World Cup Nuggets: Everything You Need To Know About Every World Cup by Richard Foster

Author:Richard Foster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ockley Books
Published: 2018-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

DEBUTANTS

The African and Asian qualifiers both made significant progress for their respective confederations. Few could have predicted how well the Tunisians would perform after they were drawn in a group with West Germany and Poland, the winners and the third-placed team from 1974 respectively, as well as Mexico. They became the first African nation to win a game at a World Cup and it was no streaky, slender victory as they comprehensively outplayed Mexico to win 3-1. They followed that landmark with a narrow loss to Poland courtesy of a single Lato goal before earning a draw with West Germany. Finally, African countries would be treated with respect rather than the mixture of condescension and contempt that had greeted them before. The year before Pelé himself declared that there would be an African World Cup winner. Although the Brazilian may have been a bit hasty and we are still waiting for that prediction to come true, it is not as outlandish as it sounds.

Iran was another country in the middle of political turmoil as they were in the midst of the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini, which ousted the Shah. The players could have been forgiven for having other things on their mind and their opening 3-0 defeat to the Dutch was understandable, after all this was the team that had finished runners-up in 1974 and would do so again in Argentina. The Iranian’s next game was against the Scots who were licking their wounds from a 3-1 opening-game defeat to Peru. Here was the perfect opportunity for Scotland to get back on track with a convincing win.

However, the Iranians had other ideas. Despite conceding the opening goal courtesy of a tragicomic cock-up between Nasser Hejazi the goalkeeper and defender Andranik Eskandarian which led to the latter putting through his own net, Iran did not crumble and Scotland were not able to take advantage of their opponent’s misfortune. The equaliser came on the hour when Iraj Danaeifard rifled in a shot from a tight angle between the near post and keeper Alan Rough. It was no great surprise as Iran had been applying pressure and they held out for a fully merited and historic draw. That they then succumbed rather meekly to Peru, losing their final Group match 4-1, could not detract from their first World Cup adventure. As for Scotland, they had plumbed new depths.

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