by Nick Holt
Stuttgart: Neckarstadion
Now the Mercedes Benz Arena for sponsorship purposes, the famous Neckar has been home to Vfb Stuttgart since 1933. In the main, German clubs have re-built or expanded on existing sites rather than build new out-of-town stadia and, along with sensible pricing, it has benefited attendances in the Bundesliga. The ground filled its capacity of 68,900 for both the Italy games it hosted in 1974.
Gelsenkirchen: Parkstadion
This was home to Schalke 04, Germany’s strongest club either side of the Second World War, until it closed in 2001 when Schalke moved into the Veltins-Arena next door. It was in the Parkstadion that Yugoslavia put nine goals past luckless Zaire in 1974.
Hanover: Niedersachsenstadion
This huge stadium had extra seats installed for 1974, but since then capacity has decreased to a mere 60,400. The original name means Lower Saxony Stadium, but the ground has acquired sponsors names like the AWD Arena and HDI-Arena (current title) in modern times.
The terrorists were a major concern. At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, terrorists (the Black September group) had kidnapped and murdered eleven Israeli athletes, with all the concomitant escalation of tension. Black September had links to the Baader-Meinhof or Red Army faction, a group of extreme left-wing militants who had carried out a series of shootings and bombings over the previous few years. In Britain, the IRA were running a high-profile and aggressive campaign on the mainland, while Italy and Spain also had problems with militants and separatists. Security was tight and visible. Thankfully the tournament passed without serious incident.
Qualifying
The qualifying tournament was a fascinating affair in its own right. In South America the perennials all made it, but Uruguay started to show signs of decline, losing at home to Colombia. In North America, Mexico, who usually waltzed through, fell foul of a thumping by Trinidad and Tobago, which let in not their opponents but another Caribbean side, Haiti, for their first (and probably last) appearance. It helped the Haitian cause that the final game against Trinidad and Tobago was played at home in front of an intimidating crowd whipped up by the Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier’s armed lackeys. Port au Prince was a scary city under Duvalier; six people died as a result of a crowd stampede set off by an exploding firecracker in an earlier qualifier against Cuba. In Africa, too, virgin finalists came through in the form of Zaire, the former name of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo; they did it in style, too, winning all four games in the final three-team group. The third debutants were Australia, who won through protracted Asian qualifying, squeezing past South Korea in a play-off after their two-leg affair produced two tight draws. This wasn’t modern Australia, full of émigrés to the European leagues, but a home-grown side, fit and willing but lacking finesse, for all the enthusiasm of their young Yugoslav coach Ralé Rasic.
The country simply known as Congo was involved in a heated tie with Cameroon. After a 2–2 draw in the Congo, Cameroon were trailing at home when they were awarded a penalty. Congo protested, both teams piled in and the Cameroon President decided the answer was to send in paratroopers. There were two fatalities as the army “restored order” – Cameroon were disqualified and Congo beaten in the next round. The Cameroon scorer was a young striker called Roger Milla. We haven’t heard the last of Roger.
Europe had some fun times as well. The Soviet Union won their three-team group but were kicked out of the tournament when they refused to travel and play in Pinochet’s Chile in a play-off. A noble gesture or rank hypocrisy? A bit of both . . . Anyway, this is a football book not a game of who was the most oppressive regime of the 1970s? Holland and Belgium contested the tightest of groups, drawing 0–0 twice; the group was decided on goal difference and the Dutch mustered an impressive twenty-four goals against the group minnows Norway and Iceland. The final 0–0 draw rankled with the Belgians, who scored in the dying stages only to have the goal chalked off incorrectly for offside.
The biggest casualties were England. They won in Wales and then dropped a home point in the return. Wales did them a favour by beating Poland in Cardiff, but then England put in a shoddy performance in Chorzów and lost 2–0, with Alan Ball sent off. Peter Shilton was poorly positioned when beaten by a deflected free-kick from wide on the left for the first goal, and Bobby Moore, nearing the end of his extraordinary career, was embarrassed by Wlodi Lubanski for the second. The game descended into a kicking match, and Ball’s decision to sort out a tiff without consulting the referee saw him asked to leave the field. He was only the second England player to be sent off in an international (the first was Alan Mullery) and it took eighteen months and a different manager before he was forgiven and selected again. Still, no harm done, for surely England would beat Poland on their own ground in the autumn.
WORLD CUP SHOCK No.3
17 October 1973, Wembley Stadium; 100,000
Referee: Vital Loraux (Belgium)
Coaches: Alf Ramsey (England) & Kazimierz Gorski / Jacek Gmoch (Poland)
England (4–3–3): Peter Shilton (Leicester City); Paul Madeley (Leeds United), Roy McFarland (Derby County), Norman Hunter (Leeds), Emlyn Hughes (Liverpool); Tony Currie (Sheffield United), Colin Bell (Manchester City), Martin Peters (Tottenham Hotspur); Mick Channon (Southampton), Allan Clarke (Leeds), Martin Chivers (Tottenham). Sub: Kevin Hector (Derby, for Chivers, 85)
Poland (4–3–3): Jan Tomaszewski (LKS Lodz); Anton Szymanowski (Wisla Krakow), Jerzy Gorgon (Górnik Zabrze), Adam Musial (Wisla Krakow), Miroslav Bulzacki (LKS Lodz); Lewslaw Cmikiewicz (Legia Warsaw), Kazimiercz Deyna (Legia Warsaw), Henryk Kasperczak (Stal Mielec); Grzegorz Lato (Stal Mielec), Jan Domarski (Stal Mielec); Robert Gadocha (Legia Warsaw)
By the time of the return Poland had, oddly enough, made more changes to their side than England. Moore had called it a day and Hunter was in. A striker, Mick Channon, replaced the suspended Ball, and Tony Currie, an attacking midfield player, replaced the destructive Peter Storey (who should never have been allowed to sniff an England cap, let alone wear one; he was a criminal off the pitch and a thug on it).
Poland’s captain Wlodi Lubanski, had gone off with a serious injury in Chorzów – it cost him his place in the Finals – and Poland had reshaped their side around the composed and cultured Deyna in midfield, with two good wingers providing the attacking threat.
Press, pundits and the people expected an England victory; Austria had just been slaughtered 7–0 by the same XI and in Currie England seemed to have found a flair player who could make a more sustained contribution than the disappointing Rodney Marsh. In the BBC studio Brian Clough highlighted the Polish goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski as a weakness; a couple of recent errors and a penchant for melodrama supported Clough’s case.
In the opening minutes Tomaszewski dropped the ball attempting to throw it out, and Clarke nearly nipped in to score. Perhaps the dislocated finger “the clown” (Clough’s words) suffered concentrated his mind, because he didn’t make another mistake after that.
The game took the form of a siege; England poured forward, urged on by Colin Bell, who dominated the midfield, and created chance after chance only to be thwarted by last-ditch defending, bad finishing and superb goalkeeping – one first-half save, clawing away a savage hit from Bell after a goalmouth melee, was quite outstanding. With the Poles defending so deeply, Chivers and Clarke simply occupied each other’s space, and most of the half-chances fell to the less adroit Tottenham man, whose strength was not as a goalmouth poacher. England were purposeful, but too narrow – Peters and Channon failed to drift wide enough to offer an extra option.
A rare Polish break early in the second half saw Lato almost clear on the left. Hunter had plenty of time to thrash the ball into touch, but he clumsily trod on the ball and Lato sprinted clear (Lato v Hunter in a foot race was barely a contest), cut inside and released Domarski in acres of space to fire past Hughes. Even then Shilton should have stopped the well-hit shot but it squirmed under his body and into the goal – alas, Shilton was n
ot yet the magnificent goalkeeper he would become.
England, to their credit, kept coming, and were denied a well-worked equaliser from a long throw for no obvious reason. Moments later referee Loraux, perhaps sensing he had made a ricket, gave England a soft penalty when Peters went down under pressure from Musial. Clarke kept his nerve during the ensuing kerfuffle and chipped the ball one way while Tomaszewski threw himself with gusto in the opposite direction.
Finally, with minutes to go, Chivers was put out of his misery and withdrawn. Kevin Hector was brought on to offer the width England desperately needed. He nearly found the winner, too, with a thumping header that beat Tomaszewski but was cleared off the line – Clarke might have done better with the follow-up than nudge it past the post. Another piledriver from Bell was cleared by Bulzacki, and England finally ran out of time.
The result was greeted as a national disaster, but it wasn’t the bumbling performance many remember. Poland weren’t rubbish – they proved that in Germany the following year – and they had more than their share of luck. And of course there was Tomaszewski, whose inspired performance Brian Clough would never be allowed to forget.
Finals
GROUP 1
The favourites? Few could see beyond West Germany as winners of the 1974 Finals in their own country. They had won the 1972 European Championship with imperious ease, and Schön had tightened his defence by pushing Beckenbauer back to play as a libero, or creative centre-back, combining cute interception with forays forward to instigate German attacks. This left the fearsome Schwarzenbeck to deal with any unruly centre-forwards who had a notion to disrupt the great man’s afternoon. Schön’s main problem was fitting in the abundant skills of Günther Netzer, who had pulled the strings in midfield so wonderfully well in the European Championships. Holland were still a work in progress, viewed as a team of talented misfits (nothing has changed . . .), and not yet able to translate the brilliance of their club sides to international football. Brazil were rebuilding and missing players through injury – poor Tostão had retired early after his retinal problem became more acute – and Argentina looked short of world-class players, unless the highly thought of Brindisi could make his mark. Italy were still hard to beat but lacked exciting forwards with Riva and Boninsegna past their best. East Germany, Sweden, Scotland, Yugoslavia; all had good teams but none looked like World Cup winners.
Helmut Schön was miffed with Netzer because he had elected to play in Spain (for Real Madrid) against Schön’s wishes. He also wanted to play the experienced Wolfgang Overath, who was injured for the latter stages of the European Championship, alongside Uli Hoeness. Netzer in addition to these two would have been a bit of a luxury. He was just about the only man in Germany who thought Netzer should be left out of the team.
The campaign started badly. A row between the players and the German FA over pay (what else?) nearly led to mutiny, and Schön and the officials had to scramble to get Beckenbauer onside before half the side would agree to play. This disaffection manifested itself in the performances in the group games against lightweight opposition; poor against Chile (who were awful, as they invariably are outside South America), the bare minimum against Australia and woeful against East Germany, where the West were beaten in the only international between the two. Not a single player from the East German side would have made the West XI, but a solid defensive display and a breakaway from the Magdeburg striker Jurgen Sparwasser was enough.
The German press corps was far from impressed, although they forbore, mostly, the rabid nonsense that the English tabloids would peddle in such circumstances. Maybe it was all a cunning plan – by finishing second the West Germans avoided the more unpleasant of the two second-phase groups. I’m kidding; the game may be a statistical footnote as far as the World Cup is concerned – both sides were likely to progress – but it had enormous political significance and was not taken lightly by either side. East Germany was still a new country and the intensive sports programme (or systematic cheating, as it is now known to have been) that the government initiated to promote a notion of East German well-being was yet to show full fruit. This victory was a triumph that could be trumpeted to the impressionable youngsters that the party was drawing into its programme; young men and women who didn’t remember the old Germany.
East Germany were fooling no one; they looked no more than a competent, functional side and unlikely to trouble the better sides in the second phase. Australia made an undistinguished first appearance in the Finals, failing to score a goal and picking up a solitary point in a drab, meaningless game with an awful Chile team. Only once their better players started moving abroad would Australia prove more competitive – sadly the same migration has been the death of their domestic football and they find themselves slipping backwards again, unable to foster new talent in the face of so many other more popular sports.
GROUP 2
In England’s absence the home press latched on to Scotland, who had seen off Czechoslovakia to qualify for only the second time, and the first in sixteen years. The Scots had some decent forwards and two good full-backs but no creative spark to make it all run smoothly. With the young Celtic striker Kenny Dalglish a bit overawed in his first major tournament, and Denis Law past his use-by date, they were over-reliant on finding the towering head of Joe Jordan. It worked against Zaire, who were terrible at the back, but two goals was a weedy return for all the possession Scotland enjoyed. A 0–0 draw with Brazil was creditable enough – but in truth Brazil were uninspired in ’74 and seemed as happy with the draw as Scotland. On the same day Yugoslavia were more clinical than the Scots and racked up a hatful against Zaire, meaning Scotland would have to beat them in their final game. It was hard to see even this Brazil side failing to get more than two against Zaire – in the event they laboured to a 3–0 win. During the game Mwepu earned one of the World Cup’s more bizarre yellow cards, rushing out from the Zaire wall at a free-kick to belt the stationary ball downfield. It was hilarious, but the African side was undeserving of the mockery heaped upon them for their naïve play in the tournament.
Scotland drew their last game and went home, a late Jordan goal insufficient. Much was made of the fact that they became the first team to be eliminated without losing a game but sympathy should be avoided. They were a plodding side and lacked pace and creativity and this was a poor group. It was a decade too late for Baxter and a decade too early for Souness or Strachan. It was sad for Billy Bremner, the captain, who worked his socks off in his only Finals appearance trying to spark his colleagues into life. The results of this group meant West Germany avoided Brazil in the second phase.
Not that Brazil were scaring anyone this time around. With Clodoaldo and Tostão out, Zagallo had only Piazza, Rivelino and Jairzinho left from the 1970 squad. He had a better goalkeeper (how could he not?), a rock-solid centre-half in Luís Pereira and hardworking defensive midfield players. Rivelino was still an influential player and was the main creative influence now Pelé and Gérson were gone, but Jairzinho was nowhere near as effective without those great players behind and around him. To score only three goals against this kind of opposition was most un-Brazilian, even if one of them was a thunderbolt from Rivelino that must count as one of the hardest-hit shots ever seen in the World Cup.
Yugoslavia bullied Zaire effectively, but there was no evidence the Slavic brittleness against better opposition had gone away, because the opposition here was so limp. Bajevic’s strike rate in international looks good (twenty-nine in thirty-seven) but three came here against one of the weakest minnows ever to make the Finals and five more against an awful Venezuela team. His coaching career in Greece is more impressive than his playing career – eight league titles inside twenty years.
There was patronising sympathy for the hapless Zaire players, the first black Africans to qualify for the Finals. Their country was governed by a military dictator, Joseph (or Sese Seko Nkuku Wa Za, as he liked to be known) Mobutu. After the tournament it became clear that the
players were operating under ridiculous expectations, with all sorts of riches promised if they covered themselves in glory. Apparently glory meant beating Brazil and the best European teams; the players received nothing but threats and a shower of ****-all when they got home. Mobutu seized power with backing from the USA and Belgium in 1960, ousting the democratically elected President, Patrice Lumumba, and arranging his execution. African politics is a dangerous game in which to be involved.
Scotland Squad 1974:
GK: David Harvey (Leeds United, 26 years old, 7 caps), Thomson Allan (Dundee, 27, 2), Jim Stewart (Kilmarnock, 20, 0)
DEF: John Blackley (Hibernian, 26, 3), Martin Buchan (Manchester United, 25, 13), Willie Donachie (Manchester City, 22, 11), Jim Holton (Man Utd, 23, 11), Sandy Jardine (Rangers, 25, 16), Danny McGrain (Glasgow Celtic, 24, 12), Gordon McQueen (Leeds, 21, 1), Erich Schaedler (Hibernian, 24, 1)
MID & WIDE: Billy Bremner (Leeds, 31, 48), Peter Cormack (Liverpool, 27, 9), Don Ford (Heart of Midlothian, 29, 3), David Hay (Celtic, 26, 24), Tommy Hutchison (Coventry City, 26, 8), Jimmy Johnstone (Celtic, 29, 21), Peter Lorimer (Leeds, 27, 14), Willie Morgan (Man Utd, 29, 19)
FWD: Kenny Dalglish (Celtic, 23, 19), Joe Jordan (Leeds, 22, 11), Denis Law (Man City, 34, 54)
GROUP 3
Holland had squeaked into the Finals but they looked like contenders here from the very first game. Their opponents, Uruguay, had Pedro Rocha, their missing playmaker from 1970, back in the side, but he was pretty much alone in trying to play football. But this sort of nonsense held no fear for the Dutch, who could look after themselves, and they won at a canter.