Mammoth Book of the World Cup
Page 25
One footnote. Argentinian pressmen were at great pains to point out what a decent, softly spoken chap Rattín was – the same chap who years later stood for office for a right-wing party with a leader accused of torture and extortion. May be nothing in it.
SEMI-FINALS
THIRD-PLACE MATCH
The Goodison Park semi-final was not one for the squeamish, as West Germany and the Soviet Union squared off. Even without the history between the countries there would have been no prisoners, both sides were full of big, strong players who liked to impose themselves on their opponents.
The game turned on an incident in the first half. Schnellinger went through Chislenko, as was his wont, leaving the winger writhing on the floor as the German defender ran on and sent in Haller to ram home. A moment later a nondescript retaliatory tackle by Chislenko on Held brought a red card from the Italian referee. That was harsh on the Soviets but the better team won, Beckenbauer’s second-half goal settling the result before Porkujan’s late consolation. The Soviets played better in the second half when down to ten men – and missing one of their best, at that – but West Germany did enough. Don’t they always?
Portugal knew they would have to defend better and start better against England than they did against North Korea, and they made two changes at the back, leaving out the guys who kicked Pelé out of the game. Neither side favoured man-marking, so Eusébio and Bobby Charlton were left to free range, but England played Moore a little deeper to allow cover if the Portuguese genius beat his man. The tactics worked: Portugal created little in the first half and England went in one-up after a route-one opener. A long ball from Ray Wilson found Hunt, whose first heavy touch fortuitously took the ball past his marker. Pereira cleared the immediate threat but only found Charlton, who passed the ball nonchalantly back into the net.
The second goal was the near-perfect expression of the same tactic, with no element of luck. Portugal were defending too deep, so Cohen played a long, raking ball into the area. Hurst outmuscled José Carlos with some ease – he was a big, powerful lad – and laid the ball back for Charlton to smash it past Pereira. Cris Freddi suggests (heresy, he admits) the shot took a deflection. Not heresy, Cris, just irrelevant – no one was stopping that rocket.
A rare error from Gordon Banks gave Portugal a glimmer. Banks came for a deep cross and missed it, Torres headed goal-wards and Jack Charlton handled on the line. No prizes for guessing who took the penalty. Banks made amends by tipping a late effort from Coluna over the bar.
The apologists don’t give England enough credit for this win. They grew into this tournament (as winners often do) and looked a good side here, especially the well-organised, compact defence who coped comfortably with a hugely talented forward line. Portugal resorted to deep crosses aimed at Torres – even as good a header of the ball as Jack Charlton had problems with the human telegraph pole.
Portugal seemed happy with third place – they won the meaningless play-off against the USSR; their biggest disappointment was not pressing on following this tournament and continuing to improve. The result was a slide back among the also-rans in the next decade. The England players, if later accounts and interviews are to be believed, were just happy to play opponents who weren’t poking fingers in their eyes or gobbing at them.
World Cup Heroes No.12
Eusébio da Silva Ferreira (1942–)
Portugal
José Carlos Bauer (see Brazil 1950 & 1954; his father was Swiss) went on to be a coach and scout and spotted a youngster playing in Mozambique in the late 1950s. Impressed, he recommended this young Eusébio to both São Paulo and his old friend Béla Guttmann at Benfica; it was Guttmann who trusted Bauer and Eusébio went to Portugal.
The young African star made an almost immediate impact at Benfica – in the summer of 1961 Guttmann brought the youngster off the bench in a summer tournament match against Santos and he scored a second half hat-trick. He was capped for the first time later that year. It was an inauspicious debut as Portugal lost 4–2 to Luxembourg, the first game won by the Duchy in a World Cup qualifier. Ady Schmidt’s hat-trick earned the headlines that day, but the Portuguese debutant would soon be the name on everyone’s lips.
In 1962 Eusébio scored twice as Benfica won the European Cup for the first time, beating the mighty Real Madrid 5–3. He would play in three more Finals, including the 1968 encounter against Manchester United, but wouldn’t win again. Always a generous player to opponents, Eusébio memorably applauded an Alex Stepney save in the dying moments of ordinary time in that terrific match against United.
He ended a twelve-year international career in 1973 as Portugal’s all-time top scorer and with most appearances. Both records have now gone and the top scorer is Pauleta, which feels terribly wrong somehow (see World Cup 2006).
I have read one or two mystifying accounts suggesting Eusébio wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. It was Portugal who weren’t all they were cracked up to be, never able to find a defence to match their scintillating forward line. Eusébio scored nine goals in six matches in the only major tournament in which he played. ’Nuff said.
He was quick (really quick), powerful, had a hammer of a right foot and an okay left, he could head and was a master dead-ball kicker. Apart from that, nah, not much cop.
And unlike so many others he hasn’t spent his years since he retired talking crap and rattling on about how much better it was in his day.
WORLD CUP FINAL No.8
30 July 1966, Wembley Stadium; 93,802
Referee: Gottfried Dienst (Switzerland)
Coaches: Alf Ramsey (England) & Helmut Schön (West Germany)
England (4–3–1–2): Gordon Banks (Leicester City); George Cohen (Fulham), Jack Charlton (Leeds United), Bobby Moore (West Ham United), Ray Wilson (Everton); Alan Ball (Blackpool), Nobby Stiles (Manchester United), Martin Peters (West Ham); Bobby Charlton (Man Utd); Roger Hunt (Liverpool), Geoff Hurst (West Ham)
West Germany (4–3–3): Hans Tilkowski (Borussia Dortmund); Horst Höttges (Werder Bremen), Karl-Heinz Schnellinger (AC Milan), Willi Schulz (Hamburg), Wolfgang Weber (Cologne); Franz Beckenbauer (Bayern Munich), Helmut Haller (Bologna), Wolfgang Overath (Cologne); Siggi Held (Borussia Dortmund), Uwe Seeler (Hamburg), Lothar Emmerich (Borussia Dortmund)
Much has been written about the game, and it has been replayed endlessly on TV, so most football enthusiasts, even those too young to remember the match (this author included, just) have watched it. Remarkable then that the apologists for English football make such a meal of Hurst’s “illegal” goal; to present the result as a grave injustice is nonsense. No, the ball didn’t cross the line; that is incontestable, except by the deluded. But the same people who argue that Argentina would have beaten England in 1986 even without Maradona’s cheating – they are right, by the way – do not present the same argument for this game. England’s superiority may not have been as marked as Argentina’s in that later game, but it was noticeable, and in Charlton they had a player whose presence instilled fear and caution in the West Germany side; it severely inhibited them as an attacking force.
West Germany’s team picked itself after the opening games; a tight defence with Beckenbauer playing just in front, Overath and Haller providing the ammunition, Held and Emmerich out wide and Uwe Seeler, Germany’s best player for a few years now, leading the line. There was talk of England bringing back Jimmy Greaves, but he was barely fit and had been out of form in the group matches, so Ramsey stuck with his replacement, Geoff Hurst, who was no slouch, as his quarter-final performance had shown.
West Germany made the better start; the wet surface aided their slick passing and had they had better wide players than Held and the lumbering Emmerich they would have caused England more problems. The first goal came from a rare misunderstanding between Gordon Banks and one of his full-backs, Ray Wilson, and was scraped in by Helmut Haller. The goal seemed to galvanise England. Bobby Charlton began to push his marker, Franz Beckenbauer, further back, and the youn
gsters Ball and Peters scurried busily in the space left behind. Bobby Moore began to venture further forward, and it was his quickly taken free-kick after a foul by Overath that produced an equaliser, Hurst eluding his marker and burying a powerful header.
England looked in control now, without ever threatening to over-run the disciplined German defence. Their build-up was patient – none of the helter-skelter stuff so often criticised by England teams at previous tournaments – but the final ball or cross was thwarted by a thumping tackle from Hottges or Schnellinger or Weber, or a neat interception by Schultz or Beckenbauer, showing already the defensive nous that would make him the leader of Germany’s greatest generation of players. England just about deserved the next goal – but it was a scrappy affair, Peters ramming home after a Hurst shot was blocked. The late equaliser by Weber was equally unmemorable; a poke over a despairing Banks after some penalty-box-ping-pong. The teams were well matched, and the game was still in the balance.
Alf Ramsey had his finest moment, as he stood ramrod-straight and stared down his crestfallen team, exhorting them to go and win again a match they had won once. The manner of the winning goal was unfortunate, but England dominated extra-time, the energy of Ball and Stiles and the cool distribution of Moore and Peters pushing the Germans deeper into their own half. Stiles overhit a pass to Ball, but the little feller chased it down and belted it back into the middle. Hurst beat his marker to the ball and hammered it – no luck about the strike, it was clean and hard – against the underside of the bar. The referee prevaricated and bottled it; the linesman, Tofik Bakhramov, made the wrong call; England won the World Cup. England’s fourth was a classic break as a tired West Germany chased the game, a sumptuous pass from Moore setting Hurst clear to make his own personal mark on World Cup history.
The English penchant for self-flagellation has marked the third goal as a roaring controversy. It is not a view shared by the German players – all but the goalkeeper Tilkowski acknowledge the best side on the day and in the competition won the tournament. England were favourites and, a statistic few writers note, had never lost an international match to Germany or West Germany. England were not the best team to win a World Cup, but they weren’t the worst either; they had four world-class players and the rest were all top international standard, with the exception of Jack Charlton and Stiles, and these two performed very specific functions within the framework of the side. England were beaten only rarely in the late sixties, and only by good sides – they were the second-best team at the next World Cup in Mexico behind one of the best Brazilian sides to take the field, so to suggest they only won the cup because of a slice of luck and home advantage is twaddle.
I still don’t know if the shot was in or not. I have to say that I was standing in a poor position for that shot, exactly head-on instead of diagonal with the goal. I wouldn’t have allowed the goal if Bakhramov hadn’t pointed to the middle with his flag.
Gottfried Dienst, Final referee,
in an interview many years later
England Squad 1966:
GK: Gordon Banks (Leicester City, 29 years old, 27 caps) Ron Springett (Sheffield Wednesday, 30, 33), Peter Bonetti (Chelsea, 24, 1)
DEF: Jimmy Armfield (Blackpool, 30, 43), Gerry Byrne (Liverpool, 27, 2), Jack Charlton (Leeds United, 31, 16), George Cohen (Fulham, 26, 24), Norman Hunter (Leeds, 22, 4), Bobby Moore (West Ham United, 25, 41), Ray Wilson (Everton, 31, 45)
MID & WIDE: Alan Ball (Blackpool, 21, 10), Ian Callaghan (Liverpool, 21, 1), John Connelly (Manchester United, 27, 19), George Eastham (Arsenal, 29, 19), Ron Flowers (Wolverhampton Wanderers, 31, 49), Terry Paine (Southampton, 27, 18), Martin Peters (West Ham, 22, 3), Nobby Stiles (Man Utd, 24, 14)
FWD: Bobby Charlton (Man Utd, 28, 68), Jimmy Greaves (Tottenham Hotspur, 26, 51), Roger Hunt (Liverpool, 27, 13), Geoff Hurst (West Ham, 24, 4)
World Cup Heroes No.13
Geoff Hurst (1941–)
England
The first World Cup I remember was the 1970 tournament. I recall thinking England were invincible – we had the two Bobbies, Gordon Banks, my hero Peter Osgood and, of course, Geoff Hurst. Hurst had scored a hat-trick in the 1966 Final, I read all about it, so he had to the best, didn’t he?
No, actually, in 1966 he was very much the third-choice striker behind the prolific Jimmy Greaves and Roger Hunt. The West Ham man, then twenty-four, had only been handed an England debut in the spring – he had four caps, while Hunt had thirteen and Greaves over fifty. Weirdly they were the only three out-and-out strikers in the squad, so, when Greaves picked up an injury, Hurst was in. His goal against Argentina and another bustling performance against Portugal, setting up Bobby Charlton’s second goal, cemented his place in the final, even when Greaves was declared fit.
Hurst was back at the World Cup in Mexico in 1970, and added another splendid hard-working shift to his CV. He scored in the first game, worked his butt off against Brazil, was rested for the third group match and played wonderfully well in the fateful encounter with West Germany in León. Hurst was probably at his peak then – his career tailed off a little after that World Cup, both at domestic and international level.
Hurst only came through as a player in his early twenties, after he stopped flirting with a first class cricket career (a couple of seasons with Essex Second XI and one, slightly embarrassing, first team game against Lancashire, the county where he was born). He was part of the “School of Science” West Ham side coached by future England boss Ron Greenwood. West Ham had an excellent youth system and a cavalier way of playing that endeared them to neutrals, but the notion that the World Cup-winning side was “built” around the West Ham trio of Moore, Hurst and Peters is nonsense – the last two only established themselves during the tournament. All of Hurst’s England caps came during his thirteen years at West Ham, which also brought him an FA Cup and a European Cup Winners’ Cup medal – you didn’t stay at West Ham to fill the trophy cupboard, they were an entertaining dilettante side, not serial winners.
Hurst had no particular attribute that made him stand out; he was quick enough without being express, strong and good in the air without being a battering ram, dexterous enough without being gifted. He was a good, unselfish team player, which endeared him to Ramsey, and was a conspicuous trier, which endeared him to fans.
Hurst spent a few years as a coach, assisting his former mentor Ron Greenwood, with England and taking over at Chelsea in 1979. He wasn’t an especially good manager and started up an insurance business instead, at which he proved more successful. Hurst became Sir Geoffrey in 1998, for no apparent reason other than something he achieved thirty-two years previously. But then, if pressed, I would admit to believing the entire honours system is a combination of fatuous PR stunt and maintenance of the established order. And yes, I would back my convictions, so no thank you, Prime Minister, kind of you to ask . . .
So, Sir Geoff. Not a folk hero but part of a hard-working, successful unit. Not a great footballer, but a very good one, and one with a unique place in football history, even if one of them shouldn’t have counted.
1966 Team of the Tournament: 4–2–4
Lee Chan-myung (North Korea)
Schnellinger (West Germany) Shesternev (USSR) Moore (England) Marzolini (Argentina)
Beckenbauer (West Germany) Ball (England)
Bene (Hungary) Albert (Hungary) Eusébio (Portugal) R Charlton (England)
Leading scorers: Eusébio (9); Haller (6); Bene, Beckenbauer, Porkujan, Hurst (4)
The official All Star XI selected by FIFA was: Banks (England); Cohen (England), Moore (England), Vicente (Portugal), Marzolini (Argentina); Beckenbauer (West Germany), Coluna (Portugal), R Charlton (England); Albert (Hungary), Seeler (West Germany), Eusébio (Portugal) – not too much difference, and I only left out Banks because I intended to include him in 1970 (and the Korean ’keeper was utterly heroic).
Heaven Eleven No.5
England
Coach:
Bob Paisley – well why no
t? He’s the only English coach to win the European Cup. Ramsey had severe tactical limitations, Bobby Robson was indecisive, Hoddle was . . . well, see 1998, and Venables, the best coach the FA actually employed, was just a little too much of a geezer
Here we go then. Cue hate mail from the Steven Gerrard fans.
Goalkeepers:
David Seaman: fabulous
Peter Shilton: better
Gordon Banks: best
Defenders:
Bobby Moore: stupendous player
Billy Wright: played his best stuff as a defender in his thirties
Terry Butcher: the best stopper we’ve had, just pips Adams and Terry
Rio Ferdinand: cover for Moore – not everyone’s cup of tea, but a brilliant player on his game
Jimmy Armfield: best right-back in the world for a couple of years
Ashley Cole: England’s best player for a decade
Stuart Pearce: much more than the sum of his parts, a laudable self-made player
Midfield & Wide:
Duncan Edwards: if only . . .
Alan Ball: the fourth world-class player in the ’66 side
Bobby Charlton: class, his shooting was worth the admission alone
Stanley Matthews: amazing player