World Cup 2022: Time to fly from Rossi’s peak

The World Cup was held in Spain for the first time with 24 teams. Controversy has also surrounded the tournament due to poor management from the start. Like this bad management, Italy got off to a rough start, but in the end, it was Italy who won the World Cup again after 44 years after completing the ‘Italian job’.

The 1982 World Cup draw was broadcast live on television for the first time. According to FIFA’s requirements for the tournament, 40 million dollars were spent on the renovation of the stadiums in Spain, and 60 million were spent on organizational work, of which 6 million were spent on the event.

World Cup 2022

Trouble began a few weeks before the draw began when the Spanish police received an anonymous tip; It said the Basque separatist movement ETA “wants to cause serious damage to the event”. However, in the end, it turned out to be a hollow bully. But the guests who arrived in Spain in January 1982 for the World Cup were greeted by a swagger of gun-toting guards and hunting dogs.

England returned to the World Cup after 12 years, but they were placed as one of the top six seeded teams, with other European teams struggling. South Americans were also involved in such a facade. Argentina’s Diego Maradona expressed doubt that the draw would be rigged so that ‘the apple of everyone’s eye Brazil could walk the easiest road to the final’.

And in view of Maradona’s accusations, Brazilians also remind, four years ago, what happened in the World Cup organized by the dictator Videla in Argentina.

However, the most protestant and charismatic footballer in the history of Brazil, Socrates, was vocal against all kinds of dictatorial regimes in his country, Brazil and Argentina. It’s fair to say that after the controversial World Cup victory in ’78, Argentina’s military rulers were dreaming of winning another World Cup and erasing the smoke of the Falklands War. But the Mayo del Plata movement then turned into a mass movement. People are slowly realizing that no matter how strong a dictatorship is, it cannot stand up to the united power of the masses.

Cameroon threatens to boycott World Cup unless New Zealand apologizes for supporting apartheid South Africa. Cameroon and Algeria eventually took part in the World Cup despite New Zealand not apologizing, but Cameroon goalkeeper Thomas Nkono continued his protest against horrific racist behavior on and off the field.

The World Cup has started

A total of 24 teams were divided into six groups in the preliminary round. The top two teams will advance to the second round, where there will be four groups of three teams each. The group toppers of this phase will go to the semi-finals. This was the format of that tournament.
The incident happened in the first game (June 13). Defending champions Argentina lost to Belgium. Not only that, in front of 95,000 spectators at Barcelona’s historic Camp Nou, one of the highlights of that game, the Belgians bottled up Argentine youngster Diego Maradona. However, Belgium and Argentina beat Hungary and Honduras to advance to the next round.

Although the French were considered favorites in Group ‘B’, they lost to England and drew with former Czechoslovakia. However, Platini’s team went down to the next stage.
Exactly 40 years later, the World Cup 2022 was held in an oil-rich country in the Middle East. The 1982 event was memorable for another oil-rich country, Kuwait. For receiving tickets to play in the World Cup, all of the 24-member team of Kuwait received a gift of a Cadillac car, a piece of land, and an expensive speedboat. In this context, let’s remember the story of Ahmed Al Jabir Al Sabah, the brother of the Kuwaiti Emir and the president of the Football Federation.

After conceding a total of three goals against France, as Kuwait counted down the final whistle, Alaa Jihes scored another goal for France. But the Kuwaitis claimed that the sound of the whistle coming from the gallery was the referee’s last whistle and left the game! Meanwhile, an incredible incident happened. A man dressed in robes, covered in precious jewels, roared into the field. A bunch of Spanish police back and forth. who is the man Kuwaiti prince? Surprisingly, the referee then said, ‘No goal!’ The game ended there. And FIFA then fined His Excellency Amir eight thousand pounds.

The biggest shame happened in group number 2. It was perhaps another lopsided match in World Cup history.

World Cup marred by cheating:

West Germany surprisingly lost the first game to Algeria. The way a 24-year-old Algerian named Lakhdar Belloumi single-handedly crushed the German army that day can only be compared to Maradona four years later. Bellamy’s performance of 1 goal and an ‘assist’ on that day is one of the best in World Cup history. There was no fanfare for this player, the inventor of such brilliant tricks as the Bellaumi-Blind pass, which earned him the title of Algeria’s all-time great; Because he did not play club football in Europe.

But the great proof of the hypocrisy of the West was found on June 25 at El Minion in Gijon. The match against Austria, who won two games, was Germany’s defeat of Chile. If Germany wins, the three teams with Algeria will have equal points. Algeria’s goal difference is 0, while Austria +3 and Germany +2. That is, if Germany wins by 1 or 2 goals, then two European countries will go to the next round and Algeria will be eliminated.

Who does not know, Germans are very seasoned in accounting and epistemology? Without even trying to become the group champion, Austria did not show any enthusiasm after conceding 1 goal after 10 minutes. Germany does the same by honoring this ‘spirit’.

In this match, which is one of the most shameful in the history of football, the two teams played each other for 80 minutes. The two teams passed the time by playing passes to each other in a hideous trick game. FIFA, as usual, did not find any crime! French coach Michel Hidalgo claimed that FIFA should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this amazing ability to stay out of trouble. He came to the field that day to take some notes while watching the opponent Austria play in the next round. At the end of the game, his notebook was not scratched!

After the game, a German commentator announced that the review that was supposed to be conducted on this match was canceled due to compatibility reasons. An Austrian commentator urges everyone to change the sports channel and watch something else. A German fan burned his country’s flag in anger at this shameful display, Algerians pretended to hand bundles of money to the Austrians from the gallery, and some scoffed. But who cares about the anger of the weak?
In Algeria, the match was called ‘Fadakhat Gijon’ or ‘The Disgrace of Gijon’, and in Europe, including Germany, it was derisively called the ‘Anchalus’ (compared to Hitler’s German occupation of Austria in 1938). However, the Spanish newspaper ‘El Comercio’ works the most on this match.

The next day, the media also printed reports on the match with pictures. However, it is not on the game page, but on the crime page!

Those who rose to the peak of excellence

In the midst of so much shame and fun, the ultimate sporting excellence can be seen in that event. Three players—Italy’s Paolo Rossi, Brazil’s Socrates, and France’s Michel Platini—gave mesmerizing performances.

My biggest regret is about the Brazilian team. Author Stuart Horsfield, in his book ‘Glorious Failure’ about Brazil’s 1982 World Cup mission, claimed that this team played more impressive football than in the 1970s. Zico’s captaincy showed the ultimate ‘football art’ but they lost to Italy in the second round group stage.

Of course, there should be a whole chapter on Socrates. His well-educated father, who hated the country’s military regime, named his son in the hope that he would one day become a philosopher. More than expected. As Marx used to say, the philosopher’s job is not only to explain the world but to change it—the bearded, headband-wearing, style icon Socrates won over the football to the youth of the era and used his fame to restore democracy to the country. Two years after the World Cup 2022, the movement against the military government demanded direct presidential elections. On April 16, 1984, Socrates announced to a crowd of two million people in Cathedral Square that if elections were not held, he would leave Brazil for Italy. The authorities were forced to hold elections under this threat.

The popularity of ‘Zico’ as a name for children born around that time in Bangladesh is explained by how Socrates’ midfield comrade Zico played. With these two, Falcao and Toninho Creza, the four-man midfield is arguably the best of all time.

But Platini, one of the best ever in Europe, proved that you can’t win if you are the best. He also, unfortunately, went out in the semi-finals in a tiebreaker. Of course, bad refereeing also played a role. German goalkeeper Harold Schumacher knocked France’s Battiston to the ground with a punch that day, but Dutch referee Charles Korver surprised everyone by only showing Schumacher a yellow card.

But despite all this, the Germans lost in the final. If Platini, Socrates appeared in divine beauty, the hero of the epic in that tournament was Paolo Rossi. The glamourous footballer appeared accompanied by stigma and uncertainty.
In the 1980s, Italian football was in complete disarray. Italians with a natural sense of humor used to say that the favorite team in the Italian Serie A that year was Regina Coeli. No, there was no party by that name, the name was from a prison in Rome. That year, 11 Italian players were jailed for the country’s biggest football scandal, the ‘Totonero’ (Black Lottery) match-fixing scandal.

The name of 23-year-old Rossi, who performed well in the World Cup 2022 earlier, was also involved. Italy’s most expensive player at the time was also accused of accepting a bribe of 2 million lire. Rossi has always denied it, but the problem comes in two places. One, Rossi’s lawyer bribed a witness and the Italian federation felt that Rossi had not given much information in the case against teammates and that a harsher sentence for such a prominent player would set a good precedent for the future.

Despite receiving a three-year suspension, Rossi eventually appealed to have his sentence reduced by one year, but it seemed impossible for Rossi to play in the World Cup 2022  after two years out of action. Rossi arrived in Spain with only three league matches and six cup matches that year.

Rossi’s start was as lackluster as the team’s. With three draws in Italy’s first three games, Rossi couldn’t open the scoring, but he caught fire in time. Stopped Brazil with one of the best hat tricks in World Cup history. In the semi-final, they lost to Poland, who was in great form in that tournament, by two goals. And in the final against Germany, Italy won 3-1 with 1 goal.

The whole world was shocked. Instead of the Brazilian gods and the French artists, the incredible victory of Italy was beset with shame and humiliation. The 1982 World Cup was colored by the incredible story of Rossi becoming immortal.

The end of the World Cup is best understood by the sky-high jubilation of goal scorer Marco Tardelli after the second goal by Italy’s great team composition. The name of that jubilation became ‘Tardelli Scream.’ That scream was telling that only mortals, full of mistakes, would win in the end. The real champions of this world are those people.