An elderly Sandro Pertini who jumped up in the penalty area, a Kuwaiti sheikh who came down to protest against the referee and managed to have a goal canceled, El Molinón who sang “Let them kiss” during a rigged draw, the x- te disappointment of La Roja, Naranjito, the fascicles of Forges. Those of us who were teenagers when the 1982 World Cup was held in Spain will never feel the same again about the World Cup in 2030. Not because FIFA is breaking the magic of the event with this distribution across six countries and three continents, with more than a hundred games between 48 teams, which will inevitably lower the level. But above all, because we are not the same, this problem lies with us.
Football is part of the sentimental memories of a large part of humanity. The British series “The Hour of Truth” on Movistar+, with the support of FIFA, seeks to refresh or popularize the most epic stories of all World Cups in our minds. In the 10 chapters there are not so many pictures of games, a few more would be desirable, but there are interviews with the protagonists and with witnesses to these heroic deeds. The focus is broad, from Yashin or Garrincha to Messi or Mbappé to Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Zidane or Iniesta. Looking at the losers, like Zaire, which lost 9-0, or El Salvador, which won 10-1; also to the ugly moments, like the so-called Battle of Santiago in Chile-Italy in 1962. And with stories from the Women’s World Cups that we would remember if we had followed them (no, the first one wasn’t the one in Sydney). ): that of the great Marta from Brazil or the goalkeeper Christiane Endler from Chile.
It has been a tendency of the series to give plenty of minutes to England, whose clashes with Argentina are portrayed as the greatest rivalry in the tournament’s history. It is a bit of an exaggeration to present it as a story of redemption that David Beckham took a penalty against Argentina, avenging an earlier absurd sending-off for which he was beaten, without going much further this time. Of course, the English have to admit defeat to Maradona, who scored two goals for them in just four minutes at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, one with his hand and one by dribbling past whoever crossed it. We remembered that.
In 1982 we will look back on the triumph against the superiority of Italy, who were not among the favorites. It started with three draws and its striker Paolo Rossi arrived in bad shape after a two-year ban (for match-fixing). In the second phase, the Azzurra fell into the group of death, with Argentina of a young Maradona and the fabulous Brazil of Sócrates, Falcao and Zico. Center back Claudio Gentile dried up Pelusa with kicks, some of which were painful to watch on television; Against Brazil, Gentile faced Zico, whose jersey he tore, and Rossi scored his goals, which he scored until the final that brought his president to his feet. Gentile therefore brags about his achievement, which is highly celebrated in the land of Catenaccio: “Being smart means committing a foul without being caught, because it’s easy to commit an obvious foul.” Let’s just say I was good at it.” He also says that Maradona told him everything to make him angry, but he didn’t succeed; Both received yellow cards, one for hitting him hard and the other for protesting that they had hit him hard.
Nostalgia traps us. Should we miss this football? Today Gentile would have been sent off and the Hand of God goal would have been canceled by the VAR we complain about so much. But these misdeeds were recorded in our young memories, which were also life lessons.
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