Mammoth Book of the World Cup

by Nick Holt

  Or would they? A couple of days of frenzied negotiations and diplomatic intervention saw Garrincha’s sending off rescinded and he was cleared to play in the final. It seems an extraordinary decision now, especially as Garrincha was clearly culpable, no matter that Rojas made a meal of the reaction. To their credit the Czechs didn’t complain.

  WORLD CUP FINAL No.7

  17 June 1962, Nacional, Santiago; 68,679

  Referee: Nikolai Latyshev (USSR)

  Coaches: Aymoré Moreira (Brazil) & Rudolf Vytlačil (Czechoslovakia)

  Brazil (4–3–3): Gylmar (Santos); Djalma Santos (Palmeiras), Mauro Ramos (Cpt, Santos), Zózimo (Bangu), Nílton Santos (Botafogo); Zito (Santos), Didi (Botafogo), Mário Zagallo (Botafogo); Garrincha (Botafogo), Vavá (Palmeiras), Amarildo (Botafogo)

  Czechoslovakia (3–2–2–3): Viliam Schrojf (Slovan Bratislava); Jírí Tichy (Inter Bratislava), Svato Pluskal (Dukla Prague), Ján Popluhár (Slovan Bratislava), Ladislav Novák (Cpt, Dukla Prague); Andrej Kvasnák (Sparta Prague), Josef Masopust (Dukla Prague); Tomás Pospichál (Banik Ostrava), Josef Kadraba (Kladno), Adolf Scherer (Inter Bratislava), Josef Jelinek (Dukla Prague)

  Like Oliver Kahn many years later, Czechoslovakia’s brilliant goalkeeper left it to the final to have his one flawed game. Born in Prague but brought up in Slovakia, Schrojf was a member of the Czech squad in 1954 and 1958, but it was not until 1962, by which time he was the established no.1, that he made an appearance in the Finals. Excellent in the groups, he saved his best for the knockout rounds, with a quite outstanding performance against Hungary and another top-notch showing against Yugoslavia. There was nothing flashy, he was just a good reliable goalkeeper who bucked the trend of the age and came to catch crosses.

  Shame, then, that he blew it in the final. Schrojf was at fault for two of the Brazilian goals, leaving space for Amarildo to shoot home at the near post in the first half and then making a mess of a cross for Vavá to score. Not that he alone was to blame, especially for the first goal; Kvasnák and Pluskal were beaten too easily by Amarildo on a run that should have seen him ushered away from goal.

  Amarildo was making things happen for Brazil, with Garrincha strangely quiet. Perhaps the Czechs’ understandable nervousness about the winger’s presence left space elsewhere. The young striker nearly got on the end of a cross from Garrincha that Schrojf punched away, and then some clever play set up Zagallo for a cross that Vavá headed straight at the goalkeeper. The goal came soon after, but at the other end. Some patient build-up play found Pospichal coming in off the right wing; he spotted a lung-bursting run from Masopust and timed the pass perfectly for the left-half, usually the creator not the finisher, to drive under Gylmar’s body.

  Fortunately for Brazil, Amarildo’s first goal came two minutes later, so there was no time for them to feel unsettled; this was a much more disciplined defence than Sweden’s four years earlier, and they could not have been so sure of scoring. Schrojf was unfazed – he did well with a Zagallo free-kick when the Brazilian midfielder cheekily tried to beat him at the same near post, then he dived to stop a thunderbolt from Garrincha.

  The Czechs did better in the second half, with both wingers playing a little deeper to deny Garrincha and Zagallo space, and giving them room to run at the ageing Brazilian full-backs. But there was little they could do against brilliance. Zozimo broke up a Czech attack with a fine tackle and Zito carried the ball into the opposition defence before releasing Amarildo on the left. The youngster was wide of the goal but had the presence of mind to cut back onto his right foot and curl a delightful cross past Schrojf to where Zito had continued his run. The right-half hadn’t scored for four years but he couldn’t miss, he was virtually on the goal line.

  Now the Czechs’ rigidity and lack of creativity began to tell. They could make little inroad into the Brazilian defence – although one penalty appeal had some merit – and were increasingly vulnerable on the counter-attack. The crucial third goal was a disaster for the unfortunate Schrojf. He came out of his goal to make a routine catch from an up-and-under by Djalma Santos and caught the full glare of the sun. The ball brushed his fingertips and dropped at the feet of the lurking Vavá, who wasn’t the type to miss an open goal.

  The best team won, not with the flair of four years previously, but with conviction nonetheless – and at least we were spared the sight of Chile putting the boot in and berating the officials in the final.

  World Cup Heroes No.11

  Garrincha, born Manuel Francisco dos Santos

  (1933–83)

  Brazil

  Garrincha was born into poverty, like so many black Brazilians. He overcame a severe polio attack as a child that left him with an imbalance in his legs and a curious bowlegged gait. Unlike Pelé, he didn’t hang around after his career and reach ambassadorial status for his country and the game of football.

  Garrincha had a terrible concentration span – other players in the Brazil squads in 1962 and 1966 claim he would play table tennis while the coach gave his tactical talk. A psychiatrist with the 1958 squad adjudged him not worthy of a place in the side as he had the mental capacity of a child. (The man proved as useful in his advice to a football team as Eileen Drewery, of whom more anon.) The notion of the innocent abroad is belied by his womanising and drinking, both pursued wilfully and at times with no regard for the consequences to him and others. He was reputed to not know until the day of the game who his team were playing that day; not sure I believe that, but he certainly treated every opponent with the same lack of respect, waltzing around quality international full-backs and then going back and beating them again, just for a giggle. He gave England’s Ray Wilson a horrible time in the 1962 quarter-final – the same Wilson who looked solid as a rock in the 1966 event.

  Garrincha had electrifying acceleration from his low centre of gravity (similar to Maradona), and he was equally happy going round the outside and banging over a cross (usually flat and hard), or cutting across the front line and hitting a shot with his left. If Garrincha went walkabout, so be it, the hard-working right-half Zito would cover and do his defensive work for him – not Garrincha’s strong point, he wasn’t the complete player like Pelé.

  It took some persuading by friends and colleagues for him to join a professional football club, but when he ran rings around Brazilian international full-back Nílton Santos in a trial for Botafogo his career path was decided. He scored a hat-trick on his debut for the first team in 1953 but was considered unready for the national team for the 1954 World Cup.

  In 1958 he was brought into the team for the third match of the World Cup after a faltering start by the team, and he and Pelé gave the team the balance it lacked. But it was in 1962, in Pelé’s absence, that Garrincha’s extraordinary gifts came to the fore. He imposed his power and pace and dribbling on the games against England and Chile, providing inspiration and scoring goals when it mattered most.

  Garrincha played all his club football of significance for Botafogo, resisting numerous lucrative offers to play in Europe. When he left Botafogo in 1965 his career declined quickly; in the 1966 World Cup he was a shadow of the player of 1962, and lost his remarkable record of never having played on a losing Brazilian team when they were knocked out. With him and Pelé both in the side, Brazil never lost.

  By this time his chaotic private life was in the press as much as his football. He had left his wife (and eight children) for a cabaret singer, Elza Soares, also a divorcee, and they never found approval in a deeply Catholic country. Soares left him when he beat her in an alcohol-induced rage, and Garrincha died a lonely, alcoholic mess in January 1983, a sad (but maybe inevitable, given his personality?) end for a brilliant footballer.

  1962 Team of the Tournament: 4–2–4

  Schrojf (Czechoslovakia)

  Armfield (England) Mészöly (Hungary) Popluhár (Czechoslovakia) Eyzaguirre (Chile)

  Masopust (Czechoslovakia) Rojas (Chile)

  Garrincha (Brazil) Jerkovic (Yugoslavia) Albert (Hungary) Zagal
lo (Brazil)

  Leading scorers: Albert, Ivanov, Garrincha, Sánchez, Jerkovic, Vavá (all scored 4)

  All-Star XI, selected retrospectively: Schrojf (Czechoslovakia); D Santos (Brazil), Maldini (Italy), Voronin (USSR), Schnellinger (West Germany); Zito (Brazil), Masopust (Czechoslovakia), Zagallo (Brazil); Garrincha (Brazil), Vavá (Brazil), Sánchez (Chile). They got this hopelessly wrong – the inclusion of Sánchez is nonsense, his behaviour was a disgrace.

  Heaven Eleven No.4

  Eastern Europe (former Yugoslavia – principally

  Croatia and Serbia, but also Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia and Slovenia, plus Poland, Romania & Bulgaria)

  Coach:

  Dimitar Penev – masterminded Bulgaria’s best-ever World Cup and nurtured a generation of excellent players at CSKA Sofia. He was a good centre-back in his time. Good luck knitting this lot into a team, feller

  Goalkeepers:

  Borislav Mihailov (Bul): expert at dealing with those hairy moments . . .

  Bogdan Stelea (Rom): consistent and reliable ’keeper

  Vladi Beara (Yug, Cro): acrobatic shot-stopper from the 1950s

  Defenders:

  Dan Petrescu (Rom): Super-Dan, excellent attacking full-back

  Toni Szymanowski (Pol): solid right-back in the Polish heyday

  Robert Jarni (Cro): attacking wing-back in the ’98 Croatia side

  Miodrag Belodedici (Rom): exceptionally quick and decisive centre-back

  Slaven Bilic (Cro): really sound defender, read the game so well

  Nemanja Vidic (Ser): hard as nails modern stopper

  Fahrudin Jusufi (Yug, Ser): top left-back from 1962 Yugoslavia side

  Wladyslaw Zmuda (Pol): ball-playing sweeper in 1970s Polish side

  Midfield & Wide:

  Gheorghe Hagi (Rom): gorgeous left foot attached to a pocket genius

  Marius Lăcătus (Rom): dangerous winger, could shred a fullback on his day

  Dorinel Munteanu (Rom): someone has to do the work, useful emergency defender

  Dejan Savicevic (Yug, Mont): another enigma, just hope he isn’t sulking

  Dragan Dzajic (Yug, Ser): fast and powerful left-winger from Yugoslavia’s heyday

  Milan Galic (Yug, Ser): hard-working box-to-box midfielder before they were fashionable, sort of a Slavic Alan Ball

  Grzegorz Lato (Pol): great goalscorer from wide, searing pace, always produced at the top level

  Kazi Deyna (Pol): calm, good leader, lets others do the damage

  Zbigniew Boniek (Pol): gifted attacking midfielder, if he had been five years younger, who knows . . .?

  Strikers:

  Dimitar Berbatov (Bul): looks lazy, isn’t, forget the United experience, just didn’t fit the system

  Hristo Stoichkov (Bul): fruit nut loop, but awesome player and dead ball striker

  Wlodi Lubanski (Pol): first great post-war Polish attacker, really good grafting front man

  Omissions: There are a lot of talented players from this region. Here are a few who have been left out: Hristo Bonev (Bulgarian forward); Zlatko Zahovic (temperamental Slovenian playmaker when they qualified for the Euros);Sinisa Mihajlovic (good player, but not such a nice boy); Robert Prosinecki (elegant play-maker for Yugoslavia and later Croatia); Savo Milosevic (hopeless at Villa, fab everywhere else); Branko Oblak (first really good Slovenian to play for Yugoslavia); Ivica Horvat (centre-back in the Yugoslavia side of the early 1960s); Davor Suker (goal-poacher for Croatia, great left foot, bit of a passenger unless scoring); Andrzej Szarmach & Robert Gadocha (excellent centre-forward and winger in the great Poland side); Predrag Mijatovic (Yugoslav playmaker from Montenegro); Gica Popescu (Romanian sweeper); Ilie Dumitrescu (the new Pelé – at least he thought so); Nicolae Dobrin (Romanian playmaker in the late ’60s and early ’70s); Robert Prosinecki (Croatian playmaker, gifted but inconsistent); Dragoslav Sekularac and Safet Susic (two top Yugoslav midfielders, one Macedonian, the other Bosnian, and those countries’ best players).

  Strengths: vast amounts of talent, lots of goalscoring potential from midfield

  Weaknesses: temperament – it has always found out Yugoslavia and Serbia, and the others have often fallen just short. Full-backs a bit weaker than most

  Likely first XI:

  Mihailov

  Petrescu Bilic Vidic Jarni

  Deyna

  Boniek Hagi

  Lato Stoichkov

  Lubanski

  (Blimey, that’s a good team, you wouldn’t want to catch them in the mood . . .)

  3.4 INDISCIPLINE

  The rules of football have changed a lot since the World Cup began, and the referee’s job has changed with it. A lot is made of the modern professional’s lack of respect for the referee. It’s nothing new – old World Cup footage shows teams surrounding the referee and voicing protests well back in the supposed Corinthian age.

  What has changed is permissible foul play. The 1950s and 1960s matches were replete with tackles from behind, high tackles, fist fights and general skulduggery of all kinds. Pelé was heard to call for greater protection for skilful players as early as 1966, when he was literally kicked out of the tournament. Referees were sanctioned to send players off in those eras, they just appeared very reluctant to do so – hardly surprising when you see the reaction of the Italians to having a player dismissed in the notorious Battle of Santiago in 1962.

  While the increased numbers of cards has offered protection for skilful players and seen the end of the “hackers”, it has also seen a number of sendings-off for ludicrous offences, and it has engendered the iniquitous habit of players waving imaginary cards at the referee to propose the censure of an opponent. Now that should be an automatic red.

  Foul play has been addressed; what is still left for FIFA to do is get a grip on the cheats and moaners who pollute the game in the twenty-first century, and to find a better way of punishing minor offences, maybe a sin-bin like rugby or a three-tiered card system. Forget the nonsense about slowing the game down – modern technology is fast enough to deal with monitoring a sin-bin. And enough time is already wasted watching coiffured posers rolling around pretending to be injured to get an opponent in trouble.

  There have been 159 sendings-off (henceforth to be referred to as red cards, irrespective of whether the actual card system was in place) in the World Cup Finals, and the progressive statistics show how referees (and by definition FIFA’s) tolerance for foul play has changed:

  Uruguay 1930 – 1

  Italy 1934 – 1

  France 1938 – 4

  Brazil 1950 – 0

  Switzerland 1954 – 3

  Sweden 1958 – 3

  Chile 1962 – 6

  England 1966 – 5

  Mexico 1970 – 0

  West Germany 1974 – 5

  Argentina 1978 – 3

  Spain 1982 – 5

  Mexico 1986 – 8

  Italy 1990 – 16

  United States 1994 – 15

  France 1998 – 22

  Japan & South Korea 2002 – 17

  Germany 2006 – 28

  South Africa 2010 – 17

  The spike in 1990 was after a FIFA clamp-down on the professional foul, including deliberate handball to prevent a goal. The jump from fifteen to twenty-two in 1998 is explained by the addition of another eight teams to the Finals roster.

  The South American countries don’t come out well in these statistics; Uruguay have notched up eight red cards, Argentina ten and – surprisingly top of the list – Brazil eleven. England are way down the list on three, below the USA and Australia. And one of England’s three was for the equivalent of flicking an elastic band at teacher. (See 1986 . . .)

  Three sides, Argentina in 1990 and France and Cameroon in 1998, received three reds in a tournament – oddly, both Argentina and France reached the final.

  Four players have been given their marching orders in the final.

  Two players have been red-carded twice – Zinedine Zidane (a stain on his career th
at he can’t wipe out, great player or not) and Rigobert Song (more forgivable, he was just a clumsy so-and-so).

  The record for most yellow cards in the Finals goes to Cafu, not a dirty player, just one who played a lot of Finals’ matches.

  The Dirtiest Matches in World Cup Finals

  10. Germany 2 Cameroon 0, group match, 2002

  Statistically, this was the dirtiest World Cup Finals game ever, with sixteen bookings from the Spanish referee. There was some stiff tackling, from an uneasy German team in the first half and a panicky Cameroonian side in the second, but it didn’t get out of hand and the number of cautions is more down to some prickly refereeing. Two players got two each of the yellow cards and took the walk of shame. Germany’s Carsten Ramelow earned two yellows in three minutes at the end of the first half, and Patrick Suffo lasted just twenty-three minutes after coming on as a substitute in the second half. Brainless and ill-disciplined, but never a dark game.

  9. South Africa 1 Denmark 1, group match, 1998

  Three red cards, but, again, never what might be termed a violent match. Referee Rendon of Colombia was harshly ridiculed by the press, but all three red cards were justifiable under FIFA’s own guidelines. FIFA, of course, defended their man to the hilt – like bananas they did, they sent him home after this. Peter Schmeichel was among those cautioned, apparently for undermining the referee’s authority – that naughty Mr Ferguson, passing on bad habits . . .