enzo Bearzot was to complain violently of the referee, but in this game the Belgian Francis Rion’s refereeing greatly favoured Italy. Towards the end, when the tired Italian defenders were going through the old repertoire of obstruction and tripping, he should have given Austria at least one penalty (Senekowitsch the blond Austrian manager, said two) and taken several Italian names.

  The goal with which Italy won the game after fifteen minutes, however, was a gem. Cheekily crossing his feet, Paolo Rossi found Franco Causio on his left, outpaced Obermayer, the big blond Austrian sweeper, to the return ball and beat Koncilia to score. Other heroes, however, were evidently tired, not least Bettega and the blond Romeo Benetti.

  The ‘reprise’ of the 1974 World Cup Final between West Germany and Holland, at Cordoba, provided one of the best games of the competition. West Germany, recalling Abramczik and so playing with two wingers, took the lead after only three minutes when the little Schalke 04 man dived bravely to head the ball past Schrijvers, after the keeper could only block one of those fierce free kicks for which Bonhof was famous, but which he so seldom produced in Argentina. Holland equalised through Haan with one of his specialities: a thirty-five-yard drive to which Maier did not move. Similar inattention by the Dutch defence allowed Dieter Muller to regain the lead for West Germany with a simple headed goal, twenty minutes from time, but with only seven left, René Van de Kerkhof threaded his way through the German penalty area, beat Maier with his shot, and Russmann’s attempt to push it out with his hands failed.

  In Rosario, Argentina defeated Poland 2–0 with difficulty. Kempes not only scored both goals but, punching off the Argentine line from Lato, enabled his team to keep their 1–0 lead.

  Kempes headed the first goal from Bertoni’s left-wing cross, with some complicity from the Polish defence. Jacek Gmoch remarked that Tomaszewski had been unsettled by
the proximity of the crowd and, indeed, this was much more of a tight traditional soccer stadium than River Plate’s. Eighteen minutes from time, Kempes scored the second goal after a spectacular, sustained run to the by-line by little Ardiles.

  At Mendoza, an improved Brazil easily accounted for Peru, whom they always beat, two of the goals being scored from long range by Dirceu. The meeting of Brazil and Argentina in Rosario thus became crucial.

  Luque returned for this game, greatly diminished. Not only had his shoulder been hurt, his brother had been horribly burned to death in a car accident. Within ten seconds, Luque had cruelly hacked down the Brazilian half-back Batista, who would be fouled still more brutally in the second half by Villa. Both teams, one French critic remarked, ‘were finally the prisoners of their fears, and totally destroyed one another’. Palotai of Hungary was a flaccid referee.

  This left Brazil, holding a goal advantage over Argentina, to play Poland at Mendoza, Argentina to play Peru (beaten by Poland) in Rosario. Brazil were scheduled to kick off in the afternoon, Argentina in the evening. Predictably, the Brazilians protested; predictably, their protest was turned down.

  Brazil, beating Poland 3–1, gave their best performance of the tournament, though an Argentine critic disdainfully remarked that they won because ‘they imposed a conquering temperament which allowed them to overcome their defects and lack of talent.’ Poland, in fact, would have been ahead at half-time had they taken their chances. As it was, Brazil went into the lead with one of their right-back’s, Nelinho’s, extraordinary free kicks, Lato equalised just before half-time. After it Brazil hauled themselves up by their boot-straps, gained control, beat a tattoo on the Polish goalposts and scored twice more through Roberto. It was a game poorly refereed by the Chilean, Juan Silvagno, but then who refereed well?

  Italy’s Artemio Franchi presided over a Referees’ Committee which largely emulated the three wise monkeys. They had given no specific instructions to referees on how to officiate, he said, each must be left to do so in his own way. Such an abdication of responsibility by the Committee led to a serious lack of control, above all in the failure to book offenders for grave fouls, and had its all too appropriate climax in the ineptitude of Sergio Gonella of Italy in the Final.

  Brazil’s success meant that Argentina had to beat Peru that evening by at least four goals to reach the Final. They beat them by six in a game which has left bitter memories. Before it the Peruvian captain, Hector Chumpitaz, said he realised that it was Peru’s task ‘to safeguard the decency of the competition’. After it, Quiroga the goalkeeper, actually born in Rosario, published an open letter defending himself and his team. It was a game in which Peru opened briskly, their right-winger Munante hitting the post, their left-winger Oblitas shooting just across the goal. Then the team collapsed and lay down abjectly before the opposition. Why? Claudio Coutinho, Brazil’s disappointed manager, attacked them bitterly, said that their players would feel no pride when they heard their national anthem in the next World Cup. Argentine newspapers reported that the Brazilians had tried to offer money to Peru to play well. Some thought they were bribed, some thought they were simply frightened by the torrid atmosphere. Whatever, it was a shabby way for Argentina to reach the Final.

  There, they would meet the Dutch, conquerors of Italy in Buenos Aires. Falling behind after eighteen minutes when Erny Brandts, lunging ahead of the encroaching Bettega, not only put through his own goal but disabled his goalkeeper, Schrijvers. Holland recovered in the second half to win. Brandts, remarkably, scored their traumatising equaliser, five minutes after half-time, a left-footed player, up for a free kick, swinging his right foot at the ball and sending it hurtling into the left-hand corner past Zoff. ‘Che culo!’, what luck, remarked the Italian defender, Claudio Gentile, the following day. ‘I’d never have believed it. He was in the middle of three of us, and the fellow shoots with his head down. He didn’t even look up.’

  The second goal came from a terrific, thirty-yard shot by Aarie Haan, which Zoff reached, touched but couldn’t stop. Later, sunning himself on a beach in Sardinia, Haan said he thought Zoff should have stopped his own shot, but not Brandts’s. The game was ill-tempered and abominably refereed by the Spaniard, Angel Martinez. Bearzot insisted that his players were intimidated, that Haan had committed the worst foul of the World Cup on Zaccarelli. Bad it unquestionably was, but it was the immediate sequel to a painful foul by Benetti on Haan himself as he went up the wing. Later, Benetti should have been sent off when he elbowed Neeskens in the face.

  In Cordoba, Austria surprisingly beat a flaccid West Germany 3–2. There were rumours that certain German players did not wish to be bothered with the Third Place game. Schoen himself, at the subsequent Press conference said ‘I do not want to mention any names, but I was utterly disappointed with our defence, which made things easier for our opponents to score goals.’ Helmut Senekowitsch of Austria then chivalrously impugned the West German players’ attitude. ‘I deplore the fact that Schoen will be retiring from his professional career after seeing his team defeated in this manner.’

  The Final Argentina v. Holland

  Would Holland win, without Cruyff ? Their form had been mercurial; no European team had won the World Cup in South America, but they seemed to be running into form and Argentina’s defensive weaknesses remained manifest. Four years earlier, inspired by Cruyff, Holland had made the merest mouthful of the Argentinians; but that was not in Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, Brazil, with long shots by Nelinho and Dirceu, right footed and left footed, beat Italy 2–1 to take third place after falling behind to a goal headed easily by Causio.

  Would Neeskens play on Kempes in the Final? Would Ardiles play at all? The answers turned out, respectively, to be no and yes though Ardiles, that fragile, sleek-haired, ebullient tango-figure, who had hurt an ankle, would not last the game. ‘The Dutch,’Paolo Rossi had admiringly observed, ‘change positions as easily as they’d take a cup of coffee.’ They marked the Argentinian strikers man to man while the Argentine defence continued to mark zonally and, no doubt, live dangerously. Each team was capable of blood-chilling excesses. Would Gonella be strong enough to control and contain them?

  He would not, so much was obvious before a ball had even been kicked. The Argentinians took the field five full minutes late, a most arrant piece of gamesmanship, then, having done so, complained about the bandage René Van de Kerkhof, the Dutch winger, was wearing on his forearm. The Dutch, especially Neeskens, a Spanish speaker, protested violently that Van de Kerkhof had worn the bandage in several preceding games, but Gonella upheld the protest. The Dutchman was obliged to leave the field, where he simply covered that bandage with another.

  Subsequently Passarella explained, ‘We could not allow ourselves to concede any advantage. Luque saw the danger the bandage could be and I as captain had the obligation to protest.’

  ‘Clearly,’ said René Van de Kerkhof, ‘but why did they let us wear it in the other games?’

  The Dutch team, thus incensed, committed in the opening minute the first of some fifty fouls, a crude one by the young defender Poortvliet. To say that Gonella favoured the Argentinians was true to the extent that he was a weak, fearful referee who quickly allowed the game to slip out of his feeble grasp, tending to penalise the away team. Thus, he twice allowed Argentina’s defensive midfield player, Gallego, to handle the ball deliberately without booking him, and if there was the benefit of a doubt it usually went to Argentina. Nevertheless, the attitude of the Dutch team itself was scarcely benign.

  The game was a dramatic rather than a distinguished one, turning in the end on a couple of saves by Fillol and three marvellous slaloms by Mario Kempes, distinguished not only by his skill, speed and courage but by his remarkable composure. Both defences in the first half were curiously vulnerable. Four times, at the Dutch end, Passarella came upfield and was ‘forgotten’, three times Jongbloed saved and once the ball whistled just above the bar. At the other end Johnny Rep pounced when Jansen’s cross
was headed straight out to him, only for Fillol gallantly to save: as he did again, with his legs, when Neeskens nodded the ball down to Rensenbrink. What each team manifestly lacked in midfield was a true creator. Argentina had in Gallego a defender, in Kempes an attacker, in Ardiles a busy, venturesome half-back. Holland had the muscular versatility of Willy Van de Kerkhof, Neeskens and Haan. There was no Van Hanegem or Overath, as there had been in 1974, and despite the current heresy that such ‘generals’ were obsolete, the effect of their absence was manifest in the quality of play.

  Kempes it was, much too vaguely marked by Willy Van de Kerkhof, given room and time to run at the defence, who scored the first half ’s only goal. There were seven minutes left to half-time when a four-man movement on the left was concluded by Luque—who had pulled the sweeper Krol out with him—crossing to Kempes. Only Haan stood between him and Jongbloed and, riding Haan’s desperate tackle, he ran on to drive the ball home with his formidable left foot. It was right on half-time that Fillol made his crucial save from Rensenbrink, served by Neeskens. From a player cast out by Menotti but restored, a goalkeeper so vulnerable to crosses in the opening games, Fillol had grown into Argentina’s rescuer.

  He began the second half by saving a thundering shot from Johan Neeskens, hit from far outside the box. Holland now had a grip on the game, but they were not making any clear chances; the much-maligned Argentine defence proved surprisingly resilient when at bay. After fifty-nine minutes Holland took off Johnny Rep, no favourite of Happel and replaced him with the tall Dirk Nanninga, the object plainly being to attack Argentina in the air. Seven minutes later Argentina substituted Ardiles, obviously not wholly fit, with Larrosa, who’d taken his place against Peru.

  Holland pressed on. Neeskens forced his way through, to be shockingly brought down by Galvan, who was shown the yellow card; but when he fouled Rensenbrink in the box—an obstruction at the least—no whistle blew. Now Holland moved up Erny Brandts, pulling back Willy Van de Kerkhof; and at last, with two tall men hungry for crosses, the equaliser carne.