The Story of the World Cup

by Brian Glanville

  It’s still hard to know quite what went wrong; why Van Basten, for example, played as poorly as he did. ‘I think there were too many troubles inside the team,’ Van Basten subsequently told me, ‘inside the Federation, inside everything.’ The nature of those troubles stays obscure.

  Holland were drawn in the Sardinian-Sicilian group with England, the Republic of Ireland and Egypt, making them strong favourites to come through. They’d beaten England out of sight in the 1988 European Championship, where England had lost all three games, played abysmally, and Bobby Robson had become an Aunt Sally for the English Press.

  Lurid revelations about his private life, which surely had nothing to do with the case, had allegedly induced the Football Association to tell him that whatever happened in the World Cup, they would not be renewing his contract. Robson promptly reached an agreement with PSV Eindhoven which, in the circumstances, he was fully en-titled to do.

  The English team had limped into the World Cup Finals, Robson’s famous luck holding in Katowice, where Peter Shilton’s superb goalkeeping had yet again been the key to survival. Had Poland won, England would have been out. In the very last minute, even Shilton could do nothing about a tremendous long shot from Tarasciewicz which flew above his head, and twanged against his bar. ‘Is this your proudest moment, Bobby?’ asked a journalist, when the game was over. Strangely, there seemed no irony in the question.

  Far more entitled to be proud was the manager of the Republic of Ireland, that same Jackie Charlton who’d played centre-half in the England team which won the 1966 World Cup. A resilient, combative Geordie, devoted to shooting and fishing, he found a full-time national manager’s job perfectly suited to his rhythms and desires, where in Robson’s case it simply gave him, it seemed, time to brood. Charlton’s long-ball tactics were not for the purist. They had given small scope to perhaps the most gifted of Ireland’s players, the creative Liam Brady, who’d played long years in Italy. Nor did the dubious qualification of several Irish players commend them to everybody. Ray Houghton, a Glaswegian, had scored the goal which beat England at Stuttgart in the 1988 European Championship.

  But to see the Irish reach the World Cup finals at all was a minor miracle; and once there, they would fight their corner manfully. Beaten by Spain in their opening game, they’d had revenge in Dublin and taken three points from Northern Ireland, finishing in second group place, a point behind the Spaniards.

  Italy, the hosts, had such colossal pressure on them that one doubted from the first whether they could resist it. An essential part of Enzo Bearzot’s ‘detoxifying’ process—which had worked in two out of three World Cups—was that the players should be as far from the pressures of home as possible. Now, they were being interviewed within an inch of their lives.

  There were ifs and buts about the team. Roberto Baggio, who’d emerged at Fiorentina as the most gifted Italian attacker for many years, after shocking ill-luck and a series of operations, clearly didn’t please his manager, Azeglio Vicini. Vicini wanted him to play up front; Baggio preferred to lie deeper.

  In attack, there were other enigmas. What could be expected from Gianluca Vialli, who, since his brief appearances in Mexico, had matured into the most powerful, dangerous striker the Italians ever had, developing from a left-winger into a two-footed player able to score from any position? But he’d injured his right foot, and both his form and his condition seemed uncertain.

  Then what of ‘Toto’ Schillaci, the little Sicilian who’d emerged strangely late in his career, with Juventus? For years he’d hoped, and failed, to get away from Messina and Serie B, though his own city was Palermo. There, when Toto was due to play a European game in Turin for Juventus, his brother was arrested for stealing car tyres. Juventus kept the news from Toto till after the game.

  Small, swift and dynamic, he’d had a splendid season for Juventus, but had still to prove he could flourish at international level, let alone in a World Cup. Though Sacchi had won glory with Milan, using zonal defence and what he called ‘pressing’ tactics, Vicini stuck to a sweeper.

  Carlos Bilardo was still in charge of Argentina, Franz Beckenbauer of West Germany. At home, Bilardo remained a target. Once again the country’s President, now the volatile exhibitionist Menem, had publicly criticised him. Menem, like many others, couldn’t understand why Bilardo wouldn’t pick Ramon Diaz, the centre-forward who’d won a Championship medal with Inter and now, with Monaco, had outwitted Argentina’s defence in a friendly.

  The conventional wisdom was that Maradona’s veto was responsible. Though he and Diaz had once been great friends, playing in the Argentine youth team which had won the world title, they’d been at daggers drawn since Diaz, supposedly, had criticised Maradona. The new reality was Caniggia, transferred from River Plate to Verona, where he found himself on the edge of an unpleasant drugs scandal. There were anxious weeks, but he was finally absolved. Another Argentine player was convicted.

  The Germans had abundant talent in midfield, where such players as Andy Moeller and Tomas Haessler had emerged, while Lothar Matthaus was clearly one of the most commanding generals in the game. They’d qualified one point behind the Dutch, with whom they’d drawn at home and away.

  Scotland, ever resilient in the qualifiers, were present yet again, though they’d finished four whole points in their group behind Yugoslavia, inspired by the elegant Dragan Stojkovic. Scotland, now, were managed by the decent, studious, intelligent Andy Roxburgh, a former schoolmaster, a well-qualified coach, in sharp contrast to some of the flamboyant figures who had managed other Scottish World Cup teams. Could he, some wondered, get the best out of his players? But then, what Scottish manager had done that yet in World Cup finals? At least he had brought them thus far.

  England were obliged to play all their group games in Cagliari, for fear of the hooligans among their fans. To say now that the Italian authorities over-reacted would be to put it mildly. Long before the England supporters arrived, with their bare chests, their tattoos and their Union Jacks, there were, it seemed, carabinieri on every corner, peering out of trucks, cradling their machine-guns. There’d be a riot before the match against Holland, a storm in Rimini before the match between England and Belgium in Bologna. On that occasion, at least, the English fans seemed hard done by. Several hundred of them, many asserting total innocence, were packed on to an aircraft which, just by coincidence, had exactly the number of seats to correspond with the arrests. Then all the fans, including many who’d simply and quietly been having a meal, were flown back to England.

  Colin Moynihan, the Sports Minister, small but imperfectly informed, had been yapping round Cagliari, clearly suggesting that the Government’s fiat, essential if English clubs were to return at last to European competition, would not be given. But when England so unexpectedly reached the semi-finals, realpolitik seemed to prevail. Suddenly and smilingly the Government gave its belated blessing. Whatever happened in Cagliari, the English clubs could now return.

  The English players went to their training camp outside Cagliari in sour hostility to the Press. Bobby Robson himself, clearly incensed by the assaults on his private life, appeared to have set the tone. The irony was that sports journalists had nothing to do with such ‘revelations’, which they’d traditionally and wearily left to news reporters, whom they nicknamed ‘The Rotters’. Bryan Robson, back again as captain, in his third World Cup, was also known to be distressed by allegations made outside the sports pages.

  It was sad that the gifted young Paul Gascoigne should be dragged into all this, not least since, when Bobby Robson was iffing and butting about him, it was a handful of journalists who loudly trumpeted his claims. Gascoigne it was, however, in a notorious incident outside Bologna, at the England training ground, who hurled a cardboard cup of water at a journalist who was interviewing the little black defender, Paul Parker.

  ‘Daft as a brush’, Bobby Robson had called Paul Gascoigne and the words, alas, would come home to roost less than a year later at Wemble
y. There, playing for Spurs against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup Final, Gascoigne launched himself into two suicidal tackles, the second of which left his right knee torn and useless. He’d be out of the game for over a year before he finally began to play again, in Rome, for Lazio.

  Off the field, he could seem shy, simple, distracted. On it, he showed a flair, a superlative technique, a tactical sophistication, seldom matched by an English player since the war. Blond, thick-set, inclined to gain weight, Gascoigne might not have been fast, but, as admiring players would tell you, his sheer strength could compensate for that. He had a superb right foot, whether it was used for passing or for taking the kind of free kicks a Brazilian might envy. Over the generations, hundreds of fine players have come out of the north-east of England, but very few indeed have been the equal of Gascoigne.

  Almost inevitably, he too found himself endlessly frustrated, fighting to gain a permanent place in the national team. When he should have been there, he could find himself playing for the England B team, forced out to the left wing. If he still contrived to do well, he might find Bobby Robson, afterwards, ignoring a spectacular goal, and preferring to stress the times he’d given the ball away. Which, to be fair, he did, at the cost of a goal, when the team played and drew in Tunisia, just before the World Cup began.

  Gascoigne had played his way into the World Cup side with a glorious performance against Czechoslovakia at Wembley. Before the game, Bobby Robson had given an interview which must have put intolerable pressure on any less ebullient a character. This, he implied, was ‘Gazza’s’ last chance. He must do it now, or fall by the wayside. Perhaps it was no surprise that, just before the teams took the field, Gazza was in the tunnel, eyes blazing, slamming a football furiously against the wall. He went out to play marvellously, having a hand in three goals, and scoring the fourth himself with an astonishing, sustained solo, almost worthy of Diego Maradona—who would again be present.

  Brazil were going through another of their periods of trying to be more European than the Europeans, and it was clear that their manager, Sebastiao Lazaroni, the man who’d endowed them with a sweeper defence, had better win the World Cup, or else. Three goals conceded to East Germany in Rio hadn’t suggested that a libero solved Brazil’s defensive problems, and though the technical level of the team was high, the skill of Valdo undeniable, it seemed to lack the creative flair of the two previous World Cup teams.

  Brazil qualified despite an astonishing attempt by Chile to cheat their way to the Finals. When the teams met in Rio in September 1989, at the Maracana, a girl threw a flare on to the pitch. Immediately Roberto Rojas, Chile’s goalkeeper, collapsed, and was found to be bleeding. He was carried off the field, but investigation showed that he’d been quite unhurt, and had deliberately cut himself. He was banned for life; Chile were banned from the 1994 tournament, and fined £40,000. Chile’s Federation President Sergio Stoppel, team doctor Daniel Rodriguez, manager Orlando Aravena, centre-back Fernando Astengo, plus the kit man and physiotherapist, also received bans of varying length.

  As for Maradona, his presence had little effect in the remarkable opening match. Played at the San Siro stadium, which, like the Olympic Stadium in Rome, the Marassi Stadium in Genoa and the Communal Stadium in Florence, had been massively rebuilt, it saw the unthinkable happen: the World Cup holders beaten by an African team.

  That team was Cameroon, who came to the World Cup in anything but a state of tranquillity. Their manager, Valeri Nepomniachi, was a Siberian who’d once worked under the great Lobanovski. But he spoke no French, had tenuous relations with his team at best, and was in stark contrast to the Frenchman Claude Leroy, who’d managed them with such success till 1988.

  Joseph Antoine Bell, the veteran keeper who’d won his place back from his rival, Thomas N’Kono, spoke so disparagingly of the way things were being run that the officials put N’Kono back in goal, where he stayed. At 34, he was only a year younger than Bell.

  Roger Milla was older than either of them. Just how old, nobody was quite sure. Thirty-eight was his official age, but he seemed to have been around for an awfully long time, playing for a wide variety of French clubs before, it seemed, retiring to play part-time football on the island of Réunion. This he enjoyed so much that Cameroon unexpectedly recalled him. He would do sensationally well, brought on as a second-half substitute to put bite and drive into an attack which never looked as dangerous without him—a view strongly contested by some of his colleagues, notably his fellow striker, Omam Biyik.

  Omam Biyik it was who scored the only goal of Cameroon’s sensational victory over Argentina, a game in which Milla came on only eight minutes from the end. The overall pattern of Cameroon’s play was quickly established: hard, even thuggish, at the back, lively and energetic in midfield, opportunist up front. A bruising game was made worse by the draconian refereeing of Michel Vautrot, a French referee whose large reputation would suffer badly in this tournament.

  Perhaps it wasn’t wholly his fault. FIFA, leaving it absurdly late, had issued severe instructions to referees. At long last, and with pitifully little notice and no consultation with the rule-making International Board, the so-called Professional Foul rule would be introduced. On the eve of a World Cup! Early in the tournament the controversial FIFA Secretary, the Swiss Sepp Blatter, forever trumpeting the glories of football’s liaison with publicity and television, would make a stream of authoritarian statements—till the Referees’ Committee reminded him that it was their business, not his.

  Cameroon could hardly complain if two of their players were sent off. They had fouled Maradona ruthlessly and painfully from the very beginning. Strangely, and mistakenly, Carlos Bilardo had decided to ‘sacrifice’ Maradona in a central striking role, just as Menotti had done eight years earlier in Spain, consigning him to the tender mercies of Gentile. Equally strangely, Bilardo did not bring on the electric Claudio Caniggia till the second half, when he should clearly have been on from the beginning.

  Maradona, who had just been made an honorary ambassador by President Menem, and was endlessly jeered by the Milanese crowd, dropped deeper in the second half, took less punishment, and was able to assert more influence. But overall, Cameroon were unquestionably the better team, even if the goal they won with was the fruit of shocking errors in the Argentine defence.

  Caniggia’s pace, and his ability to fall dramatically, unsettled the heavy Cameroon defenders. Kana Biyik was sent off, perhaps a little harshly, for fouling him after 62 minutes. It looked a good thing then for Argentina, but five minutes later, Cameroon scored. Makanaky, he of the dreadlocks and the endless activity, deflected a free kick from the left into the box. Sensini seemed turned to stone. Omam Biyik was thus allowed to get his head to the ball, but there still seemed little danger. But Neri Pumpido, in goal, seemed as dazed as Sensini. The ball struck his knees and slithered into the net.

  ‘Without doubt,’ said Bilardo, ‘the worst defeat of my career.’ But he’d amply contributed to it.

  The following day, in Rome, Italy opened their campaign in Group A at the Olimpico against Austria, and made very heavy weather of it. Admirable enterprise, endless pressure, good movement and original ideas all added up to a mere one-goal win, against an Austrian side which owed much to the goalkeeping of Lindenberger, and showed little inclination to attack.

  Those Italian journalists who had been muttering about the favours Italy would receive from referees had to eat their words when Russ brought down the splendidly creative right-winger, Roberto Donadoni, but the referee, the Brazilian Wright, refused a penalty.

  So Italy had to wait till 16 minutes from the end before Toto Schillaci, who’d come on as substitute a mere three minutes earlier, scored their goal. He’d replaced the bigger, less mobile, Carnevale. Gianluca Vialli expertly went round the big Austrian sweeper, Aigner, on the right-hand goal line, pulled back a perfect cross and there was Schillaci, the man whose goose was supposedly cooked after a dreary display against Greece, to head it pa
st Lindberger. Italy had impressed in everything except their finishing.

  On the same day, in the glorious, futuristic new stadium in Bari, marvellous in its bold use of open space, Romania defeated the Soviet Union, again under the command of Lobanovski and full of seasoned players. It had looked an easy match for the Soviets, with Romania short of their most influential player, the remarkable George Hagi, an all-round midfielder with a superlative left foot, capable of both making and scoring goals.

  But Group B was to throw up its second surprise. The Soviets would pay heavily for their miss in the second minute, when their muchlauded centre-forward, Protasov, sent through by Rats, allowed Lung to save. Zavarov missed in turn, Lung saved from Litovchenko and Aleinikov; and five minutes before half-time, the Soviet defence collapsed. Sabau, an alert midfielder, sent a through ball to the rapid outside-right, Lacatus. Aleinikov stretched but missed; Lacatus raced on and beat the Soviet keeper, Dassaev, with the outside of his accomplished right foot.

  The Soviets’ inability to take their chances had, not for the first time, proved expensive. Dobrovolski and Zavarov faded softly and silently away; Romania took up the running. What really knocked the stuffing out of the Soviets was the penalty wrongly given against them nine minutes into the second half by the referee, Cardellino. As Lacatus advanced on Khidiatulin, the Soviet defender handled, outside the box. Cardellino gave a penalty, and Lacatus himself hammered in the final nail.

  In Bologna, the United Arab Emirates, newcomers to the World Cup, went down 2–0 to Colombia, without disgrace. The Arabs had sacked one Brazilian manager, the celebrated Mario Zagalo, for his open disparagement of their chances, and appointed another, Carlos Alberto Parreira. René Higuita, Colombia’s spectacular, self-indulgent goalkeeper, got up to his customary trick, wandering far out of his goal, once heading a ball to safety. Nemesis was lurking.