Success and horror in the World Cup that changed Argentina

• Chronicle The seas open for Argentina in the World Cup

Those little pieces of paper thrown on the grass of the Monumental stadium achieved something unheard of, that in the epicenter of hell of the military dictatorship of

a white carpet was rolled out towards the sky.

When between

and

they overthrew the resistance of the Netherlands on June 25, 1978 to grant Argentina its first World Cup (3-1), around 17 million people took to the streets to celebrate it, 60% of the population of the country.

But, past

Over the years, few admit to having participated in that emotional exorcism.

The feeling of guilt that happiness could take shelter among the atrocity still weighs heavily.

This Argentina, which is competing in Qatar for its third World Cup, now has reasons to look back, to go beyond Maradona's feats in 1986. Because this Friday their rival will once again be the Netherlands, against whom it all began.

It was at that 1978 World Cup that the journalist, writer and lawyer

reinterpreted through exhaustive research in his work

.

Kempes celebrates Argentina's goal in the 1978 final.

MS

"The military tried to use the World Cup for their own benefit, but in the long run it turned against them," he says in conversation with EL MUNDO Bauso.

And he explains himself: «This is what they now call

(washing one's image thanks to sporting events) is always counterproductive.

It manages to put the focus on that country for many months and that things begin to be seen that had not been seen or had not been paid attention to.

The Argentine case was relegated in the European press for various reasons: first, because the South American quota was already covered by the Chilean case.

Pinochet was almost a comic book villain.

The second reason, in Argentina the repression was completely clandestine.

People disappeared and there was still no real awareness at that time of the real magnitude of what was happening.

And third, there was a naturalness in the alternation, not between governments of one sign and another sign, but between democratic governments and military governments.

Argentina came from being a very violent country in the last Peronist government.

And it was believed that the military government was going to apply a little common sense.

That was believed outside, in the distance.

Also in Argentina.

And all this helped to prevent the Argentine case from being present in the media.

And Bauso abounds: «The violations of Human Rights reach the front pages of the newspapers thanks to the World Cup.

And the common citizen of the large European countries, from Sweden, which is where the complaints began, passing through France and the Netherlands, which were the countries with the strongest boycott groups, but also in Spain and Germany, learned that in Argentina there had been disappeared , babies were stolen, there was torture... Until then, many people had no idea ».

"They watched the games together"

Among the more than 700 clandestine detention centers that multiplied during the military dictatorship, ESMA stood out.

He was the biggest of all.

All kinds of atrocities were committed there before detainees were made to disappear, thrown alive into the sea.

“It is always said that while the goals were being sung on the River field, people were tortured at 400-500 meters at ESMA, which is true.

But there is something that makes the situation more complex.

While the goals were shouted at the Monumental, the goals were also shouted at the ESMA.

Talk about the power of soccer.

Many of the detainees, disappeared, maintain that while Argentina was playing their matches they were not tortured.

It was a little oasis.

And they also say that they suffered because the image of the dictatorship was fortified.

At least that's what it looked like at the time.

although it was later shown that this was not the case.

But the parties in Argentina saw them tortured and torturers together.

Is awesome".

What did not change during the four weeks that the World Cup lasted, according to Matías Bauso's research, was the number of disappeared.

«During June 1978 there were 55, which was the monthly average in that first part of the year.

When there were more disappearances it was in 1976 and the beginning of 1977».

And the footballers of that selection of

what could his attitude be?

"They played football -Bauso specifies-.

It must be taken into account that in Argentina it was a normal situation for there to be military governments as well.

They didn't see it as traumatic and were totally focused on the game.

Over the years, many have accused them of being collaborators.

For me they are far from having been.

They did their job.

It is very difficult or almost impossible to find their statements in favor of the regime.

There is almost none.

And that the regime was trying to extract from them because they were highly regarded by society.

But they didn't.

Not only out of prudence, but because they did not think about it.

The truth".

Was there rigging?

For decades there was talk about possible rigging.

Like the match against Peru, in which Argentina, who played knowing Brazil's previous result to reach the final, had to win by four goals difference.

He did it for six.

Or in the same final, where the Dutch said they felt harmed.

"The suspect match is Argentina-Peru. And I, despite writing a 900-page book, I already say in the introduction that I am not going to give a conclusive answer to whether the match was clean or fixed. I have no conclusive evidence or one thing or the other. There is a list of things that make you think that it was not a rigged game. And another similar list of situations that make you suspicious. As for the final, we have what happened with

.

You couldn't play with plaster.

The Argentines knew it and took the opportunity to ask before the game to have it removed.

About that a bigger myth was created than it was in reality.

They used the mischief of trying to distract them before the game, already on the field.

But in that sense the regulation assisted them.

The Dutch complained about the arbitration but if you look at it, they were contemplative with the fouls, which were very hard, on both sides.

But it was also a mark of the time.

There was no double yellow, and they were contemplative arbitrations with violence.

What did happen was that the Dutch coach was forced to make a much longer and inappropriate journey, with a free hand for the fans to use violent intimidation.

"It was a practice that was born in the Copa Libertadores", affirms Bauso, who continues: "The visiting teams were forced to make a longer journey so that they felt the pressure of the people in the street. They made them pass through the local public to frighten them. They tried the night before not to let them sleep. They didn't get it with the Netherlands, but they did with Peru and Brazil. I have proven that the bus thing happened in the game in Brazil, Peru and the Netherlands. These were usual practices in South America".

As the Netherlands lost in overtime,

, who had been the great star of A Clockwork Orange in 1974, saw the second consecutive defeat of the Dutch in the World Cup final at the BBC studios in London.

He had refused to participate in Argentina '78 although it took him decades to explain the real reasons.

"On September 17, 1977, something decisive happened. I was at home, watching a basketball game on television, when the doorbell rang. A voice said it was from a courier company and that it brought me a package. When I opened the door to find a gun to my head and a man forced me to lie on the floor face down. We were all at home. The children were in their room. The man also forced Danny, my wife, to lie on the floor "Cruyff explained in the last biography published before he died.

"Later it was learned that there was a van parked with a mattress inside. Everything suggested that this was going to be a kidnapping."

The former Dutch forward described the following months as "unbearable" and "unsustainable".

There were even policemen sleeping in the living room.

He rejected the call of his selection, but he always thought that with him on the field, perhaps, the story of that final would have been different.

Bauso, meanwhile, insists that sporting success had nothing to do with arbitration proceedings: "Contrary to what is thought, I saw the vast majority of the World Cup matches several times. Those in Peru, Argentina and other powers. And Argentina, contrary to what is thought, was not favored by the referees. They had the most difficult initial group that a host has ever faced: Italy, France and Hungary. From that point of view I don't find that they had advantages." .

Fillol, Passarella, Kempes...

And he puts the focus on the quality of a team that, yes, was carried away by the fans: "The public, as excited as it was, served to intimidate the rivals. Although it was a team of extraordinary players. Like Fillol. I never saw a goalkeeper save as much as he did. Passarella was a

, Kempes was naturally a

.

René Houseman, who did not have a great World Cup, was a

.

Bertoni, who played for Sevilla, was a

.

Ortiz, the left winger, was a

.

And then you had great players, Ardiles, Olguín, Tarantini... It was a team made up of very good footballers.

However, it was less

than memory allows us to think.

It was a team that, as it had that European competitive speed, was very much in front, it was very dizzying, it did not have so much development, and it crashed more than we think.

And he never threw the offside line, which was what Menotti's style was later associated with.

Until the end he had never thrown it."

In Doha, in a luxurious hotel on the seafront, many of those footballers who won the world title in 1978 enjoy and are feted. And where they are reminded of that time full of contradictions.

Bauso concludes: "If the dictatorship lasted seven years, those 25 days of June were an exception within the 2,400 days. It was a festive moment. They formed a sociological phenomenon that cannot be provoked. So much so that the Military Junta believed that it was They could reply with a lot of cups, from Maradona's youth World Cup to every title a boxer won or Guillermo Vilas' championships or the Copa Libertadores, but it is impossible to prefabricate a state of euphoria and mobilization like the one experienced by Argentine society. if it does not happen spontaneously. To achieve the same, they had to go to the other great Argentine nationalist adventure apart from the World Cups, which are the Malvinas. And there they did coincide again, mobilizations, consensus, and that is so dangerous in the societies, which is the vocation of unanimity".

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