A short but simple one today. Italy were going close to fifty years since their last triumph when Spain '82 came around, both of those victories coming in those heady days of the 1930s, in the World Cups which had few participants; indeed, in 1934, then-superpower Uruguay scoffed at the chance to travel all the way to Europe (albeit, probably then by a weeks-long ferry journey) to defend the inaugural crown. Italy did the honours on home turf in '34, and defended their trophy in nearby France four years later.
However, a golden generation, perhaps even Italy's greatest generation to this day, had passed trophyless - Gigi Riva, Sandro Mazzola, the great Gianni Rivera (youtube him if you can: a truly, truly marvellous player), Giacinto Facchetti and Roberto Boninsegna had come close in 1970, but flopped badly in 1974 and finished fourth in 1978. It would be fair to say that despite the quality of their individual components, their output as a collective was sadly lacking, much like the great Dutch side of the mid-to-late 90s (Bergkamp, Davids, Seedorf, the de Boers, Van Der Sar, etc etc).
Despite recent failings, the build up to 1982 was no different than usual, and Italy as ever were amongst the favourites. After a disappointing group stages which they stumbled through after a 0-0 draw with Poland and two 1-1s with Cameroon and Peru, it appeared the writing was on the wall again. However, inspired by Paolo Rossi, Italy turned on the style and ripped through Argentina and Brazil (at this time both incredible sides: see Maradona, Passarella, Ardiles; Socrates, Zico, Junior, Falcao) 2-1 and 3-2 respectively. A comfortable semi-final win over group stage foes Poland (2-0) put Italy in the final against West Germany. The rest is history. Rossi put Italy ahead on 57 mins, but it is the second goal by Marco Tardelli, and also the famous ecstatic celebration, on 69 mins which is the iconic image of this triumph. Altobelli made sure on 81 mins, before the wonderfully bearded socialist maverick Paul Breitner struck a consolation goal for Germany late on.
Italy were back. There were no jeers of the clichéd Italian defensive, slow cynicism - the '82 vintage were full of attacking riches, having scored 5 and conceded four in their second group stage games with Brazil and Argentina. Take Tardelli's goal for example: the Italians broke quickly from defence and flooded men forward, even keeping their cool to pass around the box before Tardelli unleashed his thunderous left foot half-volley past a helpless Harald Schumacher. They had survived years of failure, 44 to be precise, before finally redelivering. Now, how many years ago was 1966.....
TOMORROW: A World Cup hero sacked and exiled?! It can only be 2002 again.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
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