The Football Tragic

Perhaps the most significant event in the history of the Italian national football team was the living nightmare of the 1-0 loss to North Korea at the 1966 World Cup.

It wasn't just that they were beaten by an unknown Asian side, and thereby eliminated from the tournament. They had been reduced to ten men for most of the match, after all. It was that they had only just exorcised an existing World Cup demon by beating Chile in their opening match - the team that had defeated them in a notorious game at the previous tournament - only to give life to an even more horrendous one. The players and the ill-fated coach, Edmondo Fabbri, were pelted with rotten tomatoes at the airport when they arrived home. "Ugly. Very ugly," recalled the legendary Sandro Mazzola in an interview many years afterwards.

Although the Azzurri then triumphed at the Nations Cup on home turf two years later, largely thanks to the goalscoring exploits of the powerful Luigi Riva of Cagliari, the World Cup was still haunted ground. And it was in a haunted spirit that they approached the next tournament, in Mexico. 

The dominant Inter Milan team of the mid-sixties, of catenaccio fame, had made it their habit to sit deep and defend their lead after scoring an early goal in important ties. And increasingly, the Italian national team began to adopt this approach at the World Cup in key matches. Tight man-to-man marking at the back, a sweeper to pick up the pieces, a couple of water-carriers in midfield, and a lonely, battling figure up front who rarely saw much of the ball.

The template for this approach was set in their first game of the 1970 tournament. Their opponents, Sweden, were a semi-professional side, although their star player Ove Kindvall had just helped Feyenoord to win the European Cup. But the hardened Serie A professionals, with the celebrated Riva leading the line, should have been firm favourites to win. In the game, however, you would have thought that the Azzurri were the underdogs who had gotten an early, lucky break and were desperately holding on to it in the hope of an upset. 

The Korean curse was still very much alive and well. "The Italians...played in a lather of foreboding, as if defeat would result in execution," wrote Brian Glanville in his World Cup history. And poor Riva was the man who suffered. Heralded as one of the likely stars of the tournament, he was barely sighted against the Swedes.

Italy began well enough, with the busy, constructive Giancarlo De Sisti looking good in midfield, and the right-winger Angelo Domenghini put them ahead with a somewhat fortuitous goal. But from then on, rigid catenaccio was the order of the day. Sweden's one-paced midfield anchorman Tommy Svensson - later to coach Sweden to third place at the 1994 tournament - was given acres of space in midfield, as the Italians trusted in their ferocious man-marking to snuff out any danger. And there was very little danger, for an important reason: the Swedes posed very little threat when it came to shots from distance. 

At the other end of the field, to say that Riva received little service would be an understatement. The prolific scorer of Cagliari's recent Serie A triumph and Italy's Nations Cup qualifiers was reduced to battling vainly for long, hopeful balls forward, while being shadowed very ably by Jan Olsson. But Italy survived until the final whistle, and at least had an opening win to show for their efforts.

Perhaps dismayed by his enforced cameo role against Sweden, Riva seemed to lose confidence and sharpness for the rest of the opening phase; against the minnows Israel, in particular, he missed two very easy chances which a striker of his stature would normally have gobbled up. (In fairness, he also scored what looked to be a perfectly good headed goal, which was harshly ruled out for offside.) There were no more Italian goals in these two games, but their opponents also failed to score. Through to the quarter-finals, mission accomplished. It was Inter in the mid-60s, to the life.

Continued in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 12:06 PM 0 comments

Hristo Bonev's missed penalty in Sofia provides us with one of football's more intriguing counter-factuals. If he had scored, if Bulgaria had won 3-2, if the French had suffered another devastating qualifying defeat thanks to a dubious decision by the referee, would the French have qualified for the 1978 World Cup? And if not, would the great French revival of the 1980s have happened?

It would have been a very tough ask to qualify after an initial defeat. As well as the Bulgarians, the qualifying group in question contained a strong Republic of Ireland side which featured such players as Liam Brady, Steve Heighway, Frank Stapleton and a young David O'Leary. The Irish, indeed, beat the French in Dublin later in the qualifying series, which obliged Les Bleus to win their final game at home, against...Bulgaria. Which they duly did, with Michel Platini again to the fore.

Apart from reaching their first World Cup tournament in 12 years, there were two long-term consequences of the result in Sofia, in my view. The first is that Michel Hidalgo did not feel obliged, as might have happened in the wake of a defeat, to restrain the open, attacking football which became a French trademark in the years to come. At the 1978 World Cup, although the French failed to progress from an exceptionally tough first-round group, they impressed most neutrals with their football and were very unlucky to go down 2-1 to the eventual champions Argentina in one of the most exciting games of the event.

The second is that Hidalgo kept faith with the youngsters who had gained the result in Sofia, and these youngsters were to form the core of the team that became the world-renowned French side of the mid-80s. In Sofia, Marius Trésor was the only outfield survivor from the final match of the miserable 1976 Nations Cup campaign, but in their crucial match of the next World Cup qualifying series, a do-or-die clash with the Netherlands in Paris, seven of those who took the field in Sofia were starting once more - five years down the track, in 1981. And it would have been eight had Dominique Rocheteau been fit to start in 1976.

That match against Holland showed a different side of Les Bleus. Once again, the French had landed in a very difficult qualifying group, featuring not only the Netherlands, runners-up in the previous two World Cups, but Belgium, finalists in the previous Nations Cup, and the Irish once again. By the time of the Holland match, the French could only hope to qualify with a win, and this time the team creaked badly in the first half, barely creating a single chance. 

But by this time the French side had learned to "win hard" as well. When Platini broke the deadlock early in the second half - inevitably, from a free kick - the team gradually assumed control. But something else was noticeable: when the Dutch launched a final series of assaults on the French goal, Hidalgo's men showed some "game smarts" which had been quite absent in Sofia. They slowed the tempo, they took their time over goalkicks and free kicks; they acted, in fact, like the experienced unit they now were. It was a game which presaged, in many ways, their less-than-sparkling win over Spain in the final of the Nations Cup they won so impressively otherwise in 1984.

As for the Bulgarians, their fortunes dipped after Bonev's missed penalty. By contrast with the French, their team underwent many changes in the years to come; in their own crucial qualifier of the 1982 World Cup series, a home tie with Austria, there were only two outfield survivors of Sofia, and the team was held to a 0-0 draw, ensuring their elimination. It was only in 1986 that they returned to the World Cup, and it was an unimpressive showing.

There was to be a further twist in the tale many years later, when a stunning home defeat to Bulgaria eliminated a talented young French side from the 1994 World Cup in the United States. At that tournament, the Bulgarians were to surprise everyone by reaching the semi-finals, inspired by another free-kick maestro in the mould of Bonev - a certain Hristo Stoichkov.

But that's another story.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 10:05 AM 1 comments

The opening stages of the qualifier between Bulgaria and France in Sofia were tense ones for the young French side. Bulgaria, roared on by the crowd, went vibrantly into attack, and the French defence looked distinctly jittery in the first few minutes, even the relatively experienced keeper Dominique Baratelli. Although Hristo Bonev was already being kept in check by the tough Dominique Bathenay, the striker Pavel Panov was providing many anxious moments, and it was he who forced Baratelli into a crucial save on 12 minutes. 

Not for the last time that afternoon, Marius Trésor provided the reassurance at the back, his judgement in the air and on the ground blunting several Bulgarian sallies. Slowly, Michel Hidalgo's talented side worked its way into the game, with the fullbacks Bossis and Janvion getting forward regularly, and Michel Platini beginning to direct operations in the centre.

Deservedly, Platini opened the scoring on 38 minutes; Bathenay touched a free kick off to him, and he sent a rocket of a right-footed shot into the top corner of Toshko Krastev's goal. It was a goal good enough to stun any team, even one with Bulgaria's imposing home record, and two minutes later they went further behind when Bathenay forced his way through the midfield and put in a shot which Krastev couldn't hold, the centre-forward Bernard Lacombe following up to drive the ball in. Suddenly, the side which hadn't lost a World Cup qualifier at home for nearly 20 years was 2-0 down.

But players of class can often turn a game unexpectedly, and Bonev pulled a precious goal back for his side just before half-time, when his free kick from 20 yards was deflected in.

Bulgaria started the second half even more vigorously than they had the first. An energetic winger, Chavdar Tsvetkov, had come on as substitute, and soon the powerful striker Atanas Aleksandrov would join him. Only a desperate clearance from Christian Lopez blunted an early Bulgarian attack, and soon Baratelli had to punch clear from another insidious Bonev free kick. At the other end, Krastev had to be alert to a header from Platini.

The inexperience of the French team was starting to become apparent. Maintaining the dangerously high offside line they had adopted in the first half, and failing to slow the game down in dead-ball situations, they were playing into the Bulgarians' hands. Amazingly, too, when the French made a substitution, it was another attacker, Olivier Rouyer, who came on for an ineffectual Didier Six. An Italy, a Uruguay, and probably an England or Germany too would surely have taken their time over goalkicks, slowed the general tempo of the game, and reinforced the defence. But this was clearly not the style of Hidalgo and his team.

It was also becoming clear that the referee Foote was starting to favour the home side: the noise and proximity of the crowd seemed to be having an effect. This was to contribute significantly to the dramatic climax.

Just after the hour, Baratelli, growing in confidence and courage, made a fine save from Aleksandrov. A brilliant swerving run by Tsvetkov on the left ended with a cross to Panov, whose header was cleared off the line by Lopez. Another shot from Aleksandrov, another save, and from the resulting corner Bonev headed against the bar. Bulgaria were coming closer.

Against the run of play, at the other end, Platini surged into the box and should really have had a penalty when Krastev tripped him. The first serious reason for the French to find fault with Mr. Foote, but it wouldn't be the last. A minute later, Bulgaria finally broke through: another fine left-wing run and cross, a header back across goal by Aleksandrov, and Panov finally beat Baratelli. 2-2.

As Bulgaria stormed forward in search of an unlikely winner, again it was the immaculate Trésor who saved the French time and again with his positioning and clearances. A chance for the French to score a third at the other end was squandered by the unfortunate Jean Gallice, Dominique Rocheteau's replacement, when he prodded wide after a marvellous run and cross from the substitute Rouyer.

As in 1961, the game slowed down towards the close, with the Bulgarians looking tired, and it seemed as if a draw was on the cards. Then...pandemonium.

On a final run into the box, Bonev is pursued by his shadow Bathenay. Down goes the Bulgarian captain, making the most of contact which was minimal if it existed at all. Mr. Foote blows his whistle; penalty.

The spotlight now falls on the exuberant French commentator Thierry Roland. For many years the voice of French football, Roland had often been described as more of a fan than a commentator, and after this dreadful echo of 1961, he could not restrain himself, and launched into an excoriation of the referee that has gone down in French football folklore.

"Mr. Foote, you are a bastard. There's no other word for it!" he cried. "Robbery: absolute, plain robbery." Later, he opined that Foote should be in prison rather than on a football pitch.

Bonev, in his slow, loping manner, prepared to take the penalty himself.

"All we can hope for now is for the good God of football to be on Baratelli's side," commented Roland.

And incredibly, he was. Bonev, the dead-ball specialist, Bulgaria's top man, shot wide of the left-hand post.

France had escaped. And Bulgaria's winning record was broken at last.

And the repercussions of the result were considerable. More in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 7:54 PM 0 comments

By the time the qualifying series for the 1978 World Cup came around, French football seemed ripe for a revival of sorts. At club level, St. Etienne had become a real force in the European Cup; reaching the final in 1976, they gave the all-conquering Bayern Munich a hectic run for their money before going down 1-0 in Glasgow. Elsewhere, there were other young players making an impact: the talented winger Didier Six at Valenciennes, the tough fullback Maxime Bossis at Nantes, and a certain gifted attacking midfielder and dead-ball specialist from Nancy named Michel Platini.

The national team was under new management, too; the Romanian Stefan Kovacs, who had taken the reins of the French team after steering Ajax to their European Cup triumphs, gave way to his assistant Michel Hidalgo, whose work in developing the young players was to bear fruit in the years ahead. Hidalgo made plenty of changes straight away: remarkably, the team that faced Bulgaria contained only one of the outfield players who had taken part in France’s last competitive international, a 0-0 draw with Belgium in late 1975. That one survivor was the magisterial sweeper Marius Trésor, who had established himself in the national team over the past few years, and who was to play superbly in Sofia.

The contrast between Bulgaria’s performances in World Cup qualifying and their efforts at the tournament itself was striking. In four consecutive World Cup appearances, their generally dull, cautious sides had failed to progress from the group phase (in fact, they had failed even to win a game). Yet they had been dominant in the qualifiers, and boasted a formidable home record: incredibly, they had won every single home World Cup qualifier since 1957. And their opposition in that time had included such European mainstays as Holland, Poland, Belgium and, of course, France. Passionate home support, far more vocal than was the norm in Eastern Europe, had helped…but there were concerns in some quarters that the refereeing, as in 1961, had played a role as well. The man in the middle for this first qualifying match was the Scotsman Ian Foote, who was to become far better known after this match; not, perhaps, for the best of reasons.

Needless to say, the Bulgarians were hardly bereft of talent during their successful period. In the 1960s, they had produced a striker of world class in Georgi Asparuhov, scorer of a famous goal against England at Wembley, among many others. But an injury dimmed his effectiveness in Mexico in 1970 when he was at his peak, and the following year he died in a tragic accident. The torch of Bulgarian football had been passed to the classy playmaker and free-kick specialist Hristo Bonev, who had impressed at both the Mexican and West German World Cups. Now 29, and captain of the side, he was the man the Bulgarians trusted to keep their impressive home record going against the French. And, indeed, his was to be the vital role in the match.

If the events of 1961 were hardly fresh in the memories of the players, many of whom had barely started school when Iliev scored his controversial goal, there were more recent events that could serve to sharpen feelings. Only a couple of weeks before the qualifier, St. Etienne had eliminated Bulgarian champions CSKA Sofia from the European Cup in a tight, bad-tempered tie. Seven players who had taken part in the tie took the field for their countries as well in Sofia; not among them, to Hidalgo’s disappointment, was the celebrated young winger Dominique Rocheteau, who had succumbed again to the injury which had relegated him to a cameo role in the European Cup final.

The stage, then, was enticingly set. When the young French side came onto the field in Sofia, they must have gotten a sense of what had propelled the Bulgarians to victory in so many qualifying matches against comparable teams: a wave of noise from the Levski stadium greeted them, and the Bulgarians surged into attack from the opening whistle.

To be continued…

# posted by Mike Salter @ 5:52 PM 0 comments

When asked about agonizing, so-near-yet-so-far World Cup qualifying failures, Australians would no doubt point to November 29, 1997 and Khodadad Azizi slipping the offside trap to score for Iran. An Irish fan might remember a certain “handy” intervention by Thierry Henry. Costa Ricans could talk about the time the USA scored an equalizer in the fifth minute of injury time, to deprive them of a place at South Africa 2010.

But for the French, the ultimate qualifying tragedy occurred on the 12th of November, 1961, in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

France was enjoying its most successful period yet in international football. Bronze medallists at the 1958 World Cup, in which they scored an avalanche of goals and delighted the fans with their graceful, short-passing style, they had reached the last four of the inaugural European Nations Cup in 1960 as well. Qualification for the 1962 World Cup in Chile seemed almost a formality after they cruised through their opening qualifying games, scoring ten goals in three matches.

The final qualifier took place in Sofia, with relatively unfancied Bulgaria two points behind the French in their group. The French played a game of containment, blunting the attacks of the young forward Dimitar Yakimov and the experienced winger Ivan Kolev, and a minute from the close, the score was still 0-0. France were virtually on the plane.

Then came a deeply dubious Bulgarian goal. First, the French inside-forward Lucien Muller, on the edge of his own area, was barged into by Hristo Iliev. Remarkably, the referee awarded a free kick to Bulgaria. From the resulting kick, Iliev himself scored, despite a clear offside in the box.

1-0, and France and Bulgaria level on points. Although the French were far ahead on goal difference, this did not count in those far-off days, and a playoff was arranged on neutral territory. Sure enough, in Milan a month later, the Bulgarians won by the same scoreline against a demoralized French side, and qualified for the World Cup for the first time.

The two countries’ trajectories then reversed direction. Bulgaria became a World Cup regular, qualifying for four successive tournaments, and gained a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics. France, on the other hand, entered a period of mediocrity. They did at least gain a measure of revenge by eliminating Bulgaria from the 1964 Nations Cup, and qualified for the 1966 World Cup in England. But there was not to be a repeat of 1958: they went out meekly, their delicate short passing coming up short against the greater physical power of Uruguay and England.

The early seventies were a lean period indeed for France. Failing to qualify for two World Cups, and foundering in the 1972 and 1976 Nations Cups as well, they searched in vain above all for great attacking players to replace the legendary Fontaine and Kopa. It says something about the dearth of talent up front that they went to great lengths in an attempt to naturalise the prolific Salif Keita, the St. Etienne striker who had taken French football by storm in the late 1960s. But Keita stayed loyal to his native Mali.

Come the qualification series for the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, Bulgaria had to be faced again. And the opening match would take place in Sofia.

It was to be a pivotal match in the footballing history of both countries. More in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 5:01 PM 0 comments

Tunisia's final 1978 group opponents, defending champions West Germany, had come to life after their dull opening draw against Poland; they had put six goals past Mexico, who were still smarting from their first-up loss to the African side. The German team had been improved by the addition of the young Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in midfield, who had scored twice against the Mexicans. But following the Tunisians' victory against Mexico and their second-half onslaught against the Poles, German manager Helmut Schoen would not have been inclined to take Abdelmajid Chetali's team lightly.

There were subsequently rumours that Schoen had "settled for a draw" against Tunisia in order to be placed in a more favourable second-round group, but these are hard to believe; for one thing, the match was played a day before the placings in two of the opening four groups were decided. For another, if the Germans had conceded a goal, they were out...at the hands of the 1000-1 outsiders.

So then: an encounter between the defending champions, medal-winners at the past three tournaments, and the first-time entrants. Yet in the first half, the Tunisians matched the West Germans as they had matched the Poles. Rainer Bonhof, a star in 1974 and supposedly the Germans' trump card in midfield, was surprisingly ineffectual. Rummenigge posed more danger, but there was no-one to apply the finish that his incisive runs deserved; the loss of Gerd Muller was keenly felt.

The Tunisians were not just soaking up the pressure. The fullbacks made their way upfield regularly, and just before half-time Sepp Maier had to make a smart save from Mohammed Agrebi. The contrast between the Tunisians' short-passing game and the individual runs of the Germans was making it a very watchable game, despite the relative lack of goalmouth action.

On the hour, Mokhtar Naili again came into the picture, making a brilliant save from the German centre-forward Klaus Fischer, a peripheral figure up to that point. Then Tunisia started to get on top, as they had against Poland, and the chance to pull off an improbable win again fell to the mercurial Ali Kaabi. Once again, the left-back drifted unnoticed into the box on 68 minutes and was presented with a free header; once again, he sent it wide. And once again, the Argentinian crowd took up the chant of "Tu-NEZ! Tu-NEZ!" as the ultimate upset seemed within reach.

But it was not to be. The Germans gradually regained control of the game, but five minutes from the end they decided to "agree the draw" that would see them scrape into the second round. The Tunisians, like New Zealand against Paraguay 32 years later, contented themselves with the laurel of a draw against such distinguished opposition, rather than risking a final assault which might have seen them through to the next phase.

0-0 it finished. A win, a draw and a narrow loss for the African first-timers against the three "respected" football nations, and their impact was immediate: FIFA granted Africa two full places at the forthcoming tournament, and the Tunisians' feats in Argentina inspired their successors to adopt a similarly confident approach to the event. Algeria, in 1982, went one better than Tunisia in defeating the Germans, while the other African team at the Spanish World Cup, Cameroon, went through the first round without defeat, missing out on a second-round place only on goal difference to...the eventual champions, Italy.

The Tunisians themselves were not to repeat their success: knocked out by Nigeria in the first round of the qualifiers for 1982, they were to endure a long period in the World Cup wilderness. But never mind: they had proven the point, reinforced many times since, that African teams were no longer easybeats at the big event.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 5:18 PM 0 comments

The 1978 Tunisians' first-up win over Mexico had been a surprise, but it was generally expected that their encounter with 1974 bronze medallists Poland would bring them down to earth.

The Polish side was little changed since the West German tournament, with only the creative midfielder Robert Gadocha a notable absentee. And Wlodzimierz Lubanski, the renowned forward who had missed the 1974 event with an injury, was available this time around. But the team had looked somewhat uninspired in the opening draw with West Germany, and a little too reliant on the two heroes of the previous World Cup, the midfield general Kazimierz Deyna and the right-winger Grzegorz Lato.

Abdelmajid Chetali made only one change to the side that had defeated Mexico, the striker Ben Aziza making way for the rugged defender Khalid Gasmi, who was given the task of keeping Deyna in check. 

With their main man under close guard and their striker, Andrzej Szarmach, plainly out of form, Poland looked ponderous in the first half. Once again the Tunisians employed the full-team offside press that had functioned so well against Mexico, and although they were twice very lucky with the offside decisions awarded in their favour, the tactic generally had its desired effect. Only Lato looked consistently dangerous, always looking for an opening, always willing to run with the ball.

Tunisia, it must be said, were less than incisive up front as well, and as in their previous game they conceded a potentially demoralising goal just before half-time. The mercurial Ali Kaabi badly miscued a clearance in the box, and Lato was immediately on hand to bang the ball home. 

Once again, however, they rallied splendidly after the break. Although Tarek Dhiab, with his pinpoint left-footed passes, was at the heart of things as always, the keeper Mokhtar Naili played a significant part in the revival as well, making two excellent saves from Szarmach and Lubanski. As the game wore on, the question again arose: could these part-timers keep up with the professionals in the fitness stakes in the closing stages?

The answer was amply provided in a final twenty minutes in which the Poles were completely outplayed. A superb one-touch move through the midfield ended with a shot from Tunisia's captain, Temime Lahzami, which crashed against the Polish bar. From that moment on, the chances came thick and fast: one for the adventurous left-back Kaabi, two for the right-sided midfielder Mohammed Agrebi, as the crowd began to chant "Tu-NEZ! Tu-NEZ!" - there was no question who the neutrals were favouring by now.

The Poles were reduced to time-wasting tactics, which they indulged in to some degree towards the close. The introduction of the young striker Zbigniew Boniek, who should surely have been on from the beginning, blunted the Tunisian onslaught to some extent, but there was still time for Kaabi to receive a completely free header five yards from goal, which he put agonisingly wide.

The Poles reacted with visible relief to the final whistle. The commentators were agreed that Tunisia had deserved a point from the game. The Guardian, the following day, reported that the Tunisians "showed no sense of inferiority" against the Poles, who were "hanging on desperately" towards the end. An African team was proving itself worthy of respect at the World Cup. And they still had a chance of progressing - if they could pull off the ultimate upset, against the reigning champions, in their final game. More in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 6:46 PM 0 comments

The opening match of the 1978 World Cup was a sluggish, uninspiring 0-0 draw between the defending champions West Germany and Poland. Neither side looked remotely as good as they had in 1974; the Germans were now without the likes of (Gerd) Muller, Hoeness, Breitner, Overath, Grabowski and, of course, Franz Beckenbauer, while many of the Poles were now pushing 30, and it showed.

It seemed that whichever side could take the points in the other first-up match in the group would give themselves a decent chance of progressing, with the two group favourites looking so mediocre. Most pundits thought it could be Mexico's chance to finally progress past the first round on foreign turf. Instead, it turned out to be the tournament's first real surprise, and a landmark in Africa's participation at the event. 

Mexico fielded two young strikers in Victor Rangel and Hugo Sanchez, with the experienced Antonio De La Torre expected to direct operations in midfield. Abdelmajid Chetali had been impressed enough with young Mokhtar Naili to start him in goal in the cauldron of a World Cup, and gave a start to another youngster, the sweeper Amor Jebali, in place of the injured Khalid Gasmi. 

The first half of the match was, perhaps unexpectedly, fairly even. True, the Mexicans often bossed the midfield through De La Torre and the unmistakable figure of Leonardo Cuellar, but the Tunisians gave as good as they got, with Tarek Dhiab's left foot regularly finding openings and the fullbacks providing sufficient width. 

Just before half-time, however, came a dreadful blow. De La Torre, on the left, jabbed a fairly innocuous ball into the box; it struck the arm of the unfortunate Jebali and a penalty was given. The handball could hardly have been considered intentional, but such decisions were often given, even in those rather less stringent days. Vasquez-Ayala's weak spot-kick crept in, although Naili very nearly reached it.

It was a tribute to Chetali's benign influence that the team came out after half-time as positive and composed as before, and an equalizer came soon after the break. Perhaps fittingly, it was Ali Kaabi, whose left-wing excursions had provided a useful outlet throughout the game, who scored: after Dhiab had cleverly drawn several Mexican defenders to him, the midfielder Mohammed Agrebi was able to cross from the right to the advancing Kaabi, whose less-than-formidable shot skidded through a forest of legs in the box to beat the Mexican keeper Jose Pillar-Reyes, who may well have been unsighted.

It was no less than Tunisia deserved, but Mexico were now on the warpath. Only a couple of minutes after the goal, Naili proved his worth when a lazy back-pass from Kaabi forced him to plunge at the feet of Rangel. As the half wore on, Mexico began to look the more likely winners: a substitute, Gerardo Lugo, added fresh ideas and bite to their attack, and it seemed that the predictions of many experts, that the Tunisian part-timers might be vulnerable to tiredness in the latter stages of games, might come true.

The key moment of the game arrived on 76 minutes.

Lugo prodded the ball forward, and it reached De La Torre via a deflection; for once, the Tunisian offside trap was well and truly breached, and the Mexican midfield general was clear through on goal. Naili did what he could to narrow the angle, but it looked a straightforward finish. De La Torre sliced the ball wide.

Had he scored, it is doubtful that the Tunisians would have recovered; the momentum was against them, and they may have lost faith in their offside tactic. Instead, the miss gave them a second wind, and within less than two minutes, they went ahead. With several Mexicans caught upfield, the Tunisian captain Lahzami neatly found Dhiab, whose superbly-weighted pass fell into the path of the holding midfielder Nejib Ghommidh. A nicely-placed right-footed shot from the edge of the six-yard box, and the score was 2-1.

Tunisia's third goal, the finest of the night, was reminiscent of Brazil's magnificent final flourish at the 1970 tournament. Again Ghommidh received the ball in an advanced position, and this time spotted the other fullback, Mokhtar Dhouib, on a rampaging run down the right. No-one was tracking him, and Ghommidh, Pelé-like, slid the ball expertly into his path. Dhouib, in turn, gave his best Carlos Alberto impression, finishing crisply from a narrow angle.

For the first time in a World Cup, an African team had won. The Tunisian players acknowledged the crowd on all sides of the Estadio Rosario, who had given them generous support; in their two subsequent games, the Carthage Eagles would become even firmer crowd favourites. 

Against all expectations, qualification for the next round was now within reach for the 1000-1 outsiders. But two European giants, Poland and Germany, were to come.

To be continued...

# posted by Mike Salter @ 6:45 PM 0 comments

By 1978, the reputation of African teams in international football was at a low ebb.

The early history of African participation in the postwar World Cups was one of infighting, mass walkouts and humiliating play-off defeats. It was only from 1970 onwards that the oldest continent was allotted a full place at the 16-team event, and results in the Mexican and West German tournaments led many in world football to believe that even this single spot was scarcely deserved.

The Moroccans of 1970 actually went ahead against a disjointed West Germany in their opening game, but once Helmut Schoen belatedly added some width to the German side with the introduction of Jürgen Grabowski, the Moroccans were overrun. A 3-0 defeat to a Teofilo Cubillas-inspired Peru followed, and their final match, a dead rubber, ended in a 1-1 draw. The Atlas Lions were hardly disgraced, but had not excelled either.

It was with the performance of Zaire in 1974 that the nadir was reached. Not only did the African representatives in West Germany ship 14 goals without reply, but their appearance at the event only served to reinforce all the pernicious stereotypes of African football: the rows between players and corrupt officials, the bizarre hangers-on, and the on-field buffoonery, including the infamous Ilunga Mwepu free-kick incident (it was later revealed that the defender was actually trying to get himself sent off, as a protest against the Zairean officials).

No surprise, then, that the Tunisians of 1978 were rated as 1000-1 outsiders for the event, and the Guardian described Tunisia as being "at the bottom of everyone's list" of contenders. But this was a new type of African team, and their manager, Abdelmajid Chetali, was a new breed of manager.

Chetali deserves pride of place in this story. An experienced former international, he was the first local coach to lead an African team to a postwar World Cup - the previous two teams had been managed by the former Yugoslav international Blagoje Vidinic - and he was young enough, at 38, to have played with some of the elder statesmen of the team. More importantly, he was no naive provincial: he had obtained coaching qualifications in Germany, and followed European football closely. The World Cup in Argentina would prove him to be an astute tactician, and an inspiring presence on the bench.

The side he had built, made up largely of amateurs, was a compact and well-organised one. Favouring the short pass in midfield, they made up for their lack of width with the upfield excursions of the two adventurous fullbacks, Ali Kaabi on the left and Mokhtar Dhouib on the right. In midfield, creativity and penetration were provided by the gifted young left-footed playmaker Tarek Dhiab, and the tough, incisive Temime Lahzami, the only full professional in the side, who had plied his trade in Saudi Arabia. Chetali had clearly been inspired by the whole-team offside press adopted by the Dutch in the 1974 World Cup, and his side executed the manoeuvre with admirable precision.

Tunisia's form going into the World Cup hardly inspired confidence. Thrashed 4-0 at home by the Dutch, they played a final preparatory friendly against France in May, losing 2-0. The result would have been in line with most pundits' expectations, but shrewd observers may have noted that the Tunisians held their own in the first half, that France only scored once several substitutes had arrived, and that Christian Dalger's goal should have been disallowed for handball.

Another sidelight of the match against France was the appearance of a young, previously untried goalkeeper, Mokhtar Naili; and here we encounter the second individual hero of the Tunisia 1978 story. For 15 years, the veteran Sadok Sassi Attouga had been the first choice in Tunisia's goal, but an injury just prior to the big event in Argentina forced Chetali to give this tyro his moment in the sun. The young Naili would repay his manager's faith, and then some. Forced by Chetali's offside-trap tactics to be alert and mobile throughout, the young keeper would emulate Holland's goalkeeper of 1974, Jan Jongbloed, who was always willing to race outside of his area when the offside trap was sprung.

In Argentina, Tunisia were paired with West Germany, the reigning champions, Poland, the bronze medal winners from 1974, and World Cup regulars Mexico. In a press conference prior to the event, Chetali said that his team "couldn't expect to win anything", and spoke highly of the Carthage Eagles' first opponents, Mexico.

It was to be a game that made history. More in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 7:26 PM 0 comments

Well, it's been a while.

Still here, still going to matches (mainly of the state league variety), largely disillusioned with the A-League despite this season's improvement, and rather disappointed with the state of football in general these days. The recent Super League fiasco was, to my mind, merely a symptom of a long period of demoralization which stretches back at least to the Premier League split in 1992.

So why the sudden twitching of the corpse, and the return to blogging?

As we all know, disillusionment with the present is often combined with a renewed interest in the past, and the Tragic spark has been lit by the marvellous bounties of the footballia website. During a recent period of illness I found myself becoming addicted once more to the glories of past World Cups and European Cups, and keen to write about these little nuggets of football history which are so little remembered, and often inaccurately remembered, anno 2021.

So for a little while at least, I'll be posting here semi-regularly again, with some tales of past glories and gaffes, musing on the more varied and colourful football world of yesteryear and setting the record straight (ahem!). 

The first little excursion into the past, appearing soon, will be a tribute to African football's first great World Cup side - the entertaining, combative and influential Tunisians of 1978.

Stay tuned.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 4:38 PM 0 comments