Kempes was voted best player in the Cup and was also the leading scorer with six goals. Behind him came the Peruvian Cubillas and Rensenbrink of the Netherlands with five apiece.
Happiness
Five thousand journalists from all over the world, a sumptuous media center, impeccable stadiums, gleaming new airports: Argentina was a model of efficiency. Veteran German reporters confessed that the ’78 World Cup reminded them of the ’36 Olympics in Berlin when Hitler pulled out all the stops.
The cost was a state secret. Many millions of dollars were spent and lost — how many, it was never known — so that the smiles of a happy country under military tutelage would be broadcast to the four corners of the earth. Meanwhile, the top brass who organized the World Cup carried on with their plan of extermination, for reasons of war or just to be sure. “The final solution,” as they called it, murdered thousands of Argentines without leaving a trace — how many, it was never known. Anyone who tried to find out was swallowed up by the earth. Curiosity, like dissent, like any question, was absolute proof of subversion. The president of the Argentine Rural Society, Celedonio Pereda, declared that thanks to soccer, “there will be no more of the defamation that certain well-known Argentines have spread through the Western media with the proceeds from their robberies and kidnappings.” You could not criticize the players, not even the manager. The Argentine team stumbled a few times in the championship, but local commentators were obliged to do nothing but applaud.
To make over its international image, the dictatorship paid an American public relations firm half a million dollars. The report from the experts at Burson-Marsteller was titled What Is True for Products Is Also True for Countries. Admiral Carlos Alberto Lacoste, the strongman of the World Cup, explained in an interview: “If I go to Europe or to the United States, what will impress me most? Tall buildings, huge airports, terrific cars, fancy candies…”
The Admiral, an illusionist skilled at making dollars evaporate and sudden fortunes appear, took the reins of the World Cup after the previous officer in charge was mysteriously assassinated. Lacoste managed immense sums of money without any oversight, and because he wasn’t paying close attention, it seems he ended up keeping some of the change. Even the dictatorship’s own finance minister, Juan Alemann, took note of the squandering of public funds and asked a few inconvenient questions. The Admiral had the habit of warning: “Don’t complain if later on somebody plants a bomb…”
A bomb did explode in Alemann’s house at the very moment when Argentineans were celebrating their fourth goal against Peru.
When the Cup was over, in gratitude for his hard work, Admiral Lacoste was named vice president of FIFA.
Goal by Gemmill
It happened at the World Cup in 1978. The Netherlands, which was doing well, was playing Scotland, which was doing poorly.
Scottish player Archibald Gemmill got the ball from his countryman Hartford and kindly asked the Dutch to dance to the tune of a lone bagpiper.
Wildschut was the first to fall, his head spinning, at Gemmill’s feet. Then Gemmill left Suurbier reeling in the dust. Krol had it worse: Gemmill put it between his legs. And when the keeper Jongbloed came at him, the Scot lobbed the ball over his head.
Goal by Bettega
It also happened at the ’78 World Cup. Italy defeated the home team 1–0.
The play that set up Italy’s goal drew a perfect triangle on the playing field: inside, the Argentine defenders were left as lost as blind men in a shootout. Antognoni slid the ball over to Bettega, who slapped it toward Rossi, who had his back to him. Rossi returned it with a backheel while Bettega infiltrated the box. Bettega then overpowered two players and beat the keeper Fillol with a tremendous left.
Though no one knew it then, the Italian team had already begun to win the World Cup that would take place four years later.
Goal by Sunderland
It was 1979. At Wembley Stadium, Arsenal and Manchester United were battling the final of the English FA Cup.
A good match, but nothing aroused suspicions that this would turn on a dime into the most electric final in the Cup’s long history since 1871. Arsenal was ahead 2–0 and time was running out. The match was essentially decided and people began to leave the stadium. A sudden cloudburst of goals, three in two minutes: a sure shot by McQueen was followed by a pretty penetration by McIlroy, who eluded two defenders and the keeper, giving Manchester the equalizers in the 86th and 87th minutes. And before the 88th minute was over, Arsenal had regained the lead. Liam Brady, who was as usual the outstanding player of the match, put together the final play, and Alan Sunderland took a clean shot to make it 3–2.
The 1982 World Cup
Mephisto by István Szabó, a masterpiece on art and betrayal, was winning an Oscar in Hollywood, while in Germany the life of the tormented and talented movie director Fassbinder was being snuffed out early. Romy Schneider was committing suicide and Sophia Loren was being imprisoned for tax evasion. In Poland, union leader Lech Walesa was on his way to jail.
García Márquez was accepting the Nobel Prize in the name of the poets, beggars, musicians, prophets, warriors, and rascals of Latin America. In a village in El Salvador, a hail of army bullets was killing more than seven hundred peasants, half of them children. In order to expand the butchery of Indians, in Guatemala General Ríos Montt was taking power by force, proclaiming that God had given him the country’s reins and announcing that the Holy Spirit would direct his secret service.
Egypt was recovering the Sinai Peninsula, occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War. The first artificial heart was beating in someone’s breast. Well-informed sources in Miami were announcing the imminent fall of Fidel Castro, it was only a matter of hours. In Italy the Pope was surviving a second assassination attempt. In Spain the officers who had organized the attack on Congress were getting thirty years and Felipe González was launching his unerring race for the presidency, while in Barcelona the twelfth World Cup was getting under way.
Twenty-four countries took part, eight more than in the previous Cup, but the Americas did not gain a larger quota: there were fourteen teams from Europe, six from the Americas, and two from Africa, plus Kuwait and New Zealand.
On the first day in Barcelona, world champion Argentina went down to defeat. A few hours later, very far from there, off in the Falkland Islands, the Argentine generals were routed in their war against England. These ferocious fighters, who over several years of dictatorship had won the war against their own countrymen, surrendered like lambs to the British. The image was broadcast on television: navy officer Alfredo Astiz, violator of every human right, hung his head and signed the humiliating surrender.
During the days that followed, TV showed images of the ’82 Cup: the billowing tunic of Sheik Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, who ran onto the field to protest a goal by France against Kuwait; the goal by Englishman Bryan Robson after half a minute, the quickest in World Cup history; the indifference of German keeper Schumacher, who once was a blacksmith, after he knocked out French striker Battiston with his knee.