The Joy of Six: World Cup qualifying near misses.
By Scott Murray (theguardian.com).
From the Republic of Ireland in 1958 to Trinidad and Tobago in 1990, via a stunned Argentina, Belgian heartbreak and more.
1) Republic of Ireland (1958)
Here's some typical Football Association forward planning for you. Had the 1957 FA Cup final between Aston Villa and Manchester United ended in a draw, the replay would have been held five days later at Goodison Park. All good and well, except that England were slated to play the Republic of Ireland at Wembley in the qualifiers for the World Cup a day before that. Villa captain Pat Saward, plus Roger Byrne, Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor and Liam Whelan of United, all potentially faced two momentous matches in 24 hours at the end of a gruelling season. Did anyone actually think about that? They didn't bother thinking about it, did they.
No matter, Villa won 2-1, no double for United but trebles all round at Lancaster Gate. On to Wednesday evening, then, the first-ever World Cup qualifying match at Wembley, England's route to the 1950 and 1954 finals having technically been British Home Championship games. The hosts were the hot favourites, and so it proved, England running out easy 5-1 winners.
Ireland goalkeeper Alan Kelly was good enough to later turn out at Wembley for Preston in the 1964 FA Cup final, but here, on his 20th birthday and an inexperienced Drumcondra player, he had a nightmare. Taylor was his chief tormentor, although Kelly couldn't remember the United star's hat-trick goal. "I came to collect a corner kick by Tom Finney," he recalled. "I got both hands on the ball and the next thing I remember was sitting in the back of the net being helped up by Noel Cantwell. All the white shirts were streaming back towards the halfway line, so I thought I would ask the obvious question. 'Was it a goal?' I asked Cantwell. 'Yes son, and next time you come for a cross, get your knees up.'"
The only plus point for the Irish, other than their consolation goal from Bristol City's Dermot Curtis, was that they had at long last been given a set of official tracksuits by the FAI. (Roy Keane's complaints are nothing new.) There was also a little scrap of schadenfreude to be savoured, for even if England now had one foot in the finals, they were not considered good enough to win the tournament. "It is doubtful whether the present team, assuming that it gets so far, will get much more out of a trip to Sweden than a pleasant flight and a summer outing," wrote Donny Davies in this paper (one particular phrase sending a chill through the blood in retrospect). "They are not likely to meet many European or South American teams with such inadequate performers in goal and at centre-half."
But there was still hope for the Irish. Given they had already beaten the third team in the group, Denmark, at home, and were expected to do a similar job away, any victory against England in the return fixture at Dalymount Park 11 days later was likely to force a playoff, goal difference counting for nix at the time. Ireland made two significant changes, Tommy Godwin of Bournemouth taking over in goal he had been the man between the sticks when Ireland famously became the first foreign team to defeat England on home soil in 1949 while 21-year-old Millwall prospect Charlie Hurley made his debut at the back. Godwin made several stunning saves, most notably from Bristol City's Peter Ateyo, David Pegg and Taylor, while Hurley was a revelation, keeping Taylor otherwise quiet for the entire game.
Up the other end, England were being bossed. Sheffield United's Alf Ringstead put Ireland ahead on three minutes with a low shot through a crowded box. Fellow dashing Blade Alan Hodgkinson twice dived at full length to turn away volleys by Middlesbrough's Arthur Fitzsimons. Joe Haverty of Arsenal missed a sitter. Whelan one-two'd with Ringstead but fluffed his lines. Ireland made it into injury time, but Tom Finney blazed past Saward down the right and centred for Ateyo, who headed home to plunge Dublin into silence. Listen to the RTE audio: you can almost hear commentator Philip Greene's heart drop on to the floor with a dull thump. Has inner despair ever been more clearly captured in amber?
England had made it at Ireland's expense, though as the Manchester Guardian's Davies noted, "her players put up a sorry performance. England was not merely outplayed, she was outclassed, and no one realises this more clearly or lugubriously than the gentlemen who have the responsibility of producing a team to compete in Sweden." England were fated to perform badly at the finals, though some fates pale into insignificance when compared with others. Five of the players on the pitch that day, plus the Guardian's man, would not live to see the following year's World Cup.
2) Italy (1958)
The Italian national team had a hard time of it for quite a while after the war. The 1948 Superga crash, which wiped out Torino, effectively did for the Azzurri too. A depleted team made their way to Brazil for the 1950 World Cup, but only by boat, understandably fearful of air travel. Knackered and unfit coming off the ship, they almost immediately got themselves knocked out. They travelled home by plane.
The 1954 tournament in Switzerland ended abruptly with a 4-1 trouncing at the hands of the hosts. Chile in 1962 was all about the shame of Santiago, though that was nothing on the humiliation North Korea heaped on them in 1966. After which the team won Euro 68 and made it to the final of the 1970 World Cup. All better, then, but by lord those two decades were quite the haul.
Despite that 20-year nadir, Italy only failed to qualify for the World Cup once. (They've made it to all the others with the exception of the very first one in 1930, a jamboree they didn't bother to attend, in a fit of pique at being looked over for hosting duties in favour of Uruguay.) The sole blemish on their qualification record came in the 1958 series when their side containing Uruguay's 1950 stars Juan Alberto Schiaffino and Alcides Ghiggia were bundled out of the competition by a formidable Northern Ireland team not short of a few decently sized names itself in Danny Blanchflower, Harry Gregg and Peter McParland.
The manner of Italy's exit was nothing short of farcical. The teams were due to play the decisive qualifier at Windsor Park in early December 1957. A victory for the Irish would send them through; Italy needed a draw to put them in a position where a home win in their final game over a dismal Portugal would fire them to the finals in Sweden instead. But referee Istvan Zsolt had been held up en route from Hungary to Belfast by fog in London, and only a local official could be found to replace him. Five minutes before kick-off, it was announced that the game would only be a friendly, causing much bristling in the crowd who, according to the Guardian, seemed "unlikely to forget what they considered to be the intractability of the Italians over match arrangements and left no doubt that they felt they should have agreed to a British referee". Aye, right you are.
And in fairness, the Italians had a point. Their keeper Ottavio Bugatti was knocked from pillar to post by the likes of McParland, who had form for this sort of nonsense, as those who recall the last FA Cup final would testify. In the final minute of a 2-2 draw, Guiseppe Chiapella leapt at McParland after one charge too many, and was sent off. Not that the Italians had been saints themselves, mind, Chiapella, Schiaffino and Rino Ferrario all taking turns to throw hands in the determined style. At the final whistle, thousands of spectators flooded the field of play with a view to raising Cain. Ferrario was sent crashing to the floor and had to be carted back to the dressing room unconscious.
As it transpired, that result would have been enough for the Italians, who went on to beat Portugal 3-0 before Christmas. But decisions are decisions, and they were forced to go again. In the New Year, the replayed qualifier in Belfast was played, and the Irish stormed into a two-goal lead by half-time, Jimmy McIlroy and Wilbur Cush with the goals. Dino Da Costa bundled one back for Italy shortly after the break, but the ghig was up for Italy when Ghiggia, of all folk, was sent off with 25 minutes to go for a physical disagreement with Alf McMichael. Ireland were through, Italy were out, and what an end to a World Cup career for poor Ghiggia, the man who scored the most dramatic and far-reaching goal the tournament has ever seen.
3) Argentina (1970)
Around the time of the qualifiers for the 1970 World Cup, Argentinian football was suffering from something of an image problem. Antonio Rattin's debating forum at Wembley. Racing Club hoofing Celtic all over the park. Estudiantes slicing Bobby Charlton's leg into red ribbons. The national team manager, Humberto Maschio, was best known internationally for his antics as a player at the 1962 World Cup when, playing as a naturalised Italian, he ran about the pitch throwing haymakers willy-nilly during the infamous Battle of Santiago against Chile. On the final whistle that day, he offered opponent Honorindo Landa his hand in friendship. When the two were shaking, Maschio took the opportunity to clatter Landa's jaw with his free southpaw. Honor indeed.
Maschio was sacked just before the qualifiers, although much good it did the team's mood or reputation. They were battered 3-1 in Bolivia in their first game, and competed so roughly that the Argentinian dictator General Ongania was forced to order the squad to simmer down. (Ongania would later throw the entire Estudiantes team in the clink for acting up during an Intercontinental Cup brouhaha against Milan.) While the team's behaviour improved, their overall play did not, and Argentina lost their next match 1-0 in Peru.
After a restorative one-goal win at home over Bolivia, the stage was set for a showdown against Peru at Boca Juniors' Bombonera stadium. A win would salvage the campaign, forcing a playoff with the Peruvians. Problem was, Peru were a team on the up Teofilo Cubillas was only 20 but already very much the real deal while Argentina were heading in the other direction, sorely missing several stars of the great 1966 team in Oscar Mas, Luis Artime and everyone's favourite midfield-didact Rattin.
Thanks to some inspired goalkeeping from Luis Rubinos, Peru held out until half-time, after which they decided to fly at their hosts. Oswaldo 'Cachito' Ramirez zipped down the inside-left channel and whipped Peru's opening goal into the bottom right on 52 minutes. Rafael Joes Albrecht equalised with an Aldridgesque stuttering penalty on 78, but the die was cast only three minutes later, as Ramirez drifted from the left wing to the right-hand edge of the D before drawing Agustin Cejas in the Argentinian goal and disdainfully flicking into the left-hand side of the net. A glorious goal. Alberto Rendo's late equaliser set up a tense finale, but though Argentina were inexplicably given seven minutes of injury-time virtually unheard of in those days they couldn't find a way through. Peru were off to Mexico, while the humiliated giants of Argentina could have been forgiven for thinking that they were paying back some sort of antics-assessed karmic debt.
4) Belgium (1974)
Plenty had been expected of Belgium at the 1970 World Cup. A fast and skilful team their star men the Anderlecht trio of Paul Van Himst, Johan Devrindt and Wilfried Puis had done for Spain and Yugoslavia in qualifying. And though they started the tournament with odds of 33-1, their opponents were paying no heed to the bookies. "The ball is round and everyone has the same chance," said group rival USSR coach Gavril Kachalin, who it was reported had a "healthy respect" for the Belgians. But the team didn't really turn up. Hugh McIlvanney in the Observer referred to their "pallid indifference". The Soviets beat them 4-1. They went home after the first round.
The Belgians stepped up to the plate in the next major tournament, though, putting out the holders Italy to reach the semi-finals of the European Championship. They lost 2-1 at home to West Germany, a disappointment but hardly a disgrace: the Germans were not long after posting their signature victory against England at Wembley in the quarters, while their two-goal slayer, Gerd Muller, was in the middle of a run which saw him score 85 goals in the calendar year. The Guardian reported that "some of the best shooting came from Leon Semmeling and Van Himst", while "a most valiant attempt to prise open this German side" was made with "wave after wave of Belgian attacks often from six men" breaking around the new Euro champs elect. They gave it a go.
As it turned out, that would be this particular vintage's signature achievement the national side's true glory days were still a decade in the post but they were close enough to making another big mark on world football the following year. Belgium were drawn in a 1974 World Cup qualifying group with the fast-emerging Holland. Both sides put away the other group members, Iceland and Norway, without much fuss, but the Dutch ran up a couple of big scores 9-0 against Norway, 8-1 in Iceland which gave them a vastly superior goal difference to Belgium. So when the Dutch scraped a lucky goalless draw in Antwerp in November 1972 Jean Thissen hit a post for Belgium they effectively only needed another draw when the teams met for the return in Amsterdam 364 days later.
Holland got their draw, but only just. Belgium sat back to soak up Dutch pressure for 89 minutes, then in classic rope-a-dope fashion, struck at the death. Van Himst sent a long free kick into the area. Piet Schrijvers flapped. And Jan Verheyen knocked it in. But despite being played on by three defenders, Verheyen was flagged for offside. Holland took their Total Football to the finals, while Belgium who went through qualifying without conceding a single goal! were out. (You can read more about the match in this typically magnificent feature from the Guardian's Joy of Bob series.)
How would Belgium have done at the finals? Well, who knows, but not badly at all, if friendlies during the run-up to the tournament are anything to go by: they drew 1-1 with Poland, who finished third in the tournament, and were victorious, 2-1, over Scotland, who might have been knocked out early doors as usual but came away unbeaten and having received good notices for once, to boot. Whether Belgium would have made it all the way to the final like the Dutch, en route changing the entire concept of soccer Totally, is probably a bit of a stretch. In any case, Holland made no mistake next time the teams met in a competitive fixture, Rob Rensenbrink (day job: Anderlecht, Brussels, Belgium) scoring a hat-trick in a 5-0 European Championship quarter-final win, the first humiliating leg of a 7-1 aggregate victory.
5) Trinidad and Tobago (1990)
In 2006, Trinidad and Tobago became the smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup finals. Iceland may nick off with that record in the next few days, it's true, but the Soca Warriors will always have Dortmund. We say this just in case it slipped the mind, because otherwise the hard-luck stories of 1974 and 1990 might be too much to bear.
Given that T&T made it to Germany, there's a pleasing symmetry to the story, which begins with them failing to reach West Germany's 1974 finals by a single point. The decisive match proved to be their visit to Haiti, a team Baby Doc Duvalier was giving close attention, the despot desperate for some reflected glory on the world stage. Baby Doc got his wish, with a little help from the referee, who disallowed not just one, but a remarkably brazen five Trinidad and Tobago goals in the game at Port-au-Prince.
Suspicious circumstances having been established, the Salvadorean referee and Canadian linesman were later banned by Fifa for life, but much good it did Trinidad and Tobago, as Haiti had the 2-1 win that propelled them towards the finals. As evidence of how good that Trinidad and Tobago side were, the match that actually rubber-stamped Haiti's participation in Germany was T&T's astonishing 4-0 win over regional behemoths Mexico.
Fast forward to 1989, and the chase for a place at the 1990 finals in Italy. The door was wide open in the Concacaf qualifiers, as Mexico had been banned for fielding over-age players in the World Youth Cup, and sleeping giants USA hadn't quite got their chops up yet. A young and exciting T&T team, nicknamed the Strike Squad, featured the upcoming talents of 21-year-old Russell Latapy and 18-year-old Dwight Yorke, players good enough to later win the English, Portuguese and Champions Leagues. Going into the last game, T&T only needed a draw in their last home match against the USA, and the Americans hadn't scored in 208 minutes.
The manager, as in 1973, was Ollie Camps, while his right-hand man Everald 'Gally' Cummings was one of the star men from that ill-fated qualification campaign. "The football we play rightly reflects the mood of our nation," explained Cummings before the game. "It's relaxed football, calypso football. I don't think we play any particular style, English or Brazilian. We have a Trinidad style, and we want to take calypso football to Italy."
As it turned out, T&T were far from relaxed. The game kicked off church bells across the island celebrated this by pealing non-stop for three minutes in front of a 35,000 crowd at the National Stadium in Port of Spain, with another 10,000 outside, desperately trying to squeeze in. The pressure was too much. The Strike Squad only got one strike on target all game. On 38 minutes, the USA's Paul Caligiuri sent a soft shot swerving past Trinidad keeper Michael Maurice from 25 yards. The dream was over. For another 16 years, anyway, until at the 2006 finals, T&T secured a brave draw with 10 men against Sweden, then held England for 82 minutes until
Crouchy! How could you! So much for happy endings!
6) Denmark (1994)
It's often forgotten how close 1990 world champions West Germany came to missing that year's finals. They required a win in their final game against Wales to scrape through the qualifiers as one of Europe's best group runners-up: Malcolm Allen put the Welsh ahead in Cologne before Rudi Vφller and Thomas Hassler turned it round for the 1982 and 1986 finalists.
Had they not managed it, Denmark would have made Italia 90 instead. In fact, as things transpired, due to the byzantine Uefa qualification calculations, Sepp Piontek's Danes could have made it independently, regardless of what Germany did. A draw in Romania in their final game would have been enough to make it at the expense of their hosts. But the famous Dynamite of Mexico '86 fame was fizzling out by 1989, and a 3-1 loss soaked the fuse.
Still, a close shave, though that was nothing compared to the heartbreak that would blow up in their faces four years later. By the time the 1994 finals were the focus, the Danish were the reigning European champions. They started the campaign slowly, with goalless draws in Latvia and Lithuania, then at home to the Republic of Ireland. Those results would eventually cost them, though it proved terribly close nevertheless. Going into the final round of games, Denmark were unbeaten, and had let in only one goal in 11 matches. A draw in Spain would see them through.
Problem was, Spain had long been Denmark's bogey team, having done for them at Euro 84, Mexico 86 and Euro 88. And so it wasn't to be. Spanish keeper Andoni Zubizarreta was sent off early on for cleaning out Michael Laudrup, but his replacement Santiago Canizares went on to have a stormer. Peter Schmeichel was egregiously blocked off as Fernando Hierro notched for Spain, and while the Laudrup-inspired Danes enjoyed nearly all of the possession, they couldn't get past the inspired Canizares.
Still there was hope, should Jack Charlton's Republic of Ireland fail to get a point in Belfast against their friends from the north. When Jimmy Quinn scored for Northern Ireland on 74 minutes, it looked on for Denmark, but Alan McLoughlin equalised for the Republic four minutes later. The draw secured, Charlton went under the stand at Windsor Park believing his side had reached the finals. "But when I got inside, the Spain game was still going on on the television," he later explained. "The guy asked me if I wanted to watch it. 'Do I bollocks!' I said. Then he touched me on the shoulder and said: 'Now will you look?' And I did, and it had finished 1-0."
Poor old Denmark. And poor old Michael Laudrup, the erstwhile Barcelona and Real Madrid star telling Rob Smyth, Lars Eriksen and Mike Gibbons in their upcoming sure-fire classic Danish Dynamite: The Story of Football's Greatest Cult Team: "Spanish football has given me so much in terms of club level and what I became. And it has taken so much from me with the national team."
