It was appallingly hot. ‘We sat there in cold towels in the dressing-room at half-time,’ said Ray Wilkins, the Manchester United inside-forward, ‘and the heat came off us like steam.’
Neither Trevor Brooking nor Keegan played. Neither would—until the very last match. Brooking had pelvic trouble. Keegan, perhaps providentially, had trouble with his back.
The most extraordinary game of the group took place in Valladolid, between France and the Kuwaitis, who had opened impressively against a flaccid Czech team in the same city.
Towards the end of a game which they had clearly lost, Michel Platini, out of form against England but dominant against Kuwait, sent little Giresse through a Kuwaiti defence which stopped because someone had blown a whistle on the terraces behind their goal. Giresse scored, the Russian referee gave a goal and the Kuwaitis protested with great vehemence. Up in the stand, their Prince and President, splendid in a pink burnous, seemed to be beckoning them off the field. But as the players prepared to abandon it, down he came to persuade them to stay on. The Russian referee inexplicably changed his decision, disallowing the goal, and the match was finished.
Afterwards, the ebullient Carlos Alberto, a Peter Sellers figure, tried to minimise the incident, insisting that the Prince had been trying to keep the players on. ‘So when he goes like this,’ said a sceptical German journalist, beckoning, ‘he is telling the players to stay on the field?’
The Kuwaitis narrowly lost their last game in Bilbao to a strangulated English side which had done rather better against the Czechs, the lithe and gifted Trevor Francis exulting in the excellent long passes of Tottenham’s Glenn Hoddle, a highly gifted but enigmatic player who, after a fine debut and goal against Bulgaria, had been dropped by Greenwood with the lapidary words, ‘Disappointment is part of football.’
But the major cataclysms of the opening round came in Group II where West Germany, losing, astonishingly, to Algeria, then came to what was scarcely a gentleman’s agreement with Austria, whom they beat 1–0 with an early headed goal by Hrubesch in a match which was a travesty of effort and football, one which threw into stark relief the weaknesses of the reorganised tournament. The Algerians had every right to make their bitter protest, every reason to feel more bitter still when they were waved aside.
The truth is, however, that after their superb beginning in Gijon, the Algerians ran out of steam against Austria, could not master the clever, strong, experienced attackers Hans Krankl and Schachner, and were beaten 2–0. Clever Lakhder Belloumi, African Footballer of the Year, had an excellent game against the Germans. He created the first goal after fifty-three minutes with a chip over the burly goalkeeper Schumacher, Majder scoring, and himself got the winner made by the speedy Assad; the Algerian wingers set Germany’s defence many problems throughout. Yet Jupp Derwall, the bewildered German manager, had some reason to murmur afterwards, ‘I just don’t understand.’ In torrid heat, his team had had far more of the play, gaining sixteen corners against four.
So to the disgraceful game in Gijon, again, when the West Germans and Austrians had their Anschluss; and the World Cup Committee did nothing. Michel Hidalgo suggested they be given the Nobel Peace Prize; the French manager had come to take notes on the Austrians, whom France would meet. He did not take a single one.
It was the Brazilians who, in this first phase, excited and electrified everybody, their wonderful midfield play compensating for the lack of truly good forwards: there was no substitute for Reinaldo, the immensely gifted young centre-forward sabotaged again by knee injuries. The voodoo drumming wife of Bob ‘Dynamite’ Roberto drummed away, his rival Careca was hurt and sent home, but Roberto wasn’t the answer. The benign surprise was Falcao, ignored four years previously by Coutinho, brought in after a fine season with Roma, and used on tour because it was known Cerezo would be suspended for the opening game. So gloriously did the strong, quick, intelligent, adventurous Falcao play that he could not be left out. The four-man midfield gave opportunities to him and the other talented three to break often into attack.
The opening game against Russia, in Seville, though abominably refereed by Lamo Castillo of Spain, who denied two plain penalties to the Russians and one to the Brazilians, was of the highest order; one of the best of the competition. Russia took the lead when Valdir Peres, latest in the line of inept Brazilian keepers, allowed Bal’s long shot to bounce gently through his palsied arms. But the sheer exuberant skill and originality of the Brazilians was not to be gainsaid. A quarter of an hour from time, the loping Socrates, tirelessly ubiquitous, now in the firing line, now covering for Junior, his attacking left-back, struck the equaliser with a stupendous shot. An equally fine one by Eder, after Falcao had dummied, swerved in to give Brazil victory. The Russians, under the old Dynamo centre-forward Constantin Beskov, eternal revenant, had played well; but not quite well enough.
The Scots were their usual blend of talent and error. They, too, maintained their tradition of inadequate goalkeeping. Four years after his failures in Cordoba, Scotland still hadn’t found anybody better than Alan Rough. They could hardly fail to beat the clumsy New Zealanders, though after going into a three goal lead, they managed to give away two goals before collecting themselves. The goal scoring ability of the Ipswich midfielder, John Wark, forever stealing into good positions, two of which he exploited, was their chief attribute.
Jock Stein warned them there would be no gifts against Brazil in Seville; nor were there. The Brazilians played gloriously well to win 4–1, but the Scots made a rousing game of it in heat which eventually exhausted them. They even took the lead after eighteen minutes with a magnificent goal by their right-back, David Narey, bursting through an astonished Brazilian defence to score with a fine shot after clever preparatory work by Hartford and Wark. But even a five man Scottish midfield could not extinguish the fires of the Brazilians. A typical, beautifully swerved free kick from outside the box by Zico curved round the wall and Alan Rough for a thirty-second-minute equalising goal.
Three minutes after half-time, Oscar came up from centre-back to leap above the Scots defence and head Junior’s corner past Rough. ‘From then on,’ said Stein afterwards, ‘we were really chasing the game.’
They never caught it. Eder, the erratic but sometimes devastating winger, lobbed Rough elegantly for the third goal, Socrates neatly turned a ball to Falcao, who shot in off the post for the fourth.
So Scotland had to beat the Russians in Malaga to qualify; and how very close they came to it. Joe Jordan, in his third World Cup, was brought back into the team to lend his robust methods; Dalglish, also playing his third World Cup, a disappointment once again, dropped out. Graeme Souness of Liverpool worked with great flair and industry in midfield, scoring a coruscating individual goal worthy of the best Brazilians; but weak goalkeeping and a bizarre defensive collision condemned the Scots to a 2–2 draw, and elimination.
An error by the usually immaculate Tbilisi defender, Chivadze, gave Jordan his opening goal after fifteen minutes. Steve Archibald charged down his clearance, Jordan scored from twelve yards. But Chivadze atoned by equalising after Rough had saved from Gavrilov, and another Tbilisi man, the elusive Shengelia, gave Russia the lead eight minutes from the end. Souness’ marvellous goal squared the score, but it was not enough.
Northern Ireland, in the meantime, were surpassing themselves. Spain, favourites in the Valencia group, benefited from some ludicrous refereeing decisions, and at least one FIFA official, interviewed on television, admitted how important it was for the World Cup’s finances that Spain should stay in the tournament.
Violent, unpunished play by Barcelona at the huge Nou Camp stadium in the Cup Winners’ Cup had led to well justified fears that Spain would play it rough and hard without much let or hindrance. Their team, under the naturalised Uruguayan, José Santamaria, had pitifully little to offer, its two key players, the midfielder Zamora and the winger Juanito, being both out of form.
Spain began abominably in Valencia against Hon
duras, who, with Costly defiant in defence and Gilberto, a Spanish league player, skilful in midfield, horrified them with a seventh-minute goal by Telaya. Dull, blunt, baffled by Honduras’ orderly defence and neat breakaways, the Spaniards could do little but fling themselves down and appeal for penalties, eventually getting and converting one through their quick little winger, Lopez Ufarte, after sixty-six minutes. A humiliation.
In Saragossa the following day, Northern Ireland boldly brought in the barely 17-year-old Norman Whiteside, a Manchester United centre-forward who thus became the youngest player ever to figure in the World Cup Finals, and held the fancied Yugoslavs to a goalless draw. Whiteside, never overawed or intimidated by any occasion or opposition, played with his characteristic aggression and courage; he was booked in the second half. But the Irish also had skill in midfield in Martin O’Neill and Sammy McIlroy, while Gerry Armstrong, no more than a Second Division reserve centre-forward with Watford, emerged as a surprisingly dangerous and effective right-winger.
Spain could thank Lund, the Danish referee, for their 2–1 win against Yugoslavia; he gave them a fourteenth-minute penalty, this time converted by Juanito for a foul (admittedly a bad and cynical one) clearly committed outside the box. Moreover, Ufarte missed the first spot kick, Juanito then succeeding him to score. Pantelic, the Yugoslav keeper, had, it must be said, clearly moved.
Honduras went next day to Saragossa to hold the Irish as they had held the Spaniards. Gerry Armstrong scored after only ten minutes, after McIlroy sent an in-swinging free kick against the bar, but the Irish lost their grip on the game and Laing, the substitute, equalised on the hour, a mere two minutes after he had taken the field.
Four days later, they confronted Spain in Valencia and, against all the odds, gallantly beat them with another goal by Gerry Armstrong; one of the most remarkable results of the competition. For their pains, the Irish were kicked, intimidated, and given nothing by a lamentable referee, Ortiz of Paraguay. Making light of that, the intense heat, and the ludicrous expulsion of Donaghy simply for pushing an opponent away, when so much worse had been allowed, the Irish still prevailed.
The closest the Irish came to losing this match, it might be said, was when they almost missed their flight from Saragossa. So dehydrated were Sammy McIlroy and Sammy Nelson that it took them more than two hours to produce specimens for the drug test.
Gerry Armstrong, nicknamed ‘Don quick quote’ by Sammy Nelson for his facility with the Press, was again the scorer after forty-seven minutes. Billy Hamilton, the powerful Burnley centre-forward, went roaring up the right. Luis Arconada, the much lauded Spanish goalkeeper, strangely out of form in the World Cup, merely pushed out his cross; Armstrong banged the ball in. But though the Yugoslavs beat Honduras 1–0 with still another penalty, by Vladimir Petrovic, Spain sneaked into the second round.
In Group III, Argentina and Maradona woke up after their demise against the Belgians. Maradona was irresistible, displaying his whole, vast catalogue of talents. Hungary, who had volleyed home ten goals against El Salvador, three of them by Kiss, who played only the last thirty-four minutes, were outclassed. Maradona scored two of the goals, Diaz didn’t play, and Hungary scored only after the Argentines were four ahead. Suddenly, Menotti’s team looked as if it might keep its Cup.
Not least because the Belgians were plainly flagging. Astonishingly, the Salvadorean team which had conceded ten against Hungary gave them a long, hard run for their money, succumbing to a single goal by the blond Coeck, scored after eighteen minutes with a shot which the keeper, Mora, should have saved. True, El Salvador played a massed defence, but Gonzalez, a fast and eager forward, still gave the Belgians some awkward moments. In the concluding game of the Belgians and Hungarians, the latter needed only a 1–0 win to qualify on goal differe ference, but got a 1–1 draw, Czerniatynski eventually equalising Varga’s first-half goal. Belgium were through.
It was now that Italy would take wing. When they literally did so, flying to Barcelona for the second round, Federico Sordillo, the new Football Federation President who’d bitterly criticised the team after Braga, told Enzo Bearzot that his job was safe after the World Cup. Bearzot replied that he didn’t want it if he was to be stabbed in the back. The allusion was clear. His ‘Brutus’, the serpentine Italo Allodi, a wheeler-dealer of the transfer market and friend of referees, mysteriously placed in charge of the national coaching centre at Coverciano, had long been the foe. Indeed, it was from a managers’ conference in Coverciano that a pipsqueak Second Division coach from Varese violently assailed Bearzot, saying that all Italian managers should repudiate him and his methods. Allodi would in due course be eased out; but nobody at this point gave Italy a prayer of winning the World Cup.
Were they not drawn in the same group as Maradona’s Argentina; and with a Brazilian team which had played the best World Cup football since Brazil themselves took the trophy in 1970? Total Football might virtually be dead, Brazil might lack a centre-forward—the burly, black, volcanic Serginho looked inept by comparison with his midfield—but the attacking powers not only of the midfield but of defenders like Junior were immense. There was, however, some slight doubt whether those defenders could defend as well as they attacked.
The other, salient, factor was that Italy finally found themselves obliged, by the exigencies of the competition, to come out and score goals. The Brazilians do that naturally; it was Coutinho’s attempt to restrain them which made them so poor in 1978. Italians are natural ball players, attackers, but the brute sterility of their Championship obscures the fact. What nobody could know or predict was that Paolo Rossi would suddenly burst into form.
No England player did so. The pulled muscle which sharply reduced the effectiveness of Rummenigge, the noises of dissension which came, as always, from the West German camp—where the manager, as always, was criticised not only by players but by his own assistant—gave them a manifest chance in their first match. Craven tactics threw it away.
They were perfectly, if unwittingly, summed up next day by the hapless, thin-skinned Ron Greenwood at the training camp outside Madrid in Navacerreda. He was astonished, he said, that none of the journalists present had singled out one of England’s main achievements in the previous day’s goalless draw at the Bernabeu Stadium. Silence; till Greenwood triumphantly explained, ‘We didn’t let Kaltz get in any crosses.’ Silence, again. England had excelled; to the extent that they had managed to prevent the West German right-back from putting the ball into their goalmouth! When Bearzot heard about it after the World Cup, he smiled and said that in the Final, his team simply hadn’t worried about Kaltz.
It was indeed a dreary game. Bryan Robson, clearly far from wholly fit, had a good nineteenth-minute header which Harald Schumacher turned over the bar, Rummenigge actually hit the bar five minutes from the end, Paul Breitner had one marvellous run down the right, another down the left, but it was a sterile evening. With the blond Foerster brothers tackling furiously, to the eclipse both of Francis and the largely ineffectual Paul Mariner, with Uli Stielike there to intercept, or if necessary foul, behind them, England were no more effective than West Germany. Littbarski was belatedly brought on in the second half but the giant Hrubesch, to his unconcealed fury, was not brought on at all. There was no Brooking to get hold of the English midfield; nor was Glenn Hoddle used, when his passes might have created an opening or two.
Not to use him even in the last, decisive, game at Bernabeu against Spain, when the industrious little right-winger Stevie Coppell had to withdraw, seemed sheer self-defeating folly. Instead, Mariner kept his place and the quick Tony Woodcock was picked in a three man attack; Brooking and, of all people, Keegan were suddenly thrown on after sixty-three minutes. Brooking, hardly picked up for twenty minutes, made such a difference that you wondered what would have happened had he been able to play before. He'd been secretly sent to Germany for a futile back operation. Keegan, embarrassingly rusty, missed the easiest of headed chances right in front of goal, finally to coo
k England’s goose. He’d been secretly sent to Germany for a futile back operation.
The Spaniards, who had lost 2–1 to West Germany, Arconada’s feeble goalkeeping betraying them again, were surely there to be taken. But an England team in which Howe’s careful negativity was not complemented by Greenwood’s supposed (long gone) attacking flair, was simply not bright or good enough.
The Spaniards began as uneasily as might have been expected, yet they had at least three fine chances in the game to score. Miguel Alonso missed one in each half, Satrustegui another, after he had dribbled through the English defence. But none of the misses was as appalling as Keegan’s, six minutes after he had taken the field, and Bryan Robson put the ball on his head. By contrast, Brooking, too, had earlier made a fine chance when he turned his man, but when he shot, Arconada, almost perversely, made one of the few fine saves he brought off throughout the tournament. So England were out, and West Germany went on.
Northern Ireland went out, too, but with considerably more glory even though their eventual fate was to concede, exhausted, four goals to France just as they had done in 1958. Austria were their initial opponents in Atletico Madrid’s Calderon Stadium. The heat was suffocating, but Ireland would surely have won the game were it not for a serious defensive error: failure to clear an easy ball enabling Austria, early in the second half, to equalise the goal strongly headed by Billy Hamilton after a characteristic slalom down the right by Gerry Armstrong (who said, afterwards, that the way the Austrian defenders stood square on facilitated his task).
The Story of the World Cup Page 29
