This is the 11th in a series by The Athletic looking back at the winners of each men’s World Cup.
Previously, we’ve looked at Uruguay in 1930, Italy in 1934 and again in 1938, Uruguay in 1950, West Germany in 1954, before a Brazilian double in 1958 and 1962, an England success in 1966, another Brazil win in 1970, and a second West Germany triumph in 1974. Now it’s time for a new name on the trophy: Argentina.
Introduction
Forty eight years after they were defeated in the first final over the water in Montevideo, Argentina finally won the World Cup, on home soil in Buenos Aires. This was the 11th World Cup, and now five had been won by the host nation.
Argentina had been awarded the tournament 12 years beforehand, but the situation in the country had changed dramatically since then, with the government ousted by a military junta headed by General Jorge Rafael Videla. This was a period of serious violence in Argentina, with the most notable death in footballing terms being the assassination of General Omar Actis, the head of the World Cup organising committee.
On the pitch, Argentina were not blessed with an overwhelmingly brilliant generation of players, but they were the favourites going into the tournament.
“Argentina to reach final — but who else?” was the headline in World Soccer magazine’s preview of the competition, for example. But they had an outstanding player in each department on the pitch: the commanding centre-back and captain Daniel Passarella, the diminutive midfield playmaker Osvaldo Ardiles, and the prolific centre-forward Mario Kempes. That, to a certain extent, was enough as they battled through the first group stage, opened up in the second group stage, then edged a memorable final with a 3-1 extra-time win over the Netherlands.
The manager
The tall, thin, long-haired Cesar Luis Menotti was only 39 and most famous for smoking his way through the tournament. He was a fascinating figure, a committed left-wing philosopher in charge during a period of right-wing military dictatorship. He distanced himself from power while also acknowledging the need to stay on decent terms with the regime.
He abhorred the defensive mindset that had dominated Argentine football in the previous decade and was determined to create something which would create a connection between the national side and the public. “His great virtue was to give the players a lot of freedom,” said Kempes. “The player had to handle the three or four tasks he assigned you, but beyond that, players had full freedom to do what they would usually do for their own club.”
The 1970s had seen a mass exodus of Argentina’s star players abroad, particularly to Spain, where a ban on foreign players had recently been lifted. But Menotti was keen to gather his players together for lengthy training camps ahead of the tournament, and this simply wasn’t possible with the differences in European and South American football calendars.
So not only did Menotti convince the country’s football association to ban players under 25 from playing abroad, he initially committed to selecting only three overseas-based players for his squad, then eventually plumped for only one, Kempes. In the lead-up to the tournament, Argentina had played a series of friendlies without him, since Valencia refused to release him.
Menotti pictured before the 1978 World Cup final (Getty Images)
But in the end, Menotti’s decisions proved successful: both in terms of building a team of relatively modest, domestic-based players, and also providing an exemption for the man who would be the tournament’s star. A legendary figure perhaps based more upon his philosophy rather than his success, he died last year at the age of 85, just one year after standing down from a position as a director for the Argentine national side.
Star player
In hindsight, Kempes — El Matador — was always destined to be the star of the tournament, having won the top goalscorer award in Spain in the two seasons leading up to the competition. But Kempes had failed to score at the World Cup four years earlier, and started this tournament slowly. He was admonished in an awkward one-on-one interview by the legendary Alfredo Di Stefano for playing too high up the pitch against the man-marking Italians rather than dropping deep.
Mario Kempes at the 1978 #FIFAWorldCup. 🇦🇷🪄 pic.twitter.com/as4mUjekiJ
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) July 15, 2024
But Kempes exploded into life in the second group stage, scoring twice against both Poland and Peru, before recording his third brace of the tournament in the final against the Netherlands. He also created the other goal for Daniel Bertoni. He won the Golden Boot as top goalscorer, as well as the Golden Ball as best player. Curiously, his goals in the final were his last for Argentina, at the age of just 23 — four years later at World Cup 1982, he again failed to find the target.
Tactics
Menotti insisted on open, free-flowing attacking football; more in keeping with the spirit of Brazil and Dutch sides of the 1970s than Argentine sides of the past, who had earned a reputation for being defensive-minded and, above all else, extremely aggressive. The side’s most striking feature, according to most reports from the time, was therefore their relative lack of brutality.
Their defenders were all better going forward than stopping opponents, with the full-backs committed to overlapping. Even Passarella seemed to switch off regularly, but would suddenly push forward to provide an attacking threat, particularly with powerful left-footed free kicks, although he also had two good chances from open play in the final.
Argentina were more flexible than previous World Cup-winning sides, who tended to have a default shape and only altered it if they felt a particular opponent needed marking. This Argentina varied the positions of their attackers more. Kempes, for example, played particularly deep in a goalless draw with Brazil in the second group phase, perhaps having remembered the criticism from Di Stefano. His role in this tournament was unusual: at various points he felt like a No 9, a No 10 and a midfielder and, while humble away from the pitch, he was quite a straightforward attacker, playing for himself rather than his team-mates even if his average position suggests he was a link man.
At times, the midfield seemed pedestrian and lacking invention, with the obvious exception of Ardiles: a lovely quick dribbler, most obviously when he created a Kempes goal against Poland. They boasted two speedy wingers: Oscar Ortiz was particularly nippy down the left, Bertoni was highly energetic down the right, and Leopoldo Luque was a good foil for Kempes, scoring a spectacular long-range strike against France.
You might be surprised to learn…
Like the Dutch side who had finished runners-up four years earlier, Argentina’s shirt numbers at the tournament were not based around position, but were assigned alphabetically. So when substitute Norberto Alonso popped up for the winner in the opening 2-1 victory over Hungary, there was the somewhat egregious sight of him celebrating over on the far side with the No 1 on his back.
Goalkeeper Ubaldo Fillol wore No 5, while Kempes was, mercifully, No 10. They had the same policy four years later, although one man was allowed an exception: Diego Maradona should have been No 12, but insisted on No 10, which bumped Kempes up to No 11.
The unusual sight of a goalkeeper wearing No 5 (STAFF/AFP via Getty Images)
The final
The Dutch had been amongst the strongest objectors to this tournament being held in Argentina, and had toyed with boycotting the World Cup entirely. Maybe that contributed to Argentine gamesmanship for the final: demanding the Israeli referee was replaced because of his country’s diplomatic ties with the Netherlands, sending the Dutch team bus on an unnecessarily lengthy route to the Estadio Monumental, leaving the Dutch side waiting on the pitch for five minutes before coming out to an almighty roar, and then objecting to Rene van der Kerkhof playing with a light cast around his arm, which had been the case throughout the tournament.
Once most of the ticker tape had been cleared from the pitch, and the game finally started, all this seemed to have rattled the Netherlands, who played an unusually physical brand of football, perhaps a precursor to their infamous 2010 final display against Spain.
Tactically, the most notable feature of the final was how regularly the two goalkeepers found themselves in bizarre positions, rushing out to close down attackers in wide areas. The goals were regularly left unguarded because the goalkeepers seemed overly concerned with narrowing the angle of players who, in modern terms, were merely in cut-back positions. But when the two goalkeepers were wearing the shirt numbers five and eight, maybe that was to be expected.
After Kempes opened the scoring with a clever sliding finish past the advancing Jan Jongbloed, Argentine goalkeeper Fillol was caught too wide for Dick Nanninga’s headed equaliser, and was similarly too far out when Dutch forward Rob Rensenbrink prodded against the post in stoppage time.
For all the talk about the Dutch coming close in 1974, they came even closer — with a less spectacular side — in 1978.
The decisive moment
Two decisive moments, really. Kempes scored his second on the stroke of half-time in extra time, bundling his way past two Dutch defenders and goalkeeper Jongbloed before scrappily turning home a shot that deflected in off Wim Suurbier. It was technically an own goal, although no one felt right taking it away from Kempes.
👨🏻 Mario Kempes with moustache:
3 games / 0 goals💈 Kempes without moustache:
4 games / 6 goals!Did a shave win Argentina the 1978 #FIFAWorldCup? 😅🇦🇷
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 8, 2022
With the Dutch chasing the game, the Argentines’ main quality — their commitment to forward running — proved crucial on the break and they had a few chances to seal the game. Eventually, they did so with an even scrappier goal. Bertoni played the ball to Kempes in midfield, he dribbled forward, and then his return pass bounced off Bertoni’s knee, then off Kempes’ chest, then back off Bertoni and fell nicely for him to tuck the ball home. You can forgive Jongbloed for being bamboozled by the pinball nature of the move, but again he ended up in an odd position. In fact, you can question the goalkeepers’ position for all four goals in the final.
The New York Times’ Alex Yannis seemed unimpressed by the spectacle. “The Argentines spent most of the overtime on the ground, contending that they had been fouled and pleading with the Italian referee to call fouls,” he wrote. “They apparently forgot the main issue — a soccer game that was watched by about a billion people round the world.”
Were they definitely the best team?
It was generally acknowledged that this was a World Cup without a genuinely outstanding team, after Brazil in 1970 and the Netherlands in 1974 had captured the world’s imagination with forward-thinking football. In fact, there was a feeling that world football lacked not merely great teams, but great players. The holder of the Ballon d’Or — at the time only open to European players — was the Dane Allan Simonsen, perhaps the most obscure winner of the award.
It must also be added that Argentina benefited from various instances of good fortune: being hosts, some favourable refereeing decisions in a group-stage win over France, and the fact they knew what result they needed in their last second-round match, because Brazil had played earlier in the day. That game, a 6-0 win over Peru, was later the subject of an extensive investigation published by the Sunday Times that suggested the game had been fixed.
(STAFF/AFP via Getty Images)
But who else was there? Brazil had lost the flair and spirit that had taken them to previous success. The Dutch were without Johan Cruyff and more functional than four years beforehand. France looked decent but exited, somewhat unfortunately, in the first group stage.
“Argentina won the World Cup because they deserved to,” wrote World Soccer’s Eric Batty, always reluctant to dish out praise. “They showed everyone how the game should be played, with clever players going forward all the time — never mind about marking the opposition stars.”
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Peter Robinson/EMPICS via Getty Images; Manny Millan /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)
