Evil regime was killing people as we won the World Cup... our fans blamed us but we nothing knew
Argentina’s stars of ’78 on being caught up with murderous ruler Videla
THE security guard is as wide as he is tall and there are no exceptions. The Monument al Stadium, scene of the 1978 World Cup final, is closed to visitors. Even to Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa, winners of that same cup.
But with Ardiles and Villa is a third member of that winning squad, goalkeeper Ubaldo Fillol, known by everyone else as El Pato or ‘The Duck’. His extraordinary saves that day kept his team in the game against a great Holland side, Argentina eventually winning 3-1 in extra time.
Fillol is a national hero but also a local legend here at River Plate’s stadium. He played 360 times for this club between 1974 and 1983. When he played his final fixture aged 40, the entire stadium cheered him off, chanting his name as one of their own. It seems appropriate, until you realise that by then he had joined Velez Sarsfield, who had actually beaten River Plate that day with Pato saving a penalty.
He is 67 now but age has not diminished his status. Teenagers too young to have ever seen him play clamour for selfies. With Pato’s pleading to the security guard, walkie-talkies are produced and discussions with unseen bosses begin. River Plate are about to train on the pitch in 10 minutes’ time. The area is locked down and the pitch itself is a no-go zone.
But this is Fil lo land suddenly the trio are ushered through with a photographer. And they are in the stadium, a cavernous bowl of a place that rises steeply all around.
A world watched bewitched 40 years ago as ticker tape streamed down from those stands and covered the pitch prior to kick- off when the team would emerge from the tunnel. Of course, with Fillol’s presence they are allowed on n the pitch to take their photo, , shortly before the first team will emerge to train. As they are leaving, an event is being g held nearby to celebrate the e staging of the youth Olympics s in Argentina this year.
Special guests include the deputy mayor of Buenos Aires, Diego Santilli, and the president of River Plate, Rodolfo D’Onofrio. Hundreds of schoolchildren and parents listen to speeches. Fillol is recognised and soon the PA announcer has broken off from the formal proceedings to freestyle.
‘We are honoured to have three of our esteemed World Cup winners from 1978 in our midst today,’ he says. And our trio are given the most-honoured seats at the front of the ceremony. It will be a while before they can leave.
This is how it would be in most countries. Forty years on from one of the most controversial World Cups, documentaries are being made about Argentina’s original World Cup, the one they won without Diego Maradona (though he almost made the cut, as Ardiles will later explain).
It has not always been like this. Villa and Ardiles are content later as they reminisce at a restaurant overlooking the spectacular Rio de la Plata in the autumn sunshine. It is the satisfaction that comes from a deep life-long friendship. And of knowing that they have achieved something significant in life. ‘When we arrived in England, every cup you won, you got a medal,’ says Villa who, along with Ardiles, signed for Tottenham in 1978.
‘It’s not like that here. You don’t get medals [for domestic cups]. So the English players would ask us? “How many medals do you have?” “Only one,” we say…’ And Villa’s broad smile breaks through his beard.
Ardiles chips in. ‘ It was very much an English thing. “Put your medals on the table!” I show the medal in England a lot with my friends. When they talk a lot of crap, we get the f****** World Cup medal and: “Boom. Sorry. What did you win? My opinion is worth three times yours!” ’ Ardiles is joking (possibly).
But there was another prize they received for winning that World Cup, one which speaks of the darker forces behind the tournament and which has to some extent haunted their victory through the years.
After the final, the players and their wives were invited to one of the presidential palaces, Quinta de Olivos, by the then ruler of the country, the dictator General Jorge Rafael Videla, head of the military junta that ruled Argentina in 1978. It is estimated that 7,000- 9,000 political prisoners ‘disappeared’ under his rule, many bodies dumped into the Rio Plata from aeroplanes.
Videla died in prison in 2013 and among the various crimes of which he was convicted were 66 murders, 306 kidnappings, 93 cases of torture and a number of child kidnappings, where babies of political opponents were taken from their mothers and given to supporters of the junta.
‘Two or three days after the World Cup we went to La Quinta de Olivos,’ recalls Ardiles. ‘There was champagne. And he [Videla] gave us a silver cigar case as a present with his signature inscribed on it. But he did three different types.
‘ Cesar Menotti, the manager, and Daniel Passarella, the captain, had the biggest ones. The ones that played in the final had a medium- size case.’ Villa laughs self- depreciatingly: ‘And the ones that hadn’t played as much, a small one. I had a little one! We didn’t know until after when we opened them together.’ It was grotesque but predictably divisive from such a malign leader. ‘ That was very much against what Menotti preached,’ says Ardiles. Me not ti is the unlikely protagonist of this story. Identified as a socialist in political terms, he had been appointed prior to the 1976 coup which had installed V id el a. In fact he was appointed after the 1974 World Cup, in which Argentina had lost 4- 0 to the Total Football Dutch side of Johan Cruyff in a second-round group game.
Prior to 1974, Ardiles explains, Argentinians had believed they had by far the best team in the world but that fate had conspired to prevent them from winning the World Cup. The sending- off of skipper Antonio Rattin in 1966 against England was prima facie evidence of this. ‘ Before 1974, people would say, like in England ’66: “Ah, they cheated us out of the World Cup”. There was always an excuse.’ The comprehensive failure of 1974 defied such explanations.
‘After 1974 they stopped all that. Holland was the future. They were brilliant. They annihilated us.’
That was the backdrop to Menotti’s appointment. But there was another, quasi-political nuance. Argentinian football had developed a cynical streak, to win at all costs both tactically and physically. Menotti rejected this. ‘He was a romantic,’ says Ardiles.
His own words stoked the controversy of his appointment. ‘There’ s right-wing football and left- wing football,’ he said.
‘WE WEREN’T AWARE OF THE POLITICS. WE JUST WANTED TO PLAY FOOTBALL’
‘ Right- wing f ootball wants to suggest that life is a struggle. We have to become of steel and win by any method.’
Small wonder t hat Menotti’s appointment sat uneasily with the far- right junta. ‘ Menotti was a left-winger and survival for him meant winning, winning, winning,’ says Ardiles. ‘ The people in the government didn’t like him because of his left-wing tendencies.
‘In the summer of 1977, we toured Europe. We drew with Scotland, England and France. We lost to world champions West Germany but it was pretty close. And we won all the other games. There were a lot of doubts about Menotti. They were looking for an excuse to get rid of him. So much that after these games Menotti said to us: “Boys, if you are not injured you’re going to be with me in the squad”.’
Menotti locked his players away in a pre-World Cup training camp at Villa Marista in Mar del Plata from January 1978. He had already persuaded the federation not to let players be transferred abroad, Mario Kempes at Valencia in Spain being the only exception.
‘It was the toughest pre-season training in all my career,’ says Fillol. ‘We weren’t allowed out,’ recalls Villa. ‘Family were visiting for two hours in the middle of the week, like a prison! We were completely isolated. We were allowed out once a week. But there was nothing there and soldiers all around.’
Joining them there was a 17- year- old prodigy: Maradona. ‘He was very young but you could see he was going to be a special player,’ says Fillol.
THERE were 25 players in t he t raining camp and three would have to be cut. ‘I would say the other two were not a big decision for Menotti,’ said Ardiles. But this 17-year-old youth was causing the manager a huge dilemma.
‘Menotti says now that he should have taken Maradona,’ says Ardiles. ‘But he only said this a few months ago. But he had promised us in 1977 that we would all be in his squad. And it wasn’t in his nature to break a promise. It was unthinkable.’
Might Villa be vulnerable? After all, he had sustained an injury in training shortly before the cut was to be made. ‘ Absolutely!’ agrees Ardiles. Villa interrupts. ‘The injury I had, you know who caused it in training with his tackle?’ He points accusingly at Ardiles, who shrugs and adds: ‘ Menotti would have destroyed everything if he had said: “You, Ricky. Out [for Maradona]”.’
Shortly before the opening game, Videla addressed a group of players and Menotti at the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Just as the commander encourages his troops before the battle, just as the president greets the ambassadors before they go out to fulfil their management, so I wanted... through this visit to encourage you to be real winners of the tournament.’
Ardiles insists the squad were cossetted. ‘We weren’t conscious of the politics. All we wanted to do was play football.’
Villa says that the only glimmers of the horrors around him ironically came when they travelled out of the country in March 1977 for a friendly against Real Madrid.
‘The press didn’t talk about what was going on in Argentina at that time,’ he says. ‘When we arrived one time in Madrid, we saw protesters with placards saying: “Something is wrong in Argentina! The World Cup is to cover that up! Los desaparecidos [The disappeared]”. We were asking: “Is it true or not true? What are they talking about?”
Herein l i es t he crux of t he difficulty some Argentinians have about celebrating 1978. ‘They have accused us of being complicit,’ says Ardiles. ‘That we killed people. A lot of the questions were, “What did you know before the World Cup?”
‘But it was a very tiny minority [who knew]. In Argentina if you watched TV, read newspapers, there was nothing. So we were convinced it was propaganda.
‘Now we all know the full story. And they say we’re complicit in that. Ricky had some very bad experiences. I did when I managed Racing Club [in Buenos Aires, in 2002]. I was on the bench and people were shouting: “You killer”!’
Villa had the same. ‘ Managing Defensa y Justicia. The crowd was very close to the bench. And all t hrough t he game t hey were shouting: “You son of bitch, you are a murderer, killer.” Some people relate the World Cup win to the political moment. Not a lot. But…’ Equivocation over success in their own country has been mirrored by scepticism abroad. Two final groups of four teams would determine the finalists, the winners progressing.
With Brazil beating Peru 3-0 and Argentina beating Poland 2-0 but the South Americans drawing 0-0 against each other, the final round of games would determine the finalists. As was normal then, but since outlawed, Brazil’s game against Poland kicked off first.
Brazil won 3- 1 and had a goal difference of plus five, so Argentina had t o win by f our goals to progress.
To add to the intrigue, President Videla and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited the Peruvian dressing room before the game and Peru’s goalkeeper, Ramon Quiroga, was born in Argentina. The Sunday Times claimed in 1986 that the Argentine government shipped grain, arms and released $50 million of frozen Peruvian assets before the game. But if that were true, Peru started the game better and hit a post. Then Quiroga pulled off a string of saves before Argentina took control and eventually won 6-0.
‘ I ’ m convinced t hat nothing untoward happened because it was physically not possible to do it,’ says Ardiles, citing the short time between the Brazil game finishing and the Argentina game starting to arrange a deal. ‘ It is an extraordinary insult to the Peruvian guys. And an insult to us as well, not recognising what it was, an extraordinary achievement. We were fortunate. The second goal went in and they kind of collapsed.
‘ The big difference was t he psychological one. Winning that game for us was: “Hello. We’re in the cup final!” For them losing was irrelevant. They were going home. There have been so many television programmes made about it. If you are saying something, you have to show evidence. So $5m changed hands? Or $ 1m? Fine. Show it. More and more I am convinced that nothing untoward happened.’
To come full circle from the 1974 debacle, now Argentina had to play Holland in the final.
Holland looked stronger. Jonny Rep would have put the Dutch ahead but for an athletic save by Fillol. ‘Everyone always talks to me about a penalty save I made against Poland but I don’t know why,’ he says. ‘In my mind the save I made against Rep was the most difficult of the tournament.’
Kempes opened the scoring for Argentina in the 38th minute. And they hung on until the 84th minute, when Dirk Nanninga equalised.
Kempes scored after 15 minutes of extra time and, with five minutes remaining, Daniel Bertoni added the third. When referee Sergio Gonella blew for full time, Ardiles recalls: ‘More than anything else, it was relief.’
Villa had played his part, featuring in two of the games. But come the final he was out of the team and did not even have a seat in the stadium. ‘We had to watch from the windows in the dressing room,’ he recalls. ‘And you couldn’t see the whole pitch.
‘So I’m not feeling 100 per cent world champion. I’m feeling part. Because I only played twice. But I’m quite happy about that, as some players didn’t play one minute.’
Yet, even so, he acknowledges: ‘This is history. Like being a doctor, you are for life a world champion. You have the medal.’
Ardiles has the final word. ‘Even then you realise that this is not only for today, not only for the week, but for the rest of your life,’ he says. Then he pauses and adds: ‘In fact I would recommend it to you, if you can do it.’