Michael Batson

The 1970 World Cup in Mexico is widely thought of as the tournament against which all others are measured – a celebration of free-wheeling football where the winners Brazil triumphed with a team of sublime artists over the more disciplined, physically tactical Europeans who were represented in the Final by Italy with their pincer defensive system known as catenaccio (which means “door bolt” in Italian). Some observers called the 1970 Final as a “battle for football’s soul” with the romantic favourites winning, like in a fairy tale.

 

But despite some of the wonderful football on show by some of the greatest players ever to appear in a World Cup, football was arguably in crisis. The World Cup was being challenged as a spectacle by events at preceding tournaments and the contrasting styles of play coming increasingly into conflict at tournaments across the world. The history of tactics, one football writer said, is the history of two interlinked tensions: aesthetics versus results on the one side and technique versus physique on the other. While globalisation now is blurring national styles, tradition perpetuated by coaches, players, pundits and fans is strong enough that they remain distinguishable. Every nation comes quickly to recognise its strengths but that maybe no nation seems quite to trust them.

 

Mexico 1970 happened at a time when the world-wide code was said to be strained. England were world champions. In the eyes of Anglophile observers at the time there were primarily two differing ideas of football; the physical British type, in whose domestic game tackles are given and taken mostly without malice, and South American and some European styles where anything physical was seemingly perceived as an offence against the game. English football at the time wasn’t particularly attractive to watch consisting largely of physical encounters played at speed without much time spent on the ball and anybody who lingered in possession got kicked. I heard it referred to as more like fight ball than football or “crash, bang, wallop.” David Lacey, the Guardian’s football writer for 30 years argued that the kick and rush style was a poor substitute for skill. British historian and author Dominic Sandbrook looking back from the 2000s said English football then ‘was a profoundly ugly business. Tactics were sterile and bad fouls routine.’ One of the UK’s most prominent establishment broadsheets, The Sunday Times, derided the national sport as a ‘slum game played by slum people in slum stadiums.’

 

Football had become a popular cultural phenomenon in England at some point in the early 1960s. Crowds had been vast before then, but it was the coming of television that took it into a new sphere. Within a few days the great cricket writer Neville Cardus (he was to cricket writing what John Arlott was to cricket commentating, and the first newspaperman to look at a cricket match as a reviewer, rather than a reporter) had identified the 1953 FA Cup final —in which a Stanley Matthews-inspired Blackpool beat Bolton 4-3—as the moment when football replaced cricket as the national sport. That match was the first football match in England to draw a significant live television audience, as many people had bought sets in advance of the coronation. The launch of Match of the Day in 1964 both confirmed and enhanced the popularity of football, with the 1966 World Cup which England won two years later inflating that even further. That was the boom where a lot of preconceptions about football, at least in England, were formed. At Mexico, the World Cup became the first finals to be beamed live around the globe into peoples’ living rooms, a feature of the new satellite age.

 

Football was already by far the national game in most countries, but styles differed as a did its development. One Italian literary figure has described the difference in football styles as prose versus poetry. European teams are prose, tough, premeditated, systematic, collective. Latin American ones are poetry, ductile, spontaneous, individual, erotic”. Brazilians summarised football into three distinct philosophies: futebol-força – the power game of strong European sides like England and Germany; futebol de resultaclos, the pragmatic win-at-all-costs exemplified by the Italians; and futebol arte – the beautiful, expressive style Brazil’s win in Sweden in 1958 introduced. There in a nutshell was epitomised the differing ideas of football which so often have led to conflict and had steadfastly escalated through the 1960s.

 

The different football styles came into sharp conflict shortly before the 1970 World Cup at the European Youth (under-18) Tournament held in Scotland in May of that year. The competition was won by East Germany of the power school but with a totalitarian twist—sport in the Eastern Bloc being viewed as an illustration of the superiority of the communist system over that of the “decadent” West, and linking its international prestige closely to the performance of its sports teams—though in reality most countries view victory in sport through a nationalist lens. The runners-up, the Netherlands, liked to move around without tackling, whereas their opponents in one match, Wales, were accused by the Dutch manager of kicking everything that moved. Over 40 years there had been a continuation of two concurrent developments: negative tactics, and the retaliation against excessive defensive forces.

 

Conflict has occurred at almost every World Cup. The first brawl of the World Cup was in Italy in 1934 when Austria’s great side of that era met Hungary in the quarter final. Italy’s quarter-final with Spain in the same tournament was just as bad followed by a tough game in the Final against Czechoslovakia. In 1938 two Brazilians and a Czech were sent off in their quarter-final match when two Czechs suffered broken bones. Weak refereeing was blamed for some incidents and it was probably fortunate that news media were not as instantaneous as now.

 

The first post-war World Cup in Brazil passed without trouble but then came 1954 in Switzerland and the infamous “Battle of the Berne” between Hungary and Brazil. The match, played in driving rain, saw two penalties awarded before it degenerated into a series of increasingly violent fouls and cynical tactics whereupon the English referee sent off three players. Fighting continued after the final whistle in the dressing rooms between players, fans, and officials. Then, the match between Switzerland and Italy ended in a near riot. Two Swiss players were kicked in the stomach without penalty and after the final whistle the Italians chased the Brazilian referee off the field. Sweden in 1958 contained some spitting is all. In Chile four years later—its choice as host was curious for it was a developing country with poor infrastructure in transport and accommodation (too few hotel rooms) and recovering from the Valdivia earthquake the most powerful ever recorded—games were often dominated by violence the kind of which was more likely seen in bar room brawls. The most infamous game was between Chile and Italy in which numerous punches were thrown. The first foul occurred just 12 seconds after kick-off. Italy versus West Germany at the same tournament was described as “wrestling and warfare”.

In 1966 the two styles came sharply into focus when reigning world champions Brazil were outmuscled by European opposition when first Bulgaria, then Hungary and finally Portugal, dished out such rough treatment to a largely ageing team that Pelé said he would never play in a World Cup again. In the quarter-final with England, the Argentina captain Antonio Rattin was sent off (he at first refused to leave the field) amid claims the tournament was fixed so England would win. Two Uruguay players were sent off in their quarter-final against West Germany and the Brazilians were unhappy in the way English referees looked leniently on the harsh treatment dished out to Pelé. Would the 1970 World Cup produce something too malignant for the governing body of the game to be able to continue to handle?

 

The man in the middle in the Battle of Santiago, Ken Aston, was in 1970 now Vice President of the FIFA Referees’ Committee and was asked questions about the so-called “17th team at the World Cup”, those being the 30 referees in whose hands the successful conduct of the tournament rested. Never had FIFA taken so much trouble in their preparation to make their decisions uniform. “We have done everything possible” Aston replied. But whether it would be enough he admitted he did not know. He had by then invented the penalty card system the colours of which came to him while waiting at traffic lights and was first used in a World Cup in Mexico.

 

Mexico was chosen as the host nation in 1964 ahead of the only other submitted bid from Argentina, who eventually hosted the 1978 World Cup, a tournament held in a host country with a similar politically repressive climate. The World Cup in Mexico became the first World Cup hosted in North America, and the first to be staged outside South America and Europe.  A total of 75 teams entered the 1970 World Cup, with 73 required to qualify (by comparison 209 countries and territories have entered the 2022 World Cup). Under the rules of the international governing body known by its French acronym FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association; France being one of seven founding nations of the global body, its first president was French, Robert Guérin, a journalist by profession, as was the founder of the World Cup, Jules Rimet also the third president of FIFA), England the holders and hosts Mexico qualified automatically. Due to rejected entries and withdrawals, 68 teams eventually participated in the qualifying stages, including eight for the first time. Half of the eventual qualifying teams had also been present at the previous World Cup.

 

The system of qualification used for the World Cup is always bound to cause controversy. By 1970 no method seemed fair both in terms of ability and geography: in the present state of varied proficiency across different continents, it was not possible to have a qualifying competition that produces the best teams and at the same time teams which represent a democratic cross-section of the world. To many observers, especially purists and those from the strongest football nations, the correct system would be the one that produced the best teams. They thought the very purpose of the World Cup, or, for that matter, any sporting competition, is to decide who has the greatest ability rather than to generate sympathy for good triers; to promote true champions rather political representatives. But politics and sport had become inseparable, and gradually FIFA was pressured-Africa/Asia combined were reserved a slot at the 1958 World Cup but following refusals to play Israel that ended up going to Wales, only after an African boycott of 1966, were Africa and Asia each guaranteed a place at the World Cup-to grant an entry to the minnows of world football. The countries of Africa and Asia demanded a cut of the qualifying cake which, though small, was still bigger than perhaps their ability at the time deserved – three of the final 16 nations or almost 20 percent – came from these “lesser” countries. This the process of doublethink, the implication that to deny the emerging nations what they demand will be to discriminate against them, has ultimately produced a situation in which there is discrimination against others. Or so some Euro-centric and Anglophile observers thought at the time, and probably still do today.

 

This viewpoint however ignores that the traditional strong teams sometimes gain advantage from the perceived weaker nations at times through colonisation. Portugal for example, would have been a much less potent attacking force were it not for the talents of the duo from Benfica, Eusebio and midfielder Mário Coluna, both from Mozambique. The French team that won the 1998 World Cup was largely drawn from across the globe – if not by birth then by parentage. Football of course does not exist just to serve the wealthy – the biggest nations, the best players, and the richest clubs. Despite a gulf in skill and fame between players, there is a shared purpose there too; football in its purest form. Every four years players from all backgrounds get to share the same air with some of the greatest players on the planet. After all, this what traditionalist Anglophobes will tell you is what makes their FA Cup not lonely the oldest club tournament in the world, but in their view, the best.

 

For 30 years Mexico had enjoyed the advantage of dominating the Central American group from which came a qualifier. When, for the 1970 World Cup, they qualified as hosts, the position was thrown open for one of the lighter weights from the region to produce a finalist, a privilege which, after a series of matches which precipitated a war, went to El Salvador. From the Asian group came Israel, and from Africa, Morocco. Left on the side lines were many of the strong European and South American teams. English author David Miller, who wrote a history of the 1970 world Cup, thought that a World Cup that excluded Spain, Yugoslavia, and Hungary not to mention many others, was absurd. At the time he wrote the prospect of altering the present system of qualification seemed remote. Today with cheaper international travel, a wider playing pool of nations with ability, the increasing internationalisation of the game with players from smaller, lesser football playing nations in terms of ability competing in teams in the big leagues, plus the inevitable expansion of the World Cup to include more finalists, has broadened the base and increased the competitiveness of most of the matches.

 

Three countries qualified for the finals for the first time; El Salvador, Israel, and Morocco. Israel qualified after North Korea were disqualified for refusing to play them. They also got to play New Zealand over two ties both of which were played in Tel Aviv, an obvious disadvantage to the visitors and would not occur that way today. It was also the only time Argentina had failed to qualify for the finals (having declined to participate in 1938, 1950 and 1954). It was the biggest shock of the qualifying rounds when they were eliminated by Peru. Peru, Romania, Belgium, and Sweden made their first appearances since appearances since 1930, 1938, 1954 and 1958 respectively. Czechoslovakia returned to the World Cup stage after missing the 1966 World Cup.

 

Mexico, the hosts in 1970, were one of the very few teams from outside South America or Europe to have advanced from the first round of matches at a World Cup, being defeated 4-1 in the quarterfinal by the Soviet Union. Previously, only the USA were semi-finalists in 1930 (beaten 6-1 by Argentina); Cuba were quarter-finalists in 1938 (beaten 8-0 by Sweden) and North Korea were quarter-finalists in 1966 (beaten 5-3 by Portugal). The average attendance at the 32 matches in Mexico (50,124) across the five venues was the highest of any World Cup finals to date and only surpassed by the tournament held in the USA in 1994 (68,991) and again in 2006 in Germany (52,491). The reasons for this were that 10 of the total 32 games were played at the Azteca Stadium including all of the host’s matches, one semi-final and the Final, where capacity crowds at each match numbered over 100,000. Brazil played all its group matches and two knockout rounds in Guadalajara at the Jalisco in front of crowds of 70,000. Lesser crowds at the smaller stadiums in Toluca, Leon and Puebla made up the remainder.

 

The World Cup was a product of its time both politically and in football terms. Historians have increasingly portrayed the 1970s as a “pivot of change” in world history. It was also an era of great technological and scientific advances. In many ways it was a continuation of the upheaval of the 1960s and was a period of violence with wars and decolonisation played out under the umbrella of the omnipresent Cold War. Of the 16 nations competing at the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico, 10 were effectively dictatorships or from countries with forms of authoritarian rule, including the hosts and the tournament winners, Brazil. Other competitors from the Americas were also under dictatorships of varying severity including Uruguay, Peru, and newcomers El Salvador, where the military dominated the government for 36 years from 1948 until 1984. World Cup qualification for El Salvador came in a play-off home and away against its larger, more powerful neighbour Honduras, and wound up sparking a brief border war. Though the deeper reasons for the conflict were political, the conflict became known as “The Soccer War” and was captured by the veteran Polish foreign correspondent Ryszard Kapuściński in his eponymous book written as literary reportage and published in 1978.

 

Four other finalists were from communist one-party states: Bulgaria (Todor Zhivkov once the country’s top policeman ruled for 35 years until 1989); Czechoslovakia (fresh on the heels of the Prague Spring) was ruled by Ludvík Svoboda a former general; Romania was gripped by Nicolae Ceaușescu later favoured by the West; and the Soviet Union largely responsible for the political plight of the other three. Of the other countries competing in Mexico: England, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, and West Germany were democracies. Other newcomers to the World Cup, Israel would claim a democratic system though the Palestinians may argue otherwise, and Morocco, which was also an authoritarian regime (following independence from France elections were held in 1963 but a state of emergency was declared by the king and parliament suspended two years later).

 

This was the backdrop to the teams to compete at the 1970 World Cup, a summary of each team is provided below.

Belgium were the first team to qualify from Europe, eliminating the fancied Spain and Yugoslavia, who were runners-up in the 1968 European Championship. The Belgium team was largely based around players from two clubs: Anderlecht and Standard Liège and included the attacking talent of the famed Paul Van Himst and his club teammate Johan Devrindt. Van Himst was nicknamed “Polle Gazen” which roughly translates as Paul Lawn or Grass, which was due to the large number of fouls committed on him.

 

Brazil qualified scoring 23 goals and conceding just twice with both goals coming in the same match (against Colombia). Pelé was back in the side having said he would never play in a World Cup again. Two months before Mexico their controversial coach “Fearless: João Saldanha was sacked for a number of reasons, some of which remain unclear and replaced by World Cup winner as a player Mario Zagallo, the manager of Botafogo. There was more upset when the star of the qualifying rounds Tostão, who had netted 10 times in qualifying including a 23-minute hattrick, was hurt in a freak accident in late September 1969 when playing against Corinthians and required eye surgery. The team began an intense preparation for Mexico led by the country’s military who viewed victory as good for prestige theirs, and the nation. Previous visits to Mexico by the global footballing troubadours Santos, ensured Brazil would be well supported by the locals.

 

Bulgaria edged out the Netherlands and Poland to qualify with it said that any of the three teams would have done themselves justice in the finals. This was Bulgaria’s third successive appearance in the finals. Seven of their squad with previous finals’ experience accounted for 350 caps between them. Included for Mexico was their incomparable centre forward Georgi Asparouukhov (or Asparuhov), the star of Levski Sofia. He was injured two months before the tournament with his ankle in plaster and wasn’t fit for the first game against Peru. Sadly, he died the following year in a car accident—some 550,000 went to his funeral.

 

Czechoslovakia qualified after beating Hungary 4-1 in a play-off in Marseilles in which Hungary was missing four regular first team players. The squad spent two weeks acclimatising at the French Pyrenees camp at Fort Romeu which mirrored the altitude they would face in Mexico but not the same heat. They were expected to be among the top tough Europeans sides and the pick of some, including Pelé, as outside favourites. Their outspoken coach, Joseph Marko, thought them capable of going all the way to their third Final with players like two-time winner of the European Goalkeeper of the Year, Ivo Viktor, regarded as one of the best of his generation; versatile defender Karol Dobiaš and central midfielder Ladislav Kuna, both of Spartak Trnava during its golden era; and teammate striker Josef Adamec who two years earlier had scored a hattrick against Brazil.

 

El Salvador reached the World Cup finals after 10 matches and a 72-hour war with their larger neighbour Honduras. Animosity between the two countries, the former the smallest in Central America and the latter the largest, had simmered for decades. Facing Honduras always had the potential for violence, but no one had expected just how explosive. After El Salvador won the second match at home 3-0, Honduras supporters were chased out of the country. With a victory apiece El Salvador won the decider in Mexico City. They then played Haiti to qualify which also required a third match, a play-off in Jamaica. Coached by a Chilean, the players went on strike two months before the World Cup for better living expenses.

 

England as champions had British Championship matches and friendlies to prepare. To accommodate the World Cup the Football League condensed the domestic league season to finish one month early. England arrived in Mexico ahead of the World Cup to find their hotel double-booked. Acclimatisation matches for Mexico included games in Colombia and Ecuador before manager Alf Ramsey named his final squad of 22. Ramsey thought the team thoroughly prepared but would use the same tactics as 1966 this time around. “If we are not successful, the responsibility is mine.” In Mexico the team received a somewhat icy reception from locals. Ramsey himself was viewed poorly by the Mexican media who saw him as cold and aloof. Relations soured further when it was revealed the team imported its own oranges, this despite Mexico producing some of the world’s finest. They also had their water flown in and shipped over a bus from home fitted with card tables complete with their own driver, which had been offloaded in Louisiana and driven south across the border.

 

Israel came with a squad of all amateurs many of whom had lost to Bulgaria on the toss of a coin in the quarter finals of the 1968 Olympics. Their qualifying group included Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Australia and New Zealand, followed by warm-up matches which were all defeats. Both matches against New Zealand were in Tel Aviv. North Korea refused to play them. The ‘golden age of Israeli football was in the early sixties when, coached by the Hungarian Giyala Mandi (he had also coached Hungary during the time of the “Mighty Magyars” in the 1950s), they reached a peak with a 2-1 win over Yugoslavia in Belgrade. In Mexico they were coached by a German-born Pole Emanuel Shefer, a temperamental disciplinarian, who gave the team the spirit if not the skill to spring a surprise.

 

Italy was reigning European champions and had in their qualifying group Wales and East Germany. Italy won the World Cup in 1934 and 1938 and like Uruguay and Brazil would retain the Jules Rimet trophy if they won a third time. Their post-war performances however left much to be desired. In 1949, the wonderful Torino team with many national team players perished in the Superga air crash. They performed poorly in the 1950, 1954 and 1958 World Cups. In 1962 they were beaten in an infamous encounter with hosts Chile and dubbed the “Battle of Santiago” with punches thrown. In 1966, came the ultimate disgrace as they were beaten 5-3 by North Korea. European footballer of the year and captain of AC Milan, Gianna Rivera was in the team for Mexico, but he was relegated to a supporting role by manager Feruccia Valcareggi, who preferred Sandro Mazzola (whose father was part of the Torino team killed at Superga). The team contained players from Sardinian side Caligari including Luigi Riva and some from the great Inter Milan team of Helenio Herrera, nicknamed “Grande Inter”.

 

Mexico offered the possibility the hosts would for the first time play an inconspicuous part in the finals, a possibility of which they themselves were only too aware. Before the tournament began, they sacked their manager of nine years Ignacio Trelles, replacing him with former player Raul Cardenas. He then caused a furore by dismissing two leading players from the squad for disciplinary reasons. The team was jeered after poor performances in warm-up matches and then defied FIFA by using the Azteca Stadium prior to the World Cup opening match for behind closed doors matches against Peru and Sweden, losing both games.

 

Morocco were the luckiest side to qualify for Mexico. An all-amateur team (their saxophone playing goalkeeper Allal Ben-Kassou, an army sergeant, was the star player) they needed three matches to decide their sub-group against Senegal, and three drawn matches with Tunisia produced no result, Morocco going through on a coin toss. Eventually Sudan’s draw with Nigeria saw them through. Their French coach then had a heart attack and had to be replaced. They trained in the Atlas Mountains before heading to Mexico. After hearing Israel had qualified it was thought they would scratch but the draw kept the two apart and the likelihood of a meeting further along in the competition seemed remote.

 

Peru eliminated Argentina in the biggest shock of the whole qualifying round. This was the first time Peru had qualified, though they were one of the original entrants in 1930 by invitation. The side played football like that of Brazil; elegant, strolling with an emphasis on attack which however left them vulnerable in defence. They were coached by the great Didi of the winning Brazilian teams of 1958 and 1962. He was experienced in Peru having coached the Lima “beer” side Sporting Crystal. He brought to Peruvian football a discipline previously unknown and bred a team spirit perhaps responsible for defeating Argentina. Having played at Real Madrid he was also familiar with the varied style of the two continents. Teofillo Cubillas (nicknamed El Nene, “the Kid”), their attacking midfielder of Club Alianza Lima and Peru’s most popular club side, was named the young player of the tournament. He was later named Peru’s greatest player of all time.

Romania qualified at the expense of the much-fancied Portugal. Team selection during qualifying was much changed (only five players played in all the matches). Coach Angelo Nicolescu introduced a mainly defensive policy in qualifying where only Switzerland in their group scored fewer goals. They had toured Brazil and Peru in January 1970 playing mainly club opposition with unspectacular results and arrived in Mexico with moral low after a goal-less draw with Yugoslavia shortly before departure.

 

Sweden qualified at the expense of France and Norway with a team based around their eight key ‘gypsy’ professionals playing abroad. They suffered when one of these their key players, Roger Magnusson (nicknamed the Swedish Garrincha for his dribbling ability), was refused permission to play at the World Cup by his Italian club Juventus (where he had a short spell playing just six times); who demanded the Swedish FA pay his wages at the tournament, an ultimatum which they refused to accept.

 

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics qualified from a group that contained Northern Ireland with George Best at his best. The USSR’s qualification was largely assured after holding Best and company to a goalless draw in Belfast. The return match in Moscow was surrounded in controversy when a League Cup replay prevented Best from arriving for the match in time. In any case he had been injured in the tie against Burnley and the club doctor would not let him travel, though he was fit again for club duties the following Saturday. In 1966 the USSR had finished fourth. Only four of that squad survived to travel to Mexico. Gavril Kachalin, sacked as manager after the 1962 World Cup was recalled in 1968 and reorganised the squad. Albert Shesternev of CSKA Moscow, the team of the Red Army, and regarded as the best defender the country ever produced. He was nicknamed “Ivan the Terrible” and made the World XI for the tournament (he died an alcoholic in 1994 aged just 53).

Uruguay won their qualifying group without conceding a goal. Like Brazil and Italy, they had also previously won the World Cup two times, the last time inflicting defeat on the hosts Brazil in 1950, which damaged the national psyche of their much larger neighbour for two decades. Preparation for the finals was dogged by internal tension in a squad dominated by players from the two big Montevideo clubs, Penarol and Nacional. Manager Juan Holberg, an Argentinian who had crossed the River Plate and changed nationality, was a disciplinarian first and a coach second. The team was built around the strongest defence in Latin America and in Ladislao Mazurkiewicz of Penarol, they had the continent’s best goalkeeper.

 

West Germany had never lost a World Cup qualifying match. Their strongest opponent in the group was a Scotland side filled with players from the two Glasgow giants, and including many of the Celtic 1967 European Cup winning team. Nine of the 1966 World Cup team were taken to Mexico in a squad with an average age of 27. In 30 games played since 1966 West Germany had lost just four matches. A severe winter produced a backlog of league matches at home, which hampered a long acclimatisation in Mexico. Their squad contained some fine players and in Gerd Muller of Bayern Munich produced the tournament’s top score with 10 goals. Playing next to him was Uwe Seeler of Hamburger SV (a one-club man) who, had West Germany gone all the way to the Final, could well have been named player of the tournament. He retired shortly after the World Cup.

 

At the end of the tournament foreign observers in Mexico chose a World XI as follows (4-3-3):

 

Banks (England); Vogts (West Germany), Shesternev (USSR), Moore (England), Facchetti (Italy), Beckenbauer (West Germany), Gérson (Brazil), Rivelino (Brazil), Jairzinho (Brazil), Tostão (Brazil), Pelé (Brazil).

 

Mexico was a fairly clean world cup which was a by-product of the heat and altitude. The matches were played, predominantly, at such slow speed, with teams strolling in midfield and reserving their effort for the penalty areas it was bound to reduce offending. Someone observed it is much more difficult to be dirty in slow motion, and for the same reason there were few bad injuries which usually come from physical challenge at high speed.

 

The referees were misleadingly successful. They largely eliminated any brutality but as stated there was less physical challenge because of the conditions. Were regarded as uniformly too strict outside the penalty area and too lenient inside. More cautions than ever before were issued but no player was sent off, though this does now say that some did not deserve to be. In the Final, referee Rudi Glockner of East Germany, despite considered one of the best at the tournament failed to prevent Italy blatantly time-wasting-mainly De Sisti who continually put his foot on the ball whenever Brazil was awarded a free-kick). He also strangely blew the whistle for half-time at the exact moment Brazil had the ball in the Italy net.

A total of 95 goals were scored in Mexico, six more than in England in1966. Almost half the goals (43) were scored in the last half-hour of the matches or in extra time (five goals of Italy’s 4-3 win over West Germany in the semi-final were scored in extra time), when teams were often overcome with fatigue from the heat and altitude. In 15 of the 32 matches, and conspicuously in those between the strongest teams, there were three goals or fewer, while in four key matches – West Germany’s quarter- and semi-finals, and Brazils’ semi-final and Final-13 out of 21 goals were scored after the 70th minute. For the major part of the matches teams were playing with the usual precautions, especially the more powerful sides who had the most to lose, and whenever these teams scored several goals it was always in the latter stages of matches when method and organisation were starting break down. Over half the goals (48) were scored in under a third of the matches (10), like when two boxers stand and slog it out and the teams already spent

The tournament was won by Brazil of the futebol arte school. Italy of the futebol de resultaclos came second with the futebol-força school represented by the Germans third who beat the Uruguayans who were probably a blend of all three of the different football schools. Four years later, in West Germany, the Europeans took the top three places with a much-deflated Brazil, a shadow of the triumphant 1970 team finishing fourth. The wheels had turned, the game evolved, but some may say not for the better.