The fun, such as it was, came in the task of trying to flick a pebble and knock the leaf out of the ant's jaws. Chrysler cars, Trustee Savings Bank, the Valentine greetings card company. You want to reach into the television and get him to button his lip, but you can't. All of it is eye-popping. That was the ultimate sin. Burns was the player of the year in England. Argentina qualified for the final match, and Brazil qualified for the third place match. when Derek Johnstone reflects on the tedium of life cooped up in their hotel in the small town of Alta Gracia, a desolate base camp near Cordoba where Ally MacLeod's squad would spend three weeks in the fateful summer. How many books, or chapters of books, have been written about 1978? AC/DC played a gig wearing Scotland jerseys. »Photos of the 1978 World Cup. Football statistics of the country Argentina in the year 1978. This page was last edited on 18 September 2020, at 13:04 (UTC). Mixed with the memories of his family in the here and now, it's poignant and sad. The success they had with their clubs just reinforced the gigantic failure they experienced in Argentina. Liverpool had just won the European Cup with Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness and Dalglish the spine of the team. Remembering Argentina 1978: The Dirtiest World Cup Of All Time On the pitch, it was as if nothing was wrong. By that summer, MacLeod's squad had in its ranks almost 60 individual medals, from champions of Scotland and England, to Scottish Cup and FA Cup winners, to European Cup, Uefa Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup winners. The manager was perfectly entitled to think to himself that they might be good enough to win the World Cup. This story of Scotland daring to dream and waking up in a nightmare never gets old. He spoke at times about how the World Cup final date would come to be known as National Ally Day. Such was the boredom in the place that the boys, serenaded out of Glasgow against a backdrop of national delirium sparked by MacLeod's hubris, took to watching a colony of leafcutter ants carrying their wares across the grounds of their hotel. Ipswich had just won the FA Cup with John Wark and George Burley. In 1978, Scots roamed across the British football landscape like gods. Companies piled in to get a bit of the action. More than 25,000 people sent Scotland on their way at Hampden and only about 100 were there as they slinked back into the country. Scottish nationalism was on the march with the SNP making record gains. And Scotland? Elsewhere, political opponents were being murdered by the state. Bruce Rioch, Joe Harper, Willie Johnston, Alan Rough, Lou Macari, John Robertson - all come across like men who have just spent two hours whirring about in an industrial-sized tumble dryer. In qualifying, the Peruvians had topped their section ahead of Chile and had put five goals past Bolivia, who had already knocked out Uruguay, but Scotland's players knew none of this. 1978 World Cup Final, Buenos Aires, 25th June 1978, Argentina 3 v Holland 1 (after extra time), Argentina Coach Cesar Menotti surrounded by the press as Argentina had become the 1978 World … Brazil finished in third place, having failed to top their group in the second group phase. In the August of 1977, Kenny Dalglish had become Britain's most expensive footballer when arriving at Liverpool. In Portuguese only. The village that dug a trench and ran a cable up a mountain to watch Scotland, 'An amazing result' - Peru great recalls Scots upset, Watch clip: AC/DC play at the Glasgow Apollo in Scotland strips. Read about our approach to external linking. And yet there's a buzz - as there should be in the case of this absorbing film - about a new telling of what went on in Argentina. His status as a hero to follow is perhaps best illustrated by a clip of him getting love-bombed by a group of fans as he's loading up the boot of his car before his departure for Argentina. Five months later, Gordon McQueen would set a new transfer record when joining Manchester United. By BBC. A pro-union newspaper in England wrote that Scotland winning the World Cup would be like "distilled firewater. A fine Rangers team had won the domestic treble. This story of Scotland daring to dream and waking up in a nightmare never gets old. A bandwagon rolled. The team didn't endure, but the tale of the struggle will live forever. CLUB 1 GK Sandor Gujdar 08 Nov 1951 Honved Budapest 2 DF Peter Torok 18 Apr 1951 Vasas Budapest 3 DF Istvan Kocsis 06 Oct 1949 Honved Budapest 4 DF Jozsef Toth 02 Dec 1951 Ujpest Dozsa 5 MD Sandor Zombori 31 Oct 1951 Vasas … A television company offered MacLeod an all-expenses paid trip to watch Peru before the tournament, but he turned it down. There's a moment in Wednesday's BBC documentary 'Scotland 78 - A Love Story' when Derek Johnstone reflects on the tedium of life cooped up in their hotel in the small town of Alta Gracia, a desolate base camp near Cordoba where Ally MacLeod's squad would spend three weeks in the fateful summer. Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless otherwise noted. His confidence in his team leads him to say that he's cleared a place in his wardrobe for his World Cup winner's medal. WC 1978 MENU; Argentina '78 story; Match schedule; Squads; Statistics; Picture gallery; Qualifying rounds Hungary's World Cup squad 1978. How many newspaper and magazine articles? Nostalgia becomes more and more important to Scotland football fans as the years go by and major championship after major championship carries on without them. »In 1978, Argentina was living under a strong military dictatorship. Even as he's telling the story, 40 years on, there's a look of bewilderment on Johnstone's face. Last edited on 18 September 2020, at 13:04, 1978 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONMEBOL Group 1), 1978 FIFA World Cup qualification (Final round), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brazil_at_the_1978_FIFA_World_Cup&oldid=979046687, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 18 September 2020, at 13:04. Iran were a poor side but no work was done on how to expose them. D.O.B. Nottingham Forest had won the First Division title and the League Cup with Kenny Burns, Archie Gemmill, John McGovern and John Robertson. "Ally," says one Scottish youngster. How many documentaries? His group was loaded with quality. The Brazil national football team played in the 1978 FIFA World Cup, and continued to maintained their record of being the only team to enter every World Cup Finals. No research was done on the opposition. Had MacLeod been canny and well-prepared then Lord knows what this excellent Scotland squad might have achieved and what impact on Scottish political history it might have had. Blue Peter presented the somewhat perplexed squad with a special good luck badge. In the dog days of the present, there's nowhere to go for a national team thrill except the past and nowhere in the past is the drama more Shakespearean than 1978. In that, he's far from alone. Saying it out loud again and again and again like Ali on speed was where his problems started. Argentina's World Cup squad 1978. The Military had interest in a victory of the National Football Team, to dodge attention from atrocities commited by the armed forces of government. No, Ally. Some of the footage you may have seen, some you undoubtedly haven't. There's a mesmeric quality to this story of '78, a legend of how a man and a country lost the run of itself. 'Scotland 78 - A Love Story' will be broadcast on BBC One Scotland on Wednesday 6 June at 21:00 BST and thereafter on the BBC iPlayer, Football podcast with news, debate and analysis, BBC One Scotland & thereafter on BBC iPlayer, There's a moment in Wednesday's BBC documentary. D.O.B. MacLeod's bravado is of Muhammad Ali proportions. Peru played Brazil and lost just 1-0. Planet World Cup - Argentina 1978; Last edited on 18 September 2020, at 13:04.