For the record, Argentina fielded a very young team, with just Racing Club midfielder Rudolphe Vincente and striker Hector Yazalde having reached age 21. At age 18, Boca Juniors striker Carlos Garcia was the youngest of the South Americans.
But there is no dismissing the magnitude of Trinidad and Tobago’s 1-0 victory over Argentina at the 1967 PanAm Games in Winnipeg, Canada. It was a magical tournament for the Caribbean team, fielding a football squad for the first time at the PanAm Games, topping their group, and also winning a bronze medal.
The Argentines were young, but players of potential. A couple of them went on to play in Europe, while at least two later represented the senior Argentine team at international level. Right-back Bargas had 30 national caps and later also played in France for both Metz and Nantes, while striker Yazalde, who died at age 51 in 1997, was once European Golden Shoe winner after scoring 46 goals.
Yazalde also had ten senior national team caps and was a member of Argentina’s 1974 FIFA World Cup team, where he twice scored in a 4-1 win over Haiti. Prominent members of the T&T team included 32-year-old Association Footballer of the Year and the captain Sedley Joseph, 30-year-old Alvin Corneal, and goalie Lincoln “Tiger” Phillips.
Men against boys some might say. But it was no less easy for Trinidad & Tobago, although the Caribbean team had an advantage because FIFA at that time allowed developing CONCACAF teams like Mexico, Canada, Bermuda and T&T to field full national teams, while restricting South Americans Argentina and Colombia to under-23 players. Years later, FIFA changed the rules and restricted all teams to under-23 players.
Corneal played the entire match as T&T cancelled out two first half Alfonzo Tovar (34th & 43rd) goals when Gerry Brown (59th & 88th), Pat Small (79th & 80th) and Kevin Berassa (64th) scored to give them a 5-2 victory over an equally young Colombian team. Injury kept him out the 1-1 draw against Mexico, which had beaten the Caribbean team 4-0 three months before, and he went off annoyed when coach Conrad Brathwaite took him off for the final few minute of the Argentina match.
Kevin Berassa had scored for T&T just about 12 minutes from the end, but Argentina was coming forward in waves. “The guys fought that final 11 minutes to the very end,” Corneal recalled. “I would like to think it was the best bunch of players Trinidad and Tobago had used in a football match up till then.”
Corneal recalls that few believed that a relatively unknown Trinidad and Tobago could beat Argentina at any level, far less advance from a group that also included Mexico and Colombia.
“It seemed a foregone conclusion to everyone that we were not going to come out of the group,” Corneal said frankly. “It was an expectation by the people of Trinidad and Tobago that we were definitely out of depth.”
Tall in goal for Trinidad and Tobago and in his prime at age 26, goalie “Tiger” Phillips remembered being “very busy”, against the young Argentines, who were not taking defeat to an unknown Trinidad and Tobago easily. “Argentina was supposed to win the gold medal,” Phillips declared. “They were the big team.”
Later, T&T were upset 3-1 by Bermuda at the semi-final stage, but beat Canada 4-1 for third spot, while Mexico won gold. Since 1967, Trinidad and Tobago played Argentina three times at Pan Am level, losing 3-2 in 1971. Then Ron La Forrest and company went down 5-1 in 1975, and T&T also lost 6-0 in 1987 when current T&T assistant national coach Hutson Charles and company were in their prime.
Forty-seven years later, the bronze medal is still the only piece of silverware a Trinidad and Tobago men’s national football team has won at the Pam-Am Games. And like them all those years ago, Phillips is backing the current T&T national team to defy expectations and put up a fight against a star-studded Argentina, when the teams meet today in a Pre-World Cup friendly international in Buenos Aires.
“It’s a great opportunity. To have such an opportunity is wonderful. I don’t care what the result,” Phillips declared.“This is our World Cup. It is good for our players and for the coaches, to prepare for a match against a team which is one of the favourites to win the World Cup.”
1967 PAN AM GAMES SQUADS: (Players ages in brackets)
ARGENTINA: - Angel Bargar (20); Eduardo Noberto Cremasco (20), Jorge Dominchi (20), H. Dorado (20), Carlos Garcia (18), Hector Martinez (19), Jose Martinez (20), Jorge Gomez, Hector Martinez (19), Carlos Oriolo, Ramon Ponce, Juan Tavernar (19), Rodolfo Vincente (21), Hector Yazalde (21), Eduardo Zottola, Humberto Zuccarelli.
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: - Captain- Sedley Joseph (32), Goalkeeper- Lincoln Phillips (26), Alvin Corneal (30), Jean Moutett, Aldwin Ferfuson (32), Tyronne De La Bastide (29), Hugh Mulzac, Selwyn Warren, Arnim David, Teddy Grell (23), Victor Gramaldo (23), Kevin Berassa, Gerry Brown (23), Andy Aleong (24), Jeff Gellineau, Pat Small, Richard Stewart.
Coach: - Conrad Brathwaite.