Scotland
If England were not present, Scotland were, for the first time since 1954. They had qualified thanks to an inspired evening at Hampden against Czechoslovakia the previous September, when their little manager Willie Ormond, himself once Scotland’s left-winger, had brought Coventry’s clever Tommy Hutchinson into the team for his first cap at outside-left and the long legged Hutchinson had taken wing. Goals headed by the big, controversially rugged, Manchester United centre-half Jim Holton, and the young Leeds centre-forward Joe Jordan, had wiped out a soft, potentially demoralising goal by Nehoda, to give Scotland victory and put them through. The Czechs paid very dearly for having lost a point to Denmark.
Billy Bremner, the galvanic little Leeds right-half and captain, a player whose temperament did not belie his red hair, had played superbly that night but he was now thirty-two, had an infinite number of hard matches under his belt and had been very much in the wars on Scotland’s ill-fated tour before the competition. Deputed to conduct the team’s commercial negotiations, a job he never did for Leeds, he had been involved in a series of squabbles and was concerned with Celtic’s wayward celebrated winger Jimmy Johnstone, who had drifted out to sea in a boat at Largs after the win against Czechoslovakia, in an incident in Oslo.
Both turned up late in the bar of the Panorama Hotel—not so much a hotel as a mere students’ complex—and were eventually ordered to their rooms by Ormond. It was not the first nor the worst such incident that season. Some of the Scottish officials wanted to pack both men home, but Ormond pleaded successfully for them; and Bremner rewarded him by becoming one of the outstanding figures of the World Cup, winning the praise of Pelé himself.
Scotland had fallen in the same tough group as Brazil and Yugoslavia, skilfully managed by Miljan Miljanic but disappointing in their recent 2–2 draw at home to England. The team that day had tired and Dragan Dzajic, its left-winger and most celebrated star, had still to regain full form after more than a year in the Army. Nevertheless, with inside-forwards such as the sturdy little pair of Karasi and Acimovic, backed by the muscular Oblak and the dashes of the tall Bogicevic from defence, the Yugoslavs looked formidable, and they had an exceptional goalkeeper in Maric.
The Outsiders
The fourth team was Zaire, with Australia and Haiti, the remotest outsiders of the competition. Like Morocco, their predecessors as winners of the African group, they were coached by the tall Yugoslav Vidinic, himself once his country’s goalkeeper. They had fine individualists, had done well in Africa, but it was already clear from their performance in the recent African Nations Cup and from a mediocre tour of Europe that little was to be expected from them.
The Haitians, who figured in the Munich group with Italy, Argentina and Poland, were lucky to be there at all. Benefiting enormously as it was from being able to stage the whole of their concacaf qualifying competition, they had benefited in a still more particular way in their match with Trinidad when no fewer than four goals were disallowed to the visitors by the subsequently suspended El Salvadorian referee, Enriquez.
Argentina
For Argentina, still more than for West Germany, whom they had impressively beaten the previous season, the World Cup had not come at the right time. On that European tour, Argentina had played some splendid football in their most classical style, and had shocked the Germans by defeating them in Munich itself. But since then Omar Sivori, as volatile a manager as he was a player, had been dismissed. His successor was the much milder, amiable, red-headed Cap, nicknamed el Polaco for his Polish origin—less explosive, but also less inspiring.
Talent was not lacking. The thick-thighed, heavily moustached Ayala, hair hanging almost to his waist, had had a fine season with Atletico Madrid, and established himself as one of the most dangerous forwards in Europe, much faster than the traditional Argentinian attacker, possessed of fabulous control at speed and great incisiveness. But Miguel Brindisi, the midfield inside-right and supposed star of the team, whom Peron had given a medal for staying at home despite the blandishments of foreign clubs, had been a disappointment.
Fortunately there was time to call up Carlos Babington, Brindisi’s fairhaired partner in the Huracan midfield. Surprisingly omitted from the original party, Babington—who had nearly joined Stoke on the basis of his English ancestry—was so pleased that he slept in his international shirt. He was to play stupendously against the Italians.
For the first time, the competition had adopted a new debatable formula, abolishing the system of quarter- and semi-finals. Now, the first-and second-placed teams in the four original qualifying groups would enter two final pools of four teams each, whose winners would contest the Final, while the second in each group would play what again transpired to be the dull and quite meaningless Third Place Match.
In the event, the plan worked better than one might have expected. This time it would not lead to any increase of defensive football in the second stage.
Opening Stages
The chief criticism of the way the World Cup was organised lay rather in its preliminary phases. Failure to de-zone the qualifying competition allowed teams from the weaker areas a relatively easy passage, and the decision to make one South American and one European group winner play-off for a place in the finals was bitterly unfair to both. Eventually, it was Russia and Chile who were obliged to meet, and they met only once, drawing 0–0 in Moscow.
At this, the Russians suddenly developed an attack of principle, refusing on political grounds to play the return in the national stadium at Santiago, where left-wing prisoners had been shot. Their protest would have looked better had it been made before the initial match. FIFA sent a committee of inquiry to Chile and would have been prepared to have the match elsewhere in Chile, but the Russians refused and there was no alternative but to rule them out.
The tournament began with its customary anticlimax: a goalless draw in Frankfurt between Brazil and Yugoslavia. But at least there were no violent incidents. Nor would there be throughout the tournament. Forewarned by the brutal terrorist murders of the Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games, West German security this time was of a military thoroughness with tanks on the tarmac of the airports, endless searches of the passengers and armed police around and within the stadia.
Yugoslavia had the better of the argument in Frankfurt. Free kicks by the inevitable Rivelino and a newcomer, the blond, attacking left-back Francisco Marinho, proper successor to Nilton Santos, were Brazil’s chief threat. Acimovic, when Oblak pulled the ball back from the goal line, and Katalinski, with a muscular header, very nearly scored for the Slavs. What was sharply apparent was Brazil’s lack of a centre-forward, a Tostao, a Vavà. Jairzinho, forced to play there, would clearly have been happier on the wing.
And so we were off, with the competition starting in earnest the next day. In Berlin, where the Chilean left-wingers demonstrated on the terraces, West Germany made terribly hard work of beating Chile. A tremendous long shot by Paul Breitner, their long-legged, woolly-haired full-back, that paradox, a rich Bavarian Maoist, won them the day against a clever, compact team. Figueroa and Quintano were like rocks in the middle, Caszely—most disputably sent off—and Reinoso fiery in attack. The German defence, especially Schwarzenbeck, looked oddly vulnerable at times. It was an unimpressive start and Wolfgang Overath, recalled to play in his third World Cup, hardly looked a fit substitute for Netzer.
In Hamburg the East Germans were scarcely more impressive, finding Australia a tough nut to crack. Australia’s team, made up almost entirely of immigrants, well coached by the Yugoslav Rale Rasic, would prove far the best of the three outsiders.
Not that the Haitians began badly; they surpassed themselves against Italy in Munich, where Sanon, their centre-forward, soon after half-time, made monkeys of the Italian defenders and became the first man to beat Zoff in the Italy goal for 1,147 minutes of international football. Painfully the Italians pulled themselves together to win the match 3–1, but the happy Haitians were the hero
es of the day and next morning in the sunshine they strolled about the Munich zoo beaming their satisfaction, none more than their fine goalkeeper, Francillon. Alas, there were clouds on the horizon.
Scarcely had the Haitians ceased rejoicing than a thunderbolt struck them. A dope test on Ernst Jean-Joseph, their red-haired, mulatto centre-half had proved positive. Jean-Joseph protested that he had to take pills for his asthma. The team’s French doctor, with ruthless impartiality, told a Press conference that this was nonsense—that Jean-Joseph was not intelligent enough to know what he was doing.
For a day or two the melancholy Jean-Joseph was to be found hanging wretchedly around the lobby of the Penta Hotel. Then Haitian officials dragged him, tearful, out of the Grunwald Sports School where the team was staying, beat him, shoved him into a car and kept him incommunicado in a room at the Sheraton Hotel, flying him back to Haiti the next morning.
The terrified Jean-Joseph made several telephone calls to a sympathetic Polish Press hostess. The plump and humane Herr Kurt Renner, attaché to the Haitian team, was unable to sleep all night and told the whole grim story to the Press. Significantly, the World Cup Organising Committee was incensed not with the Haitians but with these two, removing Herr Renner from his post, threatening to dismiss the hostess. Small wonder that Haiti should in the meantime be thrashed by Poland, then comfortably beaten by Argentina.
Argentina needed those points and the four goals they scored to qualify. They, too, had had a troubled time in camp: a player accused of assaulting a chambermaid, journalists sharply critical of the officials. They had lost their opening match, in Stuttgart, to Poland, partly thanks to a couple of sad errors by the otherwise good goalkeeper, Carnevali, and to a bizarre defensive formation. Perfumo played as sweeper behind a line of three backs, risky enough in itself and positively suicidal given the vulnerability of Perfumo, who needed Bargas playing bang in front of him, rather than in an indeterminate role in midfield.
Had the tall, nineteen-year-old centre-forward, Kempes, scored when admirably sent through by Brindisi in the opening minutes, all might have been different. But he missed, Poland scored twice in the seventh minute, and the die was cast. First Gadocha, Poland’s devastatingly fast and incisive left-winger, took a corner. Carnevali dropped it, Lato put it in. Then Lato utterly split Argentina’s square defence with a through pass and Poland’s latest ace in the hole, the 22-year-old Szarmach, ran on to score.
In the second half Argentina took off Brindisi, ill at ease as a striker, and introduced a player who at once transformed them and who was to become one of the toasts of the tournament: René Houseman, a tiny winger, brave, serpentine and fast; socks worn scornfully round his ankles. Heredia scored after fifty-five minutes but when Carnevali’s careless throw went straight to Lato, who tore through to score, that was clearly that, though Babington did score, after hitting the post of an open goal.
Next, on the same ground, Argentina and Italy; a match that was a nightmare and a humiliation for the Italians in everything but the score. Quite what possessed Valcareggi, the Italian manager, to assume that Houseman, of all people, was going to play in midfield, and to set his own creative inside-forward, Fabio Capello, to mark him, heaven knows.
At all events Capello, turned by this error into a full-back, was run ragged by Houseman, who scored a lovely goal from a pass by Babington, who bestrode the field, calmly impeccable. Too late Valcareggi understood what was happening, pushed Capello upfield and set the ruthless Benetti to mark Houseman, who ran him ragged as well, unintimidated by his brutal tackling. Alas for Argentina, moral victors on the day, Italy equalised when Perfumo turned Benetti’s cross past his own goalkeeper, but it had been inspiriting to see Argentina, in both matches, throw off the over-compensatory chains of defensive football and play as they can and should.
Italy now had to play the Poles and draw with them to survive. Changes were made. Rivera had been played out of the game with contemptuous facility by the cool, experienced Telch. He was dropped, claiming he had been made scapegoat. Mazzola, the best and bravest Italian forward, stayed. Riva, as inept as Rivera, went too. If he had been a disappointment in his first World Cup, he had been a disaster in his second; and who would score goals for Italy if not he?
Poland
Poland won 2–1, again in Stuttgart, but though Italy might have had a penalty, they were in fact overwhelmed. Fine crosses by Kasperczak, a splendid foil to Deyna in midfield, gave spectacular goals first to Szarmach with a header then to Deyna himself with a superb volley. Capello’s late goal for Italy was no consolation. The Italians donned their customary sackcloth and ashes, swore to play with dynamic rather than static sweepers, to make their players run harder in training and, as always, did nothing, the wish substituting for the deed.
West Germany
In Group I, the West Germans’ wheels still would not go round. They made very heavy weather of beating the brave Australians at Hamburg, where the crowd exchanged insults with Beckenbauer and Australia might have scored twice. Rasic, with justice, said he thought little of the German defence. In West Berlin, the resourceful Chileans, though without Caszely, whose goals had taken them to the Finals, held East Germany to a draw.
So in Hamburg, on June 22, the summit encounter took place: the first meeting ever between the two Germanies. Security was all enveloping; guns to be seen everywhere, a helicopter circling the ground. Had there not been a threat that a sam rocket would be launched at it?
None was; the only, cataclysmic, surprise came in the shape of the result, and the goal by Jürgen Sparwasser eight minutes from time. Reversing their policy of the first two matches, East Germany abandoned attack for their more accustomed counter-attack, with Bransch a resourceful sweeper, Sparwasser moving from midfield into a twoman attack with the young Hoffmann.
Twice in the first half West Germany might have scored when Gerd Muller, that astonishing opportunist, twisted past Weise, once making a chance for Grabowski, once hitting the post. But Kreische of East Germany missed a sitter. Lauck too had a chance and though West Germany dominated second-half play, it was East Germany who scored. Hamann sent Sparwasser down the right; the dark, powerful Magdeburg forward thrust his way past Vogts, shot past Maier, and the game was won.
In retrospect, there is no doubt that it was a blessing in disguise for West Germany. Defeat meant that they played in an easier group, avoiding Holland, and caused them to remodel their team, bringing the driving Rainer Bonhof of Munchengladbach into midfield.
Meanwhile, poor Helmut Schoen became the butt of a sour and disappointed public. Schoen, one heard, was no manager, an opinion quite happily advanced with another: that Beckenbauer was running the team. Certainly there had been dissidence. The West Germany players, like the Dutch, had made intransigent demands before the tournaments, so much so that their Federation had threatened to pack them off home and play the reserves in their place.
Holland
The Dutch, meanwhile, were enchanting everybody, not only with their play but with the free-and-easy atmosphere of their training camp at Hiltrup, where wives and girl friends were allowed for one sunlit, cheerful day.
In their first match, at Hanover, they easily dispatched the Uruguayans, who were astonishingly poor, having little to offer but ruthlessness. Even this was ineffectual: they failed to kick the tormentingly elusive Cruyff, they had Montero Castillo sent off for punching Rensenbrink in the stomach, though Forlan was a much more serious offender.
Yet the Swedes, who had beaten Austria in a play-off to qualify, surprised the Dutch by holding them 0–0 in their next game. With nothing to lose, Sweden approached the tournament in a spirit at once relaxed, generous and determined. In Sandberg and the tall, slender Ralf Edstroem, they had a fine pair of forwards who had scored thirty-two goals between them for Atvidaberg the season before they left Sweden for pastures new, and in Nordqvist a resilient veteran at centre-half. In goal the blond Ronnie Hellstroem excelled himself, so much so as to regret the unex
ceptional contract he had signed with the Bundesliga’s Kaiserslautern before the tournament.
The draw with Sweden illustrated Holland’s lack of a finisher to exploit the amazing virtuosity of Cruyff and the fact that his old colleague and rival of Ajax days, Piet Keizer, was now over the hill as a left-winger. The lively Rensenbrink displaced him in their third match, against Bulgaria, who simply had no answer to the galvanic Cruyff, whirling past them at will, his pace, his passing and his finishing alike irresistible. Neeskens, breaking frequently and furiously into attack, scored twice from penalties.
Early Matches
For Scotland it was a World Cup of anticlimax; unbeaten alone among the sixteen teams, they yet failed to qualify for the second round.
Much of this was their own fault. Bravely though they played against Brazil, resourcefully against Yugoslavia, they were absurdly cautious in their first match against the chopping block, Zaire, against whom they needed an avalanche of goals. They got only two. ‘Let’s face it,’ said their centre-half, Jim Holton, ‘we underestimated them. For fifteen minutes I wondered what the hell was going on, where the devil had this lot come from, playing stuff like that.’ At last Scotland got hold of the game, Lorimer’s mighty right foot shot a spectacular goal from Jordan’s header, Jordan headed another from Bremner’s free kick. But in the last twenty minutes, Scotland unwisely relaxed, troubled by the heat, a mistake which would cost them qualification.
Bremner himself never stopped in the next game, at Frankfurt, against Brazil. For the first twenty minutes, Brazil played probably their best football of the tournament, football for which Scotland’s defence did not seem tactically briefed. But Bremner was able, with his example and his encouragement, to revive the Scots, who finished the better team and three times might have scored in the second half through Bremner and his club mates, Jordan and Lorimer.
The Story of the World Cup Page 23
