Road to Africa...

WORLD CUP SCANDALS

	The Brazilian went down clutching his face as if Barry Scott had sprayed a great big bottle of Cillit Bang in his eyes

The World Cup is usually accompanied by the sort of sickly-sweet, come-one-come-all slogan you might read in a child’s Christmas card, like 2006’s vomit-inducing, ‘A time to make friends’. Thankfully, for some players the grandest stage of all isn’t about giving the Germans a cuddle, but rather the perfect time to vent a season’s worth of aggro on their opponents’ shins. Portugal’s second-round clash with Holland in 2006 stands out as one of the most bitter games in recent memory. More like a pub brawl than a football match, it broke tournament records for red and yellow cards, with sixteen going in the book and four getting their marching orders. The Portuguese winner came courtesy of a brilliant long-range effort from Maniche, but nobody remembers too much about that. No, what sticks in the mind is the Dutch back-four knocking seven bells out of Ronaldo, Khalid Boulahrouz offering the sharp end of his elbow to anyone in swinging distance and even mild-mannered Luis Figo getting stuck in with a headbutt.

But the venerable old tournament has seen even worse over the years, most notably 1962’s ‘Battle of Santiago’, which made Robben and co’s efforts look like Happy Families by comparison. With the host nation Chile whipped into a frenzy over some insensitive Italian press coverage of an earthquake in the country earlier that year, their clash with the Azzuri was an accident waiting to happen. And sure enough, it all started going off just twelve minutes in. Italy’s Giorgio Ferrini was first to see red and had to be dragged off the pitch by the police. Things went downhill from there, with Mario David next to go for kicking the Chilean Leonel Sanchez in the head. Understandably, Sanchez wasn’t best pleased, the midfielder getting to his feet, laying out Humberto Maschio and breaking the Italian’s nose. The match finally finished with Chile bagging a 2-0 win, but not before the police were forced to intervene a further three times. Presenter David Coleman described it as ‘the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game.’ Which pretty much sums it up.

CHEATING

If you thought the dark art of chucking yourself on the floor and screeching like a toddler with a skinned knee only happened in crooked old club football, think again. Because Eduardo and his turf-hugging friends learned every dirty trick in the book from watching the World Cup.

The 1990 final saw Jurgen Klinsmann cement his position as king of the dive, with an outrageously theatrical tumble over the outstretched leg of Argentine defender Pedro Monzon. The luckless Monzon became the first man to be dismissed in a World Cup Final, Germany won the trophy and Klinsmann somehow managed to convert the fact that he cheated into a hilarious joke by celebrating every subsequent career goal with a full body dive. Although according to the German, what he was actually doing was satirising his reputation. How postmodern of him. ‘I never was a diver,’ smirked Klinsmann recently, before hitting the deck and clutching his ankle.

But while Klinsmann might have been able to shrug his shoulders and get on with things, Rivaldo’s reputation was never the same again after arguably the most famous bit of ‘simulation’ in football history, in 2002. When Turkey’s Hakan Unsal swiped the ball at Rivaldo’s shins, the Brazilian went down clutching his face as if Barry Scott had sprayed a great big bottle of Cillit Bang in his eyes. The ref was obviously moved by the theatrics, promptly showing the incredulous Unsal his second yellow.

Naturally, the Turkish authorities called for Rivaldo’s head, with the chief of their FA complaining, ‘Rivaldo held his head and fell down like he was having a brain haemorrhage’. A fair assessment really, but not one that Phil Scolari agreed with. ‘Rivaldo made a defensive movement because the ball hit him on the leg and was travelling upwards,’ explained the Brazil boss, trying not to laugh. As for Rivaldo himself, he didn’t really see what all the fuss was about, saying, ‘Obviously, I exaggerated the injury for the guy to be sent off’. Sportsmanship? Nah, never heard of it mate.

TRAGEDY

Undoubtedly, the dark side of the World Cup was never more bleak than the tragic case of Colombia’s Andres Escobar in 1994. After a shoddy start to the tournament, the Colombians needed just a point against the USA to progress, but just 34 minutes in, Escobar turned the ball into his own net when attempting to clear a cross from Sheffield Wednesday man John Harkes. The Americans went on to win 2-1, and Colombia were eliminated.

When interviewed after the match, Escobar was philosophical, telling reporters, ‘It’s not the end of the world’. As things turned out, that was exactly what it was. The theory goes that several of Colombia’s drug cartels had more than a few quid riding on their country’s qualification, and were less than pleased by Escobar’s costly slip-up. Ten days after the blunder, the defender was confronted by three men outside a bar in his home country, and was shot 12 times in the face and chest. The killers supposedly shouted ‘goal’ after every bullet was fired. When Escobar cost his country, he ended up dead. When Waddle, Pearce and Southgate did the same thing, they were rewarded with a Pizza advert. Some people have all the luck.

MATCH FIXING

Whilst we all had a good old laugh when Italy claimed South Korea had conned their way into the semi-final in 2002, Argentina’s 1978 campaign was beyond a joke. With a military Junta running things in the host nation, several countries privately suspected there would only be one winner, and were even more convinced when it was announced that Argentina would be playing all of their first-round matches at night, thus giving them the advantage of knowing what result would be needed to progress.

After the first round was successfully negotiated, the second proved no different. With a place in the final at stake, Argentina knew they had to beat Peru by at least four goals to edge out Brazil, having already drawn with their South American rivals in an ill-tempered stalemate. Peru had proven themselves no pushovers having finished above the Netherlands in the first round, so eyebrows were raised when they went down to the Argies by six goals to nil. Whilst nothing was ever proved, accusations have rumbled on for years. As well as having the Argentine military on their case, the Peruvians were allegedly offered ,000 each to throw the match. The Peruvian FA was also supposedly plied with money to ensure they went through with the plan. And on top of all that, their keeper Ramon Quiroga was born in Rosario. That’s Rosario, Argentina, to be precise.

But while there may not have been any proof of cheating in 1978, there aren’t too many ways to interpret what happened in 1982, where West Germany and Austria ‘contested’ the most cynical game of all time. Despite Algeria having beaten Chile the previous day, a 1-0 victory for West Germany would see both them and Austria qualify for the second phase. The match started at breakneck pace, with the Germans throwing everyone forward in search of the goal they needed. Ten minutes later they had the ball in the net through Horst Hrubesch, and then everything ground to a halt.

Both sides spent the next eighty minutes booting the ball around aimlessly, while all hell broke loose in the stands. Outraged Spanish fans furiously chanted the name of ‘Algeria’, banknotes were waved left right and centre and even a German supporter was filmed burning the national flag in disgust. Despite protests from the Algerian FA, Fifa turned a blind eye and both sides qualified as planned. Brilliantly, West Germany’s coach Jupp Derwall still had the front to defend his team’s actions, saying, ‘we had a right to be careful in this game.’ Who said cheats never prosper?

CONSPIRACIES

While the World Cup has had plenty of straightforward scandals and controversies, some of them have been downright weird, like the time when Bobby Moore was arrested for stealing a jewel-encrusted bracelet from a shop in Bogota, Colombia, on the eve of the 1970 World Cup. The story goes that Moore was souvenir shopping with Bobby Charlton, before leaving the jewellers to a chorus of alarms, at which point the police suddenly appeared and a shop assistant labelled the England pair as shoplifters.

Moore was held in custody for 4 days, only being released thanks to the intervention of then PM Harold Wilson. A simple misunderstanding then? Well, probably not actually. Official documents have since emerged, showing that the Colombian police had measured the size of Moore’s fist against the size of the hole smashed in the display case, and discovered it was too big. Witnesses who had claimed to have seen Bobby swipe the bracelet, were later discredited, and had allegedly received bribes to ‘remember’ seeing things they might have missed. Sounds like dodgy stuff, although whether England were victims of a South American plot has never been proved. And the bracelet never turned up either…

Even more confusing is the curious case of Ronaldo’s performance in the 1998 final. Hours before Brazil were set to take on France, the buck-toothed goal machine suffered a mysterious seizure and was whisked off to hospital for tests. With the match about to start, journalists received copies of the teamsheet showing Edmundo partnering Bebeto up front, only for Ronaldo to trot out in his place. Within minutes it was plainly obvious that Brazil’s top scorer was miles of the pace, as he lumbered round the pitch like someone who’d just come out of a coma. Which, in a way, he had.

Why then, did Brazil allow Ronaldo to start the most important match of the tournament if he was in no fit state to play? According to roommate Roberto Carlos, the striker had spent the previous night in a right state, alternately throwing up and bursting into tears. Edmundo, who wasn’t best pleased at missing out, pointed the finger at global-baddies Nike, suggesting that their £400million sponsorship deal with Brazil effectively allowed them to pick the team. Having their biggest star missing from the showpiece match of the year, would not have gone down well at all. Sounds a bit of a stretch to us, but not as much as some explanations. For example there are a good number of people who maintain that Ronaldo was drugged as part of a part of a plot to ‘sell’ the World Cup to the French. Others claim that Ronaldo was simply bigger than the team, and was able to walk in and out of the lineup as he pleased. In any case, Ronnie only had to wait 4 years to get his hands on the trophy, bagging both the goals that beat Germany in the 2002 final. Bet Nike enjoyed that one…

DRUGS

With anxious Fifa officials insisting on anti-doping tests every five minutes during the World Cup period, even those players partial to a cheeky post-match line tend to wait til they’ve been knocked out before cracking out the gear. However, there are always exceptions….

Scotland winger Willie Johnston was a class act on the pitch, a tricky winger with bags of pace and the only Scottish player to ever have scored two goals in a European final. Sadly for him, he will forever be remembered for failing a drugs test at the 1978 World Cup. After the Scots crashed to a 3-1 defeat against Peru (them again) Johnston gave a urine sample testing positive for the banned stimulant Fencamfamin. The winger protested that it was an innocent misunderstanding and that the drug had been part of a hay-fever remedy, but the authorities were having none of it, and Johnston was sent home in disgrace. Defending himself, the Scot argued that his performance against Peru was the worst of his international career, which doesn’t seem much of an excuse really, just a bad review of Fencamfamin. Meanwhile, the Argentine newspapers were outraged, branding Johnston ‘the first disgrace of the World Cup’, the second presumably being when they "paid" the Peruvians to lose by six goals.

If Johnston was unlucky, the same could not be said for the subject of the most famous drugs bust in World Cup history. Going into USA ’94, it’s fair to say that when it came to problems with narcotics, Diego Maradona had previous. After testing positive for cocaine in 1991, he was banned from football for 15 months and had left Italian club Napoli under a cloud. At the time, Diego called foul play, claiming the Italian authorities were out to get him after he had helped dump the Azzuri out of the 1990 World Cup. By the time 1994 rolled around, he had supposedly got himself back on the straight and narrow. ‘I am tired of all those who said I was fat and no longer the great Maradona’, he raged as the tournament approached, ‘They will see the real Diego at the World Cup.’ Sadly, that was exactly what happened.

Hitting the back of the net in the 4-0 win over Greece, it looked like Diego was a good as his word. Until he started to celebrate. Eyes bulging and mouth foaming, Maradona bolted to the nearest TV camera screaming like a well-oiled gentleman of the road. He not only looked like a loon, but a loon who’d helped himself to everything in the medicine cabinet. Sure enough a urine test followed, and the great one was found with a cocktail of banned substances in his system, including the stimulant ephedrine. Thus ended the greatest career in World Cup history. It was, of course, another stitch-up according to Maradona. ‘You can tell these guys at Fifa have no families’, he shrugged, ‘they really didn't take anything into consideration.’