Peru & whose army?
Legend Cubillas single-handedly wrecked a nation’s dream and everywhere he goes Scots fans remind him of it but Roughie reckons his wall was height of nonsense
TEOFILO CUBILLAS broke five million Scottish hearts and it could all have been prevented if a couple of players decided to risk sore faces.
Peruvian legend Cubillas has apologised to the nation for plunging the Scots into the depths of despair at Argentina ’78.
The countries face each other again in Lima in the early hours of Wednesday, their fourth meeting since 1972 and their first since a challenge match finished 1-1 at Hampden in September 1979.
Cubillas, 69, is still the greatest midfield scorer for Peru in World Cup history, with 10 strikes from three finals appearances.
Two of them came during that fateful game in Cordoba when Scotland began a finals campaign that would end, we were promised by Ally MacLeod, with a medal.
But Cubillas and Co triumphed 3-1 and the mood of the Tartan Army changed overnight.
To top it all, after that game Willie Johnston tested positive for drugs and the campaign descended into farce and bitter recrimination.
Time and distance help heal all wounds but the scar tissue remains for a generation of supporters who have long since learned to accept the Scots will forever be the great unpredictables of world football.
Joe Jordan had opened the scoring early on to boost the feelgood factor but it began to sour when Cesar Cueto equalised before half-time and Don Masson missed a penalty shortly after the interval.
Cubillas, the former South American Player of the Year, then took over with a swerving shot to give his side the lead with only 18 minutes to go.
Scots’ hopes of salvaging even a point were dashed five minutes later when Cubillas stepped up from 20 yards to curl a right-foot free-kick with the outside of his boot past Alan Rough, a goal he still describes as his best set-piece.
Cubillas said: “I’ve met Scots several times since 1978 and they always tell me I broke their hearts.
“I’m very sorry to all the Scottish people but they also know it was not my fault. It is football and that free-kick in particular made me very happy.
“I believe Alan Rough was expecting a shot from the inside of the right foot around the other side of the wall. But one of my team-mates made a decoy run and I hit it with the outside of my right foot around the corner of the wall he was least expecting.
“I knew before I took the kick, 100 per cent, I was going to score. Maybe I confused him in the end. I had only scored a goal like that once before, playing for my club side in Lima, Alianza.
“However, I had practised it hundreds of times on the training ground. It remains the best free-kick I ever scored in my career, especially to do it at the level of the World Cup.
“Scotland had us worried in the manner they started the game, especially when Jordan scored, but when our keeper saved the penalty early in the second half we knew the match was ours.
“The atmosphere changed for everyone connected with Scotland after that match. I know how they felt because the people of Peru were singing about us winning the Cup after the first round when we defeated Scotland and Iran and drew with Holland. Unfortunately in the second stage we lost to Argentina, Brazil and Poland. The people were mad at us when we returned home.”
Unsurprisingly, Roughie’s recollection of the Cubillas wonder strike is a little different as he hailed his genius but admitted the defensive wall was set up all wrong.
He said: “We had two of the smallest players in our team, Stewart Kennedy and Lou Macari, on the outside of the wall. They were taken by surprise. “Cubillas took the free-kick with the outside of his boot but it was head height. Typical of outfield players, they decided to duck. Had they taken the hit on the face Cubillas never would have scored. “However, you have to credit him for having the confidence and ability to swerve it around the wall. It was a quality goal but we had underestimated the Peruvian squad – including Cubillas. “A lot of people forget they went on to win the group. They were much, much better than we had been led to believe and they even had two or three players in their line-up we knew nothing about.” Cubillas can still ring off the names of players such as Jordan, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and Johnston. His free-kick attained such cult status he was even invited to London to recreate it in the Phoenix from the Ashes section of Fantasy Football, with 10 cans of Red Stripe marking his team-mates with those distinctive strips.
He later had stints in Swiss football and in the States but in recent years has focused on his work as a summariser for Peruvian TV and his coaching school in Florida.
A 50,000 crowd in the Estadio Nacional will cheer their heroes after the game against Scotland as they depart for the World Cup in Russia but Rough sees merit in this current tour for Alex McLeish’s squad.
He said: “I know what it’s like to be a player from a smaller club who wants to impress at this level. Alex might just see potential in one or two of this squad over the next couple of games. For anyone on that plane, it’s the trip of a lifetime.”