Evil regime was killing people as we won the World Cup... our fans blamed us but we knew nothing
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 Monumental 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 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. 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 seen him play clamour for selfies. With Pato’s pleading to the security guard, walkie-talkies are produced and discussions with bosses begin. River Plate are about to train on the pitch. The area is locked down and the pitch itself is a no-go zone. But this is Fillol and the trio are ushered through with a photographer. And they are in the stadium, a cavernous bowl of a place.
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 the pitch to take their photo, shortly before the first team will emerge to train. As they are leaving, an event is being held nearby to celebrate the staging of the youth Olympics 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.
‘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. It is the satisfaction that comes from a deep life-long friendship. And of knowing that they have achieved something significant. ‘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 smile breaks through his beard.
Ardiles chips in. ‘It was 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 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 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-deprecatingly: ‘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. Menotti is the unlikely protagonist of this story. A socialist in political terms, he had been appointed prior to the 1976 coup which had installed Videla. 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
‘WE WERE NOT CONSCIOUS OF POLITICS. ALL WE WANTED TO DO WAS PLAY’