FIFA World Cup History: Argentina, Jekyll and Hyde
Argentina are massive favorites for winning the 2010 World Cup, despite having an enigma of a manager i.e. Diego Maradona. Maradona has had a lot of opinions on different issues leading up to this World Cup in South Africa. How does Argentina fare as a World Cup team? Are they rightful favorites? And most importantly how have they done in the face of adversity in the previous world cups?
Contrary to popular belief Argentina has not played exceptionally good football in the World Cup. Before a young Maradona took the world by surprise in 1982, and then won the world cup in 1986, Argentina were not very well known for playing possession football and dominating games. They were nothing like regular Brazilian, Dutch or German sides that focus on establishing their superiority during the match, by focusing their efforts on ball retention and by depriving their opponents of the ability to control the ball.
Even after Maradona took the mantle in 1986, Argentina did not completely abandon their old familiar ways. Argentina’s ugly side first came to light in the 1966 World Cup. Argentina played England in a quarter final match which was being anticipated as a real test for the English. The English were being coached by the strict ex-military man Sir Alf Ramsey. He had designed his English side on foot-balling principles of retaining possession in midfield and supplying the attack. His revolutionary formation which eventually won England the World Cup itself was termed “the wingless wonders”.
Argentina were led by their Captain Antonio Rattin in the quarter final match, they were aggressive from the start and resorted to kicking the English players when they were in possession and playing pragmatic defensive football based on destroying the opponents physically through dangerous tackles rather than approaching the game from a foot-balling point of view. In one of the confrontations which followed a tackle on an English player, the Argentinean captain managed to get himself sent off for dissent. Antonio Rattin decided to declare himself as ‘the bad boy’ in the process, and refused to leave the field. For a further ten minutes after the sending off, Rattin remained on the pitch protesting his innocence and delaying the match.
After the match, England’s manager Sir Alf Ramsey forbade his players to exchange shirts with their Argentinean counterparts and also declared the Argentineans to be animals because of the way they deliberately tried to injure the English players in the match.
During the World Cup 1986, Maradona graced us with his brilliance, wonderful first touch, a sudden burst of pace, footwork to dazzle the best of defenders, balance and poise to wriggle his way out of the tightest spaces and more. Maradona finally led his team to success in this tournament but the match against England in the quarter finals left a stain on his legacy forever. After going past 4 English players on a blinding run which started from the half way line, Maradona hand balled the ball into the back of the net after it scooped into the air. He later confessed that he knew that he had hand balled the ball but didn’t tell this to the referee on purpose. The goal came to be known as the infamous “Hand of god” goal. This was another nail in the coffin of Argentinean reputation, which was already tarnished due to their previous ‘bad boys history’ in the tournament and now their best player had openly confessed to cheating during the match.
However this was not the end of it, come Italia 1990 World Cup. Argentina played the Germans in the final of the tournament but decide to abandon their newly found foot-balling philosophy and resort to the old one, of kicking and injuring opposing players. Argentina, playing in the final without their star player Claudio Cannigia, decided to kick the Germans out of the match but fortunately the referee was having none of it. He sent off two Argentinean players for dangerous malicious tackles on the German players. The match eventually resulted in a German victory.
In the 1994 World Cup another controversy erupted after Maradona was caught with illegal substances in his body due to which he was banned for fifteen months from football. This was the final nail in the coffin of Maradona as he was arguably the greatest player to play football since the legendary Brazilian Pele. Then fast forwarding to 2006 , Argentina lose in the World Cup semi final to host nation Germany, and again violence breaks out as Argentineans refused to be graceful in defeat. Led in the skirmish by the left back Gabriel Heinze, they disgraced themselves by trying to push and shove their way towards the German players to exchange a few blows.
Argentina has a very ugly World Cup history; fights, cheating, drugs, lack of respect for officials and other similar incidents are found more often than not, in Argentinean World Cup campaigns. One can’t bet against a controversy in the later stages of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa as far as Argentina are involved.
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