Mammoth Book of the World Cup

by Nick Holt

  The second-round match against Spain needed a replay to decide it. Both teams knew the other had a penchant for rough-housing and both decided they would get their retaliation in first. A weak referee allowed a free-for-all, and the game ended 1–1, but at cost to both sides. It was Spain who suffered most, losing their brilliant and courageous goalkeeper Zamora for the replay after being targeted by the Italians.

  Italy made changes for the hastily arranged replay, and an even weaker referee meant another bruising encounter. Italy’s outstanding player, the inside-forward Giuseppe Meazza of Milan, scored the only goal from a corner. It was unedifying stuff.

  South American interest ended in the first round. Brazil were a collection of talented individuals rather than a team and it showed against Spain, whose best player and captain Ricardo Zamora saved a penalty in their comfortable 3–1 win. The match saw the World Cup debut of Leônidas, an exciting Brazilian forward and their only black player in 1934. Short for a forward, but supple and fast, he showed glimpses of what was to come four years later.

  SEMI-FINALS

  THIRD-PLACE MATCH*

  * This was the first time this meaningless fixture had taken place. Forcing beaten semi-finalists to drag themselves out once again has always seemed like a peculiar form of torture to me, and most teams nowadays devalue the event further by giving a game to squad players who haven’t featured in the tournament, affording it the intensity of a friendly match. The match had begun in farce when both sides declined to use a change strip and the game started with two teams in white shirts and black shorts. This first game was a familiar rivalry that was about to turn that bit more sour.

  Legend has it that Mussolini issued an edict to the Italian team that they must “win or die”. The story has no provenance, and if it was said it was probably half in jest; Il Duce was not a man without colour or humour. Luis Monti jested later in life that if he had won the 1930 World Cup the Uruguayans would have had him killed, and if he hadn’t won the 1934 World Cup the Italians would have done the same. Whatever the reason there was desperation about Italy in the semi-final game that bordered on psychotic.

  The Austrian game was built on possession and neat, intricate passing. The fulcrum was a deep-lying centre-forward (long before Hungary’s Hidegkuti “invented” the position) called Matthias Sindelar. Seemingly insubstantial in build, Sindelar was known as Der Papierene (The Paper Man) by elements of the press, but he was sinewy and deceptively strong, and a good finisher as well as creator. Italy’s strategy for nullifying Austria was simple – Sindelar was “Montied”, the bruising presence of the former Argentinian centre-half totally negating the Austrian playmaker. It worked. The Italians scored the game’s solitary goal after twenty minutes when the other Argentinian winger, Enrique Guaita, netted amid a goalmouth scramble during which the referee ignored the Italians’ deliberate baulking of the goalkeeper. Austria hit the woodwork and had a couple of half-chances but Monti and Co kept them largely at arm’s length. Austrian striker Bican’s claim that the referee for the semi-final headed his pass to an Italian player should be taken with a pinch of salt. For all their thuggery and the compliance of the officials, Italy deserve much credit for their stamina and resolve; this was their third match in five days and the three and a half hours against Spain had been gruelling, physical encounters.

  In the other semi-final the possession game held sway as Czechoslovakia beat Germany 3–1. Oldřich Nejedly opened the scoring, but Germany equalised after a rare goalkeeping error from Czech captain Plánicka. Nejedly, a match-winning inside-forward like Sindelar, had no Monti marking him and was in irresistible form, completing his hat-trick with a brace of firm headers. German goalkeeper Willi Kress carried the can for the result at home, but the better side won the day. They came within ten minutes of doing so again a week later.

  WORLD CUP FINAL No.2

  10 June 1934, Nazionale del PNF, Rome; 50,000

  Referee: Ivan Eklind (Sweden)

  Coaches: Vittorio Pozzo (Italy) & Karel Petru (Czechoslovakia)

  Italy (2–3–5): Gianpiero Combi (Juventus); Eraldo Monzeglio (Bologna), Luigi Allemandi (Inter*); Attilio Ferraris (Roma), Luis Monti (Juventus), Luigi Bertolini (Juventus); Enrique Guaita (Roma), Giuseppe Meazza (Inter), Angelo Schiavio (Bologna), Giovanni Ferrari (Juventus), Raimundo Orsi (Juventus)

  Czechoslovakia (2–3–2–3): Frantisek Plánicka (Slavia Prague); Ladislav Zenísek (Slavia), Josef Ctyroky (Sparta Prague); Josef Kostálek (Sparta), Stefan Cambal (Slavia), Rudolf Krcil (Slavia); Frantisek Svoboda (Slavia), Oldřich Nejedly (Sparta); Frank Junek (Slavia), Jiri Sobotka (Slavia), Antonín Puc (Slavia)

  If Italy were favourites in the final, then it wasn’t by much. After a sluggish start Czechoslovakia had warmed to their task, and in Nejedly had a creative and potent player at the peak of his game. Karel Petru, the coach, had the guts to drop all-time leading scorer Josef Silny after the first game and the team, made up entirely of players from two Prague clubs, responded positively. Silny, who played his club football for Nimes in France, was never picked again. The stars of the side were Nejedly, Plánicka, the captain – this was the only final with two goalkeeper-captains – and the goalscoring left-winger Puc, but they were solid throughout with a great mutual understanding.

  Pozzo had also dropped an experienced player, Virginio Rosetta, the captain for the first match against the USA. Like Silny, he too had played his last international match. Pozzo liked defenders and half-backs that just defended; he had Monti to distribute the ball from the back, two fast wingers in the oriundi Guaita and Orsi, and a centre-forward in Schiavio who was not averse to getting in where it hurts and dishing out a bit of rough stuff. Inter’s Giuseppe Meazza provided any tricks that were required, but this side was not about the beautiful game, just winning.

  Both sides had bags of experience – there were only five players under twenty-five on the pitch – and the game was cagey, no one prepared to take a chance and make a critical risk. Italy relied on long balls into the penalty area, but Plánicka ate those up, and for all their neatness the Czechs were struggling to get a sight of the target.

  The first goal came when the match seemed to be drifting inevitably towards extra-time. Antonin Puc stole in from the left wing to take a clever pass inside his full-back and beat a badly positioned goalkeeper from a tricky angle. Reports state Puc was off the field for treatment only a minute or two before he scored; perhaps the rest did him good. Czechoslovakia should have won after that but they missed two or three chances, the best when Sobotka hit the post after a mazy run. Nejedly, not as effective as against Germany, escaped Monti for once and hit a drive that skimmed the bar. They proved costly errors when Orsi, quiet for most of the game, shimmied inside and curled a shot beyond Plánicka. Italy had equalised against the run of play.

  Now it was the Czechs who looked short of ideas, and the game was settled five minutes into extra-time. Cris Freddi claims it was a gambit of Pozzo’s to switch Schiavio and Guaita, but I would suggest it was just a coincidence that it was Guaita in a central position who found his centre-forward to his right with a simple pass. Schiavio’s finish was firm and final.

  Il Duce had the result he wanted and he beamed broadly as he handed the trophy to Combi. Pozzo was a hero to those who cared about such things, but not all of Italy bought into football as a symbol of fascist pride, and there were empty seats even for the final. The tournament itself was well organised, and suggestions of pressured officials have never been proved nor convincingly denied. And Italian football does have some serious form in that regard. The football was largely uninspired, and too many matches were settled by one team proving they were more macho than the other. Italy’s defence was the key – they shut out both Spain and Austria while no other side kept a clean sheet.

  The two sides that might have matched them physically, Uruguay and England, weren’t there. Later in the year England took on the world champions in a game that was dubbed The Battle of Highbury, when hostilit
ies broke out after a nasty tackle on Monti that left the destroyer a limping passenger on the right wing – now that does have a hint of irony. England were three-up after twelve minutes but were left hanging on after Meazza scored twice in the second half. A number of England players needed treatment as Monti’s colleagues exacted revenge for his incapacity. Nothing was conclusively proved, although the English press thought otherwise.

  World Cup Heroes No.2

  Luisito Monti (1901–83)

  Argentina & Italy

  Luis Monti made his debut for Argentina in 1924 after a successful couple of seasons with the San Lorenzo club. He waited three more years for his next game, but rapidly became a fixture in the Argentina side, and by the time of the 1930 World Cup he was the pivot of the team, a combined ball-winner and playmaker in the centre of the pitch.

  Monti was born and bred within the large Italian community in Buenos Aires and he was an obvious target for the wealthy Italian clubs; a move to Juventus in 1931 was hardly surprising, especially as he had been vilified by the Argentinian press after their failure to win the 1930 World Cup Final.

  Monti was an immediate success as Juventus won the Scudetto (Italian league title) in his first season. The move had mutual benefits, too, as the game in Italy was physically more demanding and the club took steps to address Monti’s weight and made him a slimmer, fitter player. Vittorio Pozzo had no hesitation in introducing him to the national side and he was a major factor in their 1934 victory, especially against Austria when he negated Sindelar; that he was treated leniently by referees in the tournament seems to be accepted, but football was a far rougher game in the 1930s.

  To describe Monti as a hero, given his disruptive role and menacing demeanour, is stretching a point, but he was a colossal figure in the first two tournaments, and he remains the only player to appear in two World Cup Finals for different teams, a record that will remain unchallenged unless there is a bizarre change in FIFA’s thinking.

  Monti went into management on his retirement – he briefly managed Juve during the war – but he enjoyed little success and dropped out of football altogether.

  1934 Team of the Tournament: 2–3–5

  Plánicka (Czechoslovakia)

  Monzeglio (Italy) Allemandi (Italy)

  Szepan (Germany) Monti (Italy) Bertolini (Italy)

  Orsi (Italy) Meazza (Italy) Schiavio (Ita) Nejedly (Czechoslovakia) Puc* (Czechoslovakia)

  Leading scorers: Nejedly (5); Conen & Schiavio (4)

  The official team (chosen retrospectively): Zamora (Spain); Monzeglio (Italy), Quincoces (Spain); Monti (Italy), Ferraris (Italy), Cilauren (Spain); Orsi (Italy), Meazza (Italy), Sindelar (Austria), Nejedly (Czechoslovakia), Guaita (Italy)

  1.4 ORIUNDI

  Until the last forty years, FIFA’s rules about playing for one’s country were pretty lax. This presented an exceptional opportunity for the Mediterranean countries (largely Italy and Spain, but also Portugal) to exploit their large expat communities in South America and poach some of the talented players from that continent. In 1934 Italy proved particularly adept, their winning team in the final using not only Luis Monti but also two Argentinian wingers; earlier in the tournament a former Brazilian international, Guarisi (known by a shortening of his first name as Filó in Brazil), had played for them at inside-forward.

  This practice continued right through the post-war years; Alfredo Di Stéfano, the great Argentinian, came to play with Real Madrid and helped them dominate the early years of the European Cup, winning caps for the Spanish international team. Omar Sivori, another Argentinian, was a maverick presence for Italy at the start of the 1960s. The great Ferenc Puskás, after eighty-five caps for Hungary, played four times for Spain in his mid-thirties as he sought sanctuary there after the Russian occupation of his home country. His countryman László Kubala went one better; born in Hungary but brought up in Czechoslovakia, he appeared first for his country of upbringing, then for Hungary and lastly for Spain after the same self-imposed exile as Puskás.

  The oriundi were invariably viewed as traitors by the nation they “deserted”: it was a no-win situation, as their adopted country usually viewed them with suspicion as well. After the debacle of their exit from the 1962 World Cup, the Italian press rounded on the supposed meagre contribution of the imported players in their team. FIFA changed the rules soon after, and the oriundi en masse (forgive the mixture of languages) were a thing of the past. The biggest loser was José Altafini; he appeared in the 1958 World Cup for Brazil as Mazzola and in the 1962 tournament for Italy, but now he was an international pariah at twenty-four years old.

  Even after FIFA insisted that players make a definitive choice before committing to a full international game, there have been players who have chosen to play for an adopted country rather than their country of birth; the Italian World Cup winner Mauro Camoranesi, the Brazilian-born Portuguese star Deco, any number of Anglo-Irish stars (Townsend, Aldridge, Cascarino, McAteer). Even in recent years Thiago Motta won two caps for Brazil before settling in Italy, renouncing Brazilian citizenship and becoming an Italian international.

  This is just a selection of players who have switched allegiance and doesn’t include the countless players who have emigrated to Europe in their formative years and played for their adopted countries, especially those of African or Caribbean origin – Eusébio, John Barnes, Patrick Vieira, Clarence Seedorf to name but a handful. This diaspora has worked both ways in recent years, many Caribbean teams adding pros from the English leagues to their ranks through West Indian heritage. The 2010 World Cup saw the appearance of two brothers on the same pitch playing for different countries when Jérome Boateng of Germany came up against his elder brother Kevin-Prince Boateng who had opted to play for his ancestral home, Ghana. Kevin had played for Germany at every junior level up to U-21 but this is permissible under FIFA rules – the final choice need only be made at full international level. A common practice in modern times is to offer a player with potential a cap while very young to solidify their commitment to their chosen country – England capped Wilfred Zaha (born in Côte d’Ivoire) in 2012, before he played in the Premier League for just this reason.

  This is not a phenomenon unique to football. In Rugby Union the Italians beg, steal and borrow players from other nations, while the All Blacks have always been quick to nationalise any promising player from the neighbouring Pacific islands. England’s cricket team in recent years has rarely been without a South African-born player. African athletes, especially distance runners, often run for European countries, such is the strength in depth in Kenya and Ethiopia and the North African countries. The European basketball leagues are littered with not-quite-good-enough NBA Stars. Even in individual sports, players shift from one nationality to another; Martina Navratilova and Monica Seles both adopted US citizenship, British sporting heroes Greg Rusedski and Lennox Lewis are both Canadian (as is footballer Owen Hargreaves), and Rory McIlroy appears very confused as to whether he is British or Irish.

  Sport is competitive. Teams or countries will use every advantage possible to put out the best side they can, and, if players, overlooked in one country, use expediency to create an opportunity elsewhere, should we hold that against them?

  1.5 WORLD CUP 1938

  If the England v Italy game immediately after the 1934 tournament was symbolic of where football power lay, then the last significant match before the next competition was a symbol of an altogether different and more menacing power play. The match was played between Germany and Austria as a last hurrah for the Austrian national side before they were absorbed into a Federal Germany in the Anschluss of 1938.

  After their humiliating defeat to Norway at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Otto Nerz had a change of heart and started picking the best of the Schalke players and giving them some licence to play in the style they favoured. An 8–0 hammering of Denmark in 1937, with Szepan pulling the strings and the sinuous Otto Siffling flitting between defenders and scoring four goals, is
regarded as a landmark for German football, the moment they consider themselves as catching up with the rest of Europe, and defining that irresistible combination of athletic power and efficiency with intelligence, control and technique that has served them well ever since. Nerz gave way to his natural successor, once his protégé, Sepp Herberger shortly before the World Cup began.

  Germany and Austria should both have been a major force at this World Cup. Both sides had qualified for the Finals tournament, but the Austrians were made to forfeit their place and represent the Reich instead. After the Anschluss, the Nazi regime dictated that the Germans and the Austrians would pool their resources and produce an indomitable combined XI – they even went so far as to dictate the team had to have five of one nation and six of the other. Hitler was born in Austria, after all. All well and good on paper, but the two sides hated each other.

  The largely Viennese Austrian team was emblematic of the café culture of the city; sophisticated and artistic and with low regard for the “prosaic” Germans. The Wunderteam of the early thirties had disintegrated, but Austria had a few stars left, chiefly Matthias Sindelar, a deep-lying centre-forward of slender stature but enormous poise and ability. His legs were so thin they looked like they could snap at any moment, so he was called Der Papierene (The Paper Man – or The Wafer as David Goldblatt more poetically translates it). In the farewell match for the Wunderteam, Sindelar masterminded a 2–0 victory for Austria in a game that many accounts claim was intended to be an “honourable” draw; his reported extravagant celebration in front of Nazi dignitaries would not have gone down well. Sindelar declined to play for the combined XI in the World Cup the following year. It would be pleasing but incorrect to report things ended well for Sindelar. The following year this gifted player was found dead in an apartment with his recently acquired girlfriend. Suggestions of Nazi skulduggery are inevitable but have never been corroborated.