Mammoth Book of the World Cup

by Nick Holt

  Buenos Aires: Estádio Monumental

  The national stadium currently has a capacity of 67,660, down from the near 72,000 that watched the 1978 final between Argentina and Holland. The ground was built in the 1930s, since when it has been the home of the River Plate club – in fact, many people refer to the ground simply as the ‘River Plate stadium’.

  Buenos Aires: Estádio José Amalfitani

  Built in the 1940s, the second Buenos Aires ground used was that of Vélez Sársfield. It holds just under 50,000 spectators and also serves as the main home of Los Pumas, the Argentine rugby union team.

  Cordóba: Estádio Cordóba

  This was a new stadium prepared for the World Cup; it has subsequently undergone a name-change after Mario Kempes, hero of Argentina’s victory in the 1978 finals. All the professional sides in the city rent the ground for big games.

  Mar del Plata: Estádio José Maria Minella

  Another new stadium in the coastal city to the south-east of the capital, this one held over 40,000, but the best attendance was 38,100 for Italy against France. The stadium is used largely for events and concerts as Mar del Plata has no major club.

  Rosario: Estádio Gigante de Arroyito

  This was an older stadium, built in the 1920s as the home to Rosario Central. Rosario hosted all Argentina’s second-phase games. It is surprising that this wasn’t the ground renamed in Kempes’ honour as he was a local boy.

  Mendoza: Estádio Ciudad de Mendoza

  The stadium has since been renamed the Estádio Malvinas Argentinas to reflect the passions aroused by the Falklands War; it was the smallest of the World Cup grounds, holding under 40,000. The stadium has seen more use for football in recent years after Godoy Cruz reached the top flight of the Argentinian league.

  Qualifying

  European qualification went largely with form, which meant no place for England, whose failure four years previously meant they ended up in a group with a strong seeded team, Italy. Halfway through their qualifying campaign manager Don Revie, whose tenure of the national side had been a disaster from start to finish, resigned in favour of a hefty pay-packet in the Middle East. Defeat in the opening match and lacklustre wins over the group minnows Finland and Luxembourg left with the impossible task of having to slaughter the best defensive side around in the last game. Ron Greenwood’s reshaped side, built around a spine of Dave Watson, Trevor Brooking and Kevin Keegan, played well and won 2–0 but it wasn’t enough. England had a decent enough defence – Watson was a quality old-fashioned stopper and there were other competent players around him – but they lacked punch up front. Trevor Francis, their best attacker, was horribly injury prone and the others were simply not international standard. It was a problem which would persist until the emergence of Gary Lineker in the mid-eighties.

  It was Scotland who represented Britain. For the second successive competition they eliminated Czechoslovakia in qualifying – no mean feat, the Czechs were reigning European Champions after stunning West Germany in Belgrade. Scotland recovered from defeat in Prague to record an excellent 3–1 win at Hampden Park a year later. Joe Jordan caused havoc; the Czech defence couldn’t deal with Willie Johnston’s stream of crosses and that was meat and drink to a stomper like Jordan (this isn’t disrespectful, Jordan was a fine no-prisoners centre-forward who would annihilate any defender who wasn’t up for a tussle).

  Wales did them a huge favour by beating the Czechs handsomely in Cardiff and Welsh protests that a dodgy penalty denied them a place in the final are well documented but way off mark. In the game against Scotland at Anfield, Liverpool, a long throw was handled in the area and Scotland were given a penalty. The offender in the referee’s eyes was Dave Jones but the real culprit appeared to be Scotland striker Joe Jordan. If Wales wanted a scapegoat they need look no further than their own FA, whose decision to play a “home” match at Anfield instead of a passionate Welsh crowd at Wrexham was born of nothing other than greed.

  Poland would be back, with a new star in Zbigniew Boniek, an exciting attacking midfielder, to add to their 1974 roster, most of who were still around. Other than that the East European sides struggled, Romania, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia all failing to qualify.

  Neither of the Irish teams got close; the North were in a horrid group with Holland and Belgium (Holland cruised through this time). They were a mixed bag, losing to Iceland but beating Belgium 3–0 at home, with a young forward called Gerry Armstrong getting his first international goals – we’ll see him again. The Republic lost out to France, but did notch up a good win over the French in Dublin with an early Liam Brady goal. Sweden, Austria and Spain all won through comfortable groups. In a 9–0 thrashing of Malta the Rapid Vienna striker Hans Krankl helped himself to six goals; he would carry Austria’s hopes into the competition.

  In South America, Bolivia ambushed Uruguay (now in serious decline) and earned a spot in the final group with Brazil and Peru. They lost 8–0 to Brazil (Zico got four) and 5–0 to Peru, and were consigned to a play-off against Hungary. They got hammered in that as well, 6–0 – Hungary even won the away leg for good measure.

  Asia and Africa both produced tournament debutants. Asia was getting tougher, with a lot more teams entering, and Iran had to come through an all-play-all group with Australia, South Korea, Hong Kong and Kuwait. They did so with distinction, winning six and drawing twice. Tunisia had a battle, beating neighbours Morocco (on penalties after two draws) and Algeria as well as Guinea before heading a three-team final eliminator with Nigeria and Egypt. They merited their place, having beaten all the strong sides in the region; the key win was a 1–0 victory in Lagos, sealed with an excellent defensive performance after an own goal gave them the lead. Mexico completed the line-up with the usual free place (nominally called the CONCACAF group).

  Finals

  Favourites? The press wrote up Brazil and the hosts – no European team had won in South America (still hasn’t). West Germany were thought of as the strongest European side and Poland had most of their 1974 team. Even Scotland were attracting money at the bookmakers. The maverick team was Holland again; they would have been favourites if playing with a full deck, but they were missing their trump card – Cruyff. Cruyff announced that he wouldn’t travel to Argentina immediately after the 1974 tournament, and he stuck to his guns. The story from 1974 about the pool party may have been a factor; Cruyff was very close to his wife, and a very private man – clearly that kind of tabloid tattle was not his cup of tea and it soured his relations with the press, which were never easy. That has always been the way with the tabloids; the dragnet of prurience catches many sleepy, unsuspecting fish as well as the gaudy ones who want to be on the front pages. (Who knows what Cruyff really wanted, he didn’t always seem to know himself.) What is known is that he was missed. Rob Rensenbrink was a fantastic player – revered in Belgium, if not in his own country, where he was the superstar in one of the best sides in Europe, Anderlecht – but he wasn’t Cruyff. Rensenbrink was an introverted, low-key character, and he didn’t provide a spark that lit the whole team in the way Cruyff did in 1974. Maybe that’s part of the difference between a top player and a genius. Van Hanegem didn’t make the trip, either. He insisted to the coach, the Austrian Ernst Happel, who had managed van Hanegem at Feyenoord when they won the European Cup, that he must be assured of a place in the starting eleven, an assurance which Happel wasn’t prepared to give. Happel was right, van Hanegem was not quite the player of old and Holland weren’t short of combative players. So van Hanegem stayed at home.

  GROUP 1

  Argentina had an unusually tough group for the host nation, with Italy, a developing France team and Hungary, full of attacking talent as usual. They won their opener against Hungary and it set the tone for the tournament. The Portuguese referee ignored a succession of niggling, provocative fouls, including one on the goalkeeper for the deciding goal, but was quick to punish any retaliation, sending off two Hungarian forwards. He never even used hi
s card for Tibor Nyilasi; the Hungarian striker had had enough of Tarantini’s constant hacking, clattered him into the running track and walked calmly off the field.

  The opening game in Group 1 had a goal after thirty-nine seconds, from France’s Bernard Lacombe. Italy were unfazed and came back to win 2–1. They looked decent and had a solid coach in Enzo Bearzot. The team leaned heavily on Juventus, dominant in Serie A (temporarily free of foreign stars, having banned clubs from hiring them at the start of the decade); it was the usual mix of skill (Scirea, Antognoni, Rossi) and brutality (Gentile, Benetti), with young Marco Tardelli, who had both in equal measure, looking a real find. France were an unfinished article, still building their great eighties team, and their young midfield star Michel Platini made no headway against this level of cynicism cum professionalism.

  The win lifted Italy and they brushed Hungary aside before taking on the hosts. Argentina had a little more trouble with France and required the help of some generous officiating. France made a few changes, bringing in some younger players, including Dominique Rocheteau, the bright new attacker from St Étienne. After a tight first half Argentina got the breakthrough just before half-time, but it was a disgraceful decision that allowed it. Luque latched onto a lobbed pass and took a touch before shooting weakly against the French captain Marius Trésor. The Argentinians clamoured loudly for a penalty, the eleven in striped blue shirts deliberately orchestrating the seventy-odd thousand in the stands. A linesman with no clear view of the incident waved his flag and a referee who seemed sure it wasn’t an offence was all too quick to give a penalty. Pathetic.

  France, playing with some panache, were dealt another blow when their goalkeeper Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes made a leaping save from Valencia’s long-range lob, but crashed his back against a post as he came back down and had to go off. Undeterred, France attacked and when Lacombe beat Fillol to a through ball and lobbed it neatly over him, Platini was on hand to crash the ball home when it came back off the bar. They should have been ahead minutes later when Platini carried the ball the length of the field and played in Didier Six; Six beat the last man and pushed the ball past Fillol but it rolled just the wrong side of the post. No argument about the winner. Luque scored it with a fantastic hit from outside the area, but I’m sure the French coach Hidalgo was curious to ask his team why no challenge came in while the striker waited an age for the ball to drop after his awkward first touch. A win in their last game against Hungary was little consolation for France. The game started with an odd incident, when it transpired both sides had only white shirts with them – France had wrongly assumed they would be asked to use their second strip as both normally played in blue. A scrabble around local clubs ended with France playing in green stripes for the first and only time.

  Italy beat Argentina with a fantastic goal by Roberto Bettega after some pinball passing down the left. Passarella contested every other decision and was politely but firmly ignored by a referee, Klein of Israel, who seemed oblivious to the demands from the crowd for an Argentina win. Argentina should have been relieved to have come through a tough group – Hungary lost all three games but probably played as well as Brazil or Poland in winning their respective groups. Klein was lined up to referee the final by FIFA – would it surprise you to learn he was withdrawn and given the third-place match after Argentina lodged a protest on some spurious grounds about his ethnicity?

  Italy looked really impressive, not usually their way in the early games of a major tournament. The blend of silk and steel and experience and youth looked well balanced. The new attacking combination of the experienced Bettega of Juventus with the bright young Vicenza star Paolo Rossi showed great promise, and the new defenders, Gentile (without moustache), Cabrini (only twenty) and the sweeper Scirea, looked every bit as redoubtable as the old guard.

  GROUP 2

  Two of the less fancied sides, Mexico and Tunisia, were drawn in a group with two tough European sides, West Germany and Poland, first and third four years earlier. Mexico were given a shout in the hot conditions but they were awful, losing all three matches and handing Tunisia the distinction of being the first African team to win a match at the World Cup Finals. All three goals in a 3–1 win were scored by their defenders, and the Africans’ skill and fitness surprised most observers. The North African sides (Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia) tend to be technically good and quick, often quite defensive in their set-up; the western African countries tend to be bigger and more powerful, with a high level of individual skill but often less discipline or organisation. This is a generalisation, but serves as a broad summary of the difference in style between the two regions.

  Poland and West Germany started the tournament with a dreadful draw – no surprise there, it merely followed the pattern of opening games. West Germany had lost an abundance of great players and not yet replaced them. Rainer Bonhof was a foot-soldier not a general, and there was no one at the back with even a glimmer of Beckenbauer’s talent. The new striker, twenty-two-year-old Karl-Heinz Rummenigge of Bayern Munich, looked a potential successor to Gerd Müller (albeit a very different kind of player) but the others were ordinary. Hölzenbein was thirty-two in 1978 and more of a tumbling clown than an international player; Abramczik and Dieter Müller were a shadow of their predecessors. Klaus Fischer of Schalke was prolific in the Bundesliga and against poor opposition but lacking against the very best; scoring a couple of spectacular goals on TV does not make an international striker. The new much-vaunted playmaker, Stuttgart’s Hansi Müller was “the next big thing” in German football for nearly a decade before everyone realised he was twenty-six and hadn’t done much.

  Poland had many of the same faces as 1974, but lacked the element of surprise second time around. Some of the faces were a little more lined and a little less energetic, some just not in such scintillating form. They found Tunisia a handful, only some stubborn defending and a tidy finish from Lato earned them a scarcely deserved 1–0 win. West Germany should have beaten Tunisia more comfortably but left their shooting boots at home – Fischer especially. Again the African side never looked a class below their more vaunted opposition. Which is more than can be said for Mexico, who were stuffed by West Germany and beaten easily by Poland. It has proved a pattern for Mexico, unless playing in their own country; easy qualification from the cushiest region, big build-up pre-tournament, moderate performances and an early flight home. It’s a disappointing return for a football-mad country with an enormous population. They made a really ordinary German team look like world-beaters.

  GROUP 3

  So where was the outstanding team? It certainly wasn’t Brazil.

  Brazil, who looked a shadow of the great teams of the previous decade, scraped into the second phase with two draws and a narrow victory over Austria, who were already through. The end of their rather drab game against Sweden provided a moment of comic relief – unless you happened to be Brazilian. They won a corner in the dying seconds and thought they had an opening win when Zico headed it home. Unfortunately for them the referee was Clive Thomas, the Dickie Bird of football, who thought the crowd paid all that money to watch him not the twenty-two international footballers running around him. Thomas decreed the whistle was blown before the ball entered the goal; he had played less than ten seconds over the ninety. He didn’t referee another Finals game, a rare correct call from FIFA.

  The decision affected very little; Sweden were toothless and lost their other games 1–0, while Austria proved the surprise package by beating Spain as well as the Swedes. Their centre-forward, Hans Krankl of Rapid Vienna, was good enough to have invited an offer from Barcelona, and he proved his worth with the winning goal in both games. There was more to come from him.

  GROUP 4

  The last remaining group looked a cakewalk for Holland and Scotland. Holland were still a terrific side, even without Cruyff and van Hanegem, and Scotland had their best squad for years.

  Scotland’s campaign was the most bizarre any British team has ex
perienced in the Finals. It was an epic failure on a scale unmatched until France in 2010. The manager was Ally MacLeod, a former winger with a number of Scottish clubs and Blackburn Rovers in the English first division; he played in Rovers’ 3–0 FA Cup Final defeat to Wolves in 1960. MacLeod was positive to the point of brashness and a self-declared winner.

  MacLeod won his managerial spurs in a good spell at Ayr and when he had a positive influence at a larger club, Aberdeen, he was given the nod as successor to the dour and introverted Willie Ormond as manager of the national team.

  Things started well as victory in the Home Championships was sealed with an excellent 2–1 win over England at Wembley. The performance was overshadowed by the behaviour of a large section of the Tartan Army who invaded the pitch, cut up large sections of turf and brought down the goalposts – all viewed now with an air of indulgent nostalgia, but had it been England fans the attitude would be very different. A repeat of the behaviour two years later led to changes in the way Scotland fans were monitored on away trips. A decent tour of South America was followed by victories in the last two qualification matches; defeat at home to England in the Home Championships did little to dampen the optimism of MacLeod and the Scottish supporters. A jaunty song by well-known comedian Andy Cameron entitled “Ally’s Tartan Army” made the UK Top Ten, and MacLeod made extravagant promises to the press – tantamount to tying chunks of raw steak to his torso before diving into shark-infested waters. The squad made a celebratory tour of Hampden before being waved off at the airport by thousands of well-wishers.