Rob Hughes on Football

Let’s start by talking about the World Cup in Argentina in 1978, when the country was still ruled by a military junta. This is one of the episodes in the book by Paul Gardner, Soccer Talk.

Yes, I met Gardner during that tournament – he and I got into some quite incredible scrapes. I’m sure everybody did in 78, because Argentina was under such political repression. It was the first World Cup that I actually attended. And I was actually turfed out of my hotel for having written articles about the junta before I arrived, and put into a hotel where they could watch me. But what they inadvertently did was put me right in the heart of the city, so that I could literally see the crowds becoming dissident towards the regime. Gardner and I were caught in the square outside the obelisk. There was such a crowd, I am certain that people would have been crushed to death in it. What we didn’t realise was that that was the night of coming out – that was the night people decided ‘to hell with the junta, we’ve won a soccer game, and we’re going to celebrate!’ So everybody was on the street, and I met Gardner as both of us tried to escape from the deathly crush. We jumped a barrier and finished up in the underground – for which we hadn’t got a ticket between us – and some incredible Argentine people gave us their coins (they weren’t tickets, they were coins) so we could get away. Even though it meant they couldn’t. It was an astounding piece of humanity and it taught me a lot about the Argentines. That was literally my meeting with Gardner. 

The book you’ve recommended of his is a collection of articles and essays stretching over 30 years. But the Argentina 78 episode is your favourite?

People think I’m crazy, but I genuinely believe that that tournament changed history. I think the generals, having repressed the people and had night curfews for I don’t know how long before we got there, simply couldn’t maintain that repression once they’d let the people out on to the streets. And they made, I suppose, a political error in allowing them to do it. But they had wanted the World Cup, and managed to acquire the World Cup, to further their regime. So they used the politics, the internal politics of football, to get the World Cup. But then, having got it, it turned into the great liberation of the people. And everywhere you went, to every city, Mar del Plata or wherever, the night of an Argentine game, it became a night of outpouring on the streets. And it was clearly far, far more than a football tournament. Really what I’m saying is that the force was bigger than football. They probably weren’t the greatest team in the tournament, but they just weren’t going to lose to anyone. 

And they beat the great Dutch team in the final. Though Holland’s best player, Johan Cruyff, had failed to show up for the tournament, though no one really seems to know exactly why.

I used to be very, very close to Johan Cruyff, at the time when he was right at the top of his game. He and I played together, and I kicked him once. He had an absolutely incredible insight into the game, even as a young player. He was far ahead of anyone else, but, and I used to tell him this, he was the problem. He wanted to run everything in the team, and the other players didn’t want to be run by him. They should have won the World Cup in Germany in 74. They then went to Argentina and they reached the final again. Cruyff refused to go because he had a personal contract with Puma, and Adidas was the team’s sponsor. He wanted to cut his own deal, so he started appearing in photographs with a different kit to the rest of the team, so they dropped him.

Holland never give me the impression of really wanting to win. 

They don’t want to win with each other. They argue with each other all the time. And they’ve already started in this World Cup, some of the big players… But, personally, I don’t think they could ever have won in Argentina. If ever destiny played a part in this sport it was that time. The Argentine team had such a high, almost superhuman, reason to win the World Cup, that I don’t think anybody would have got in the way. And also that was a rough, tough Argentine team. 

Can you tell me anything else about Gardner and his book, beyond Argentina 78?

You’ve rumbled me a bit because I think that’s why I like the book, because the book brings to life something that you can hear from the way I’m talking, informed me as journalist. American followers of football know Gardner more for his other book, The Simplest Game, which he wrote in 1994, the year America staged the World Cup. Pele, the most accomplished player in the sport’s history, recommended Gardner’s book to all Americans who want to know, and love, his game. But I prefer Soccer Talk. It features themes tackled by the author in many parts of the world, and there’s better stuff in the book than the chapter about Argentina. Gardner has an obsession with Hispanic players. I was actually in New York about ten days ago – it was Gardner’s 80th birthday, and the United States Soccer Federation helped organize a huge dinner for him and invited me to go and say some words. And one of the reasons they were holding this big party for him is that he helped bring over a team from Bolivia, a boy’s team from Tahuichi [http://www.tahuichi.com]. It was a very special team because he took street urchins from drugs to soccer, and from that team they produced almost the entire 11 that played in the World Cup in the US in 1994. If you trace it back, the reason for that team’s special affinity with America, where the World Cup happened to be being hosted, was this one guy.