Latest Essay: The Neglected Football Masterpiece

Latest List: Best Ever World Cup Goals

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LATEST ESSAY:

The Neglected Football Masterpiece 

That was my most beautiful game. What happened in those two hours encapsulated all the sentiments of life itself

                                                                                                       -Michel Platini  

It is not often that I find myself in agreement with that pompous, arch self-promoter Michel Platini, but when he describes the 1982 World Cup semi-final between his beloved France and West Germany as 'perfect', I concur wholeheartedly.

That this was two years before Platini bestrode the grand old game like a colossus as France were triumphant on home soil in the European Championships, and that France were actually beaten by the West Germans in an agonising and protracted manner, tells you something about the undeniable quality of the game.

It was perhaps the greatest in World Cup history.  

In a tournament dominated by the Paulo Rossi-inspired salvation of scandal-ravaged Italy and, in particular, by the memory of his mugging of an imperiously gifted Brazil side in that classic cut and thrust encounter in Barcelona, the Platini game has been largely sidelined, remembered in many quarters only for showcasing the most notorious foul in football history.

And this is a real shame, because, for the 63,000 present on a stiflingly hot July night in Seville's stadium, and for the millions watching around the globe, it provided a mix of tension, of high sporting drama and, ultimately, of a widely-felt sense of outrage to accompany a quality of football rarely seen before or since.

The most striking impression, watching the match at a distance of more than 30 years, is of a less disciplined yet more intelligent game than is played today. Every outfield player appears to have had greater autonomy. Both teams passed and moved with thoughtful fluidity; they bristled with intelligent purpose.

As to the facts of that night.

The game ended 3-3 after extra-time and the Germans went through to the final by virtue of a penalty shoot-out, the first of it's kind at this level. The French led 3-1 at one stage, having conceded the first goal. That old predator Karl-Heinz Rummenigge turned the game from the substitute's bench. The pitch did not bear the thick mowed lines that have become standard across world football today, and that make most pitches indistinguishable from each other. It had dark patches on it, like a (very good) recreation ground pitch might have. The French midfield of Giresse, Tigana, Genghini and Platini was sublime; they were the dashing musketeers of football in those years. The referee was the rather portly (and clearly short-sighted) Charles Corver, of the Netherlands. Several of the French players wore their shirts outside their shorts. The Germans did not. Shorts were very short indeed and socks were rolled down. Nobody was quite sure how France had got so far after being mauled by the ultimately pedestrian England in their very first game. The Germans were markedly bigger than the rather skinny, diminutive Frenchmen. The goalkeepers didn't make much effort to save the penalties they faced, unless they were very poor penalties indeed.

And West German goalkeeper Harald 'Tony' Schumacher put France forward Patrick Battiston in hospital with what were thought to be, at one stage, life-threatening injuries, the result of a foul that nobody who has followed football in recent decades will ever forget.

More specifically:

During the early stages Germany were in charge. Paul Breitner, the only survivor of West Germany's 1974 World Cup-winning side, had retired from the national team but been persuaded back by Derwall: playing now not at full-back but in central midfield, Breitner had become his team's marshal. He would set off on diagonal runs, driving into space in French territory, spearing passes for his colleagues to run on to. A sense of purpose coursed through German moves.

In the 17th minute Breitner cadged the ball off midfield grafter Wolfgang Dremmler just inside the France half and, seeing space ahead of him, burst into it, brushing off Didier Six's feeble challenge. Breitner headed towards the middle then, faced by a wall of blue, veered off towards the left before stabbing the ball with the outside of his right foot perfectly into the path of Klaus Fischer. Jean-Luc Ettori rushed out from his goal and dived at Fischer's feet: he blocked the run but failed to gather the ball, which rolled slowly back out towards the edge of the penalty area. It was teed up nicely for young Pierre Littbarski, West Germany's find of the tournament, who drilled it through a litter of French bodies and into the net.

One-nil.

Where the West Germany players seemed to have settled to a similar tempo, the same speed of thought and movement, the French were more moody. Marius Trésor and Bernard Janvion in the middle of the defence and Maxime Bossis on the right all had their socks rolled down, Bossis with his shin-pads flapping out, as if to flaunt their insouciance. Up front the team were light and lop-sided. Dominique Rocheteau had made his name as a pacy right-winger at Saint-Etienne. Fans of Les Verts called Rocheteau 'The Green Angel', although his looks belied both his work-rate and, rare for a footballer, his political awareness: known for his left-wing views and association with the Revolutionary Communist League, today Rocheteau is head of the National Commission of Ethics of the French Football Association.

Playing as a lone striker, however, was too great a burden, especially as he received little help from Six - a winger with corkscrew hair, an ornamental player out on the left who occasionally drifted inside to scant purpose.

If the France forwards suffered in comparison with those behind them, it could be said that so would anyone. The midfield was led by Platini, described by one journalist as 'the lead violin in a sophisticated string quartet'. Patrolling the ground between centre circle and opposition penalty area, Platini was invariably in the right place to receive a pass and did so alone, when one might have expected an opponent to be beside him. He then became the still centre of a hurtling world, aware of all that could happen. For a moment it was as if the other players became satellites of his calm mind. He would make a pass into inexplicable space, which it would take a second or two for the game to catch up with: Bossis or Jean Tigana ran on to the ball, and only then could everyone see how exquisite the pass was.

The rest of the quartet was not bad. Alain Giresse, just 5ft 4in, had a good engine and a lovely cushioned touch with his right boot. Tigana, a team-mate of Giresse at Bordeaux, had not become a professional until his early twenties, spotted as an amateur while working as a postman. Though slight, and elegant, Tigana was a powerful runner with the ball. He also had a markedly slow heartbeat and tremendous stamina.

The fourth member was Bernard Genghini, a leggy left-footer as elegant as, if a little less effective than, his colleagues. 'Four artists,' as Brian Glanville puts it in The History of the World Cup, 'no real hard man, no tackler, among them.'

Having scored their goal, there was no let-up in West Germany's attacking momentum. But France, too, began to string passes together. Trésor drove forward in a manner rarely seen from stoppers today. Full-back Manny Kaltz caught Genghini after the ball had gone. Genghini bit him back, but France had the free-kick, midway between centre circle and penalty area on the left-hand side. Giresse floated the ball with the outside of his right foot into the right-hand side of the area. Platini outjumped Dremmler to head the ball towards the six-yard line, where Berndt Förster made his clearing volley easier by wrestling Rocheteau out of the way with an arm around his waist. Corver had no hesitation in blowing his whistle and pointing to the penalty spot.

Platini kissed the ball before placing it on the spot, and walking backwards. On the goalline, chewing gum, gloved hands on hips, Harald Schumacher glared at the ball, at Platini, at the effrontery of a penalty awarded against West Germany. Platini kept walking back. For a moment it looked like he might forget to stop walking. He reached the edge of the penalty area, and still kept going. Was he intimidated by Schumacher's cold-eyed gaze? Still he kept retreating, right through the arc outside the penalty area. Finally Platini stopped, began walking, then jogging, back. Schumacher flung himself to his left. Platini struck the ball with the flat of his right foot, sending it just inside the opposite post.

One-all, after 27 minutes.

West Germany resumed possession. The game was rougher 30 years ago than it is today. The France left-back Manuel Amoros had got away with hacks at Littbarski; now Tigana, scuttling with the ball out of defence after a West German attack had been repelled, was brutally taken out by Dremmler in a way that now would earn an instant yellow card, at least. In fact the fould count is very high; fortunately we are years away too from the diving, histrionics and mock outrage that expresses much of professional football at the highest level today.

Trésor made another irruption into the West German half, passing the ball, continuing his run towards the left-hand corner flag, receiving the return pass, laying the ball back to Amoros, who crossed. Six flicked it on ineffectually, too far from Platini, too close to the goalkeeper. Schumacher contrived not only to gather the ball unimpeded but to keep moving and thump Platini's thigh with his shoulder. Platini, wincing, complained. It was an act of petty aggression for which Schumacher knew he would receive no punishment - he had the ball in his hands, no referee would have given a penalty - but it was a taste of what was to come.

The second half was barely under way when Rocheteau received the ball in an unthreatening position out on the right, facing his own goal, whereupon Berndt Förster, running up behind him, jumped and somehow kneed Rocheteau in the shoulder. It was an imbecilic assault, for which Förster was fortunate to receive only a yellow card.

Genghini had taken a knock and, unable to run it off, was replaced. As Patrick Battiston ran on to the pitch a West German cross from the right drifted all the way over to Bossis, who controlled the ball, dummied first to pass it back, then to hoof it upfield, only to waltz around Felix Magath and Fischer before releasing the ball to Tigana on the right. Tigana slipped it inside to Battiston, who played a one-two with Giresse then sped forward, fresh legs devouring ground, before blasting a left-footed shot narrowly wide..

West Germany continued their pressing game. Midfielder Magath was like a little eel, slipping into pockets of space. Breitner played his sharp passes, probing for a way through the ribs of the French defence. But the defence stood firm.

France began to take the upper hand. A Platini free-kick ten yards outside the West German area cannoned off the wall. Giresse floated a lovely pass from just inside his own half, out on the left. On the edge of the penalty area, Rocheteau seemed to judge the flight of the ball better than Berndt Förster: it drifted beyond the German, bounced once, and Rocheteau scuffed it past the onrushing Schumacher. But the referee had blown, deciding Rocheteau had impeded Förster.

Then Platini cut in from the left, dribbling past Kaltz across the face of the area, feinting past Uli Stielike, but shooting wide. The ball was swallowed by the sea of French fans. Many waved tricolores, while close-ups showed others with cymbals, trumpets, hooters. They were having a good time. Schumacher stood glaring, waiting for the ball to come back, but it was held on to, less by an individual, it seemed, than by the crowd as a whole. When, eventually, a Fifa technician gave Schumacher a fresh ball, he mimicked hurling it at the French fans, before taking the goal-kick. Had we just seen a humorous gesture - 'Would you like this ball, too?' - or was it mockingly aggressive? After some seconds of surprised silence, boos began to be heard.

Barely a minute later came the incident that has acquired such notoriety. Bossis won the ball with a superb tackle on Dremmler, and passed to Tigana, who laid it inside to Platini. With a momentary glance Platini appraised the scene before him, saw Battiston charging forward and floated the ball into the air.

The pass had just the height, pace and backspin to take it beyond Karl-Heinz Förster, to a spot where Battiston would reach it before the sweeper Uli Stielike, coming from the left, or Harald Schumacher charging out.

Battiston got to the ball first and kicked it over the oncoming keeper's head. Everyone's gaze followed the ball, which bounced narrowly wide of goal, so people only glimpsed that Schumacher had made contact with Battiston. Watching replays, it was clear what had happened. As the German journalist Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger puts it: 'Just prior to crashing into Battiston he [Schumacher] did a little jump and turned his upper body in order to ease the impact. Ease it for himself, that is, as the helpless Battiston was hit in the face by Schumacher's hipbone with full force, immediately going down unconscious.'

France players - and the West Germany captain, Kaltz - surrounded the stricken man and began waving for help. The French physio and doctor ran on, and immediately called for a stretcher. By grim chance the Seville police had, for some unknown reason, barred Red Cross officials from the sidelines. It took three minutes for a stretcher to appear, lifted up from some basement store beneath the stands. Eventually uniformed men with Red Cross armbands trotted on.

Schumacher, meanwhile stood, impassively at the edge of his six-yard box, ball under one arm, the other hand on his hip. According to Hesse-Lichtenberger: 'His body language said: "Get the guy off the pitch so that I can take my goal-kick."'

Giresse and Janvion came to the touchline to tell their manager, Michel Hidalgo, what had happened to Battiston, and to work out how to rearrange the team, only for a FIFA official to step between them, since coaches were forbidden from discussing tactics with their players during the match. Hidalgo, furious, grumbled back to the dug-out.

One might have thought the captain would have been the one to confer with the manager. But not this one. Platini later said that he thought his team-mate was dead. 'He had no pulse. He looked so pale.' Finally Battiston was carried off, accompanied on one side by a medic, on the other by Platini, who walked along bent towards Battiston's ashen face. The unconscious player's right arm flopped over the side of the stretcher, and Platini took Battiston's hand. He spoke softly to him as he walked. As they neared the edge of the pitch, Platini raised Battiston's hand and kissed it.

Battiston lost two teeth, had three cracked ribs and damaged vertebrae, and was unconscious for almost half an hour. But now that he was off the pitch, play restarted, with indeed a goal-kick for West   Germany, and no word of reprimand for Schumacher.

A new substitute, Christian Lopez, came on for France and play got going. It appeared that if anything West Germany had been chastened by the incident, while France were hunting the ball. A purposeful fury seemed to burn through the team. Once, when the ball ran loose out on the left, Trésor chased after it and took off for a tackle like a long-jumper, a murderous, studs-up lunge from which Kaltz wisely stepped aside. While the referee reproved Trésor, Platini walked behind and ruffled his hair in blatant approval.

The atmosphere crackled, with a feeling less of a sporting occasion than of some événement, as if the players and the crowd were not in a sporting arena but all out on the street, and anything could happen.

France attacked with further swift interchanges. But they could not score and now West Germany, midway through the half, began to stir again. Hans-Peter Briegel galvanised his team with one of his powerful runs out of defence. Magath almost got through on the left. Dremmler shot from the right, Ettori getting down well to hold on to the ball.

After 72 minutes little Magath was replaced by his Hamburg club-mate, blond giant Horst Hrubesch, known as Das Kopfball-Ungeheuer, the Heading Beast. Hrubesch was just about as big as Briegel, who was 'a human Panzer division in himself', according to Brian Glanville. Kaltz, Schumacher, the Förster brothers, too, could easily be imagined playing starring roles in some war film. It was hard not to notice the marked contrast to the multiracial French. Trésor had been born in Guadeloupe, Janvion in Martinique, Tigana in Mali, Lopez in Algeria. Platini, Amoros, Genghini were the children or grandchildren of immigrants. At the 1998 World Cup, Platini would not be alone in his opinion that 'the people who talk about a black, white and beur [North African] France were 30 years late. France has been black, white and beur for a long time. I was shocked by this discussion in '98. These people do not look around themselves very much.'

By now, all four full-backs were wonderfully adventurous - Kaltz whipping in his bananenflanken, Bossis roaming forward - and they ended up more often tackling each other, overlapping, than the putative attackers. Didier Six, well placed on the six-yard line, shot tamely straight at Schumacher. At the other end, Breitner fed Briegel, who evaded Bossis's tackle and shot against the spread-eagled Ettori. The game was once more open, swaying one way then another. West German attacks were direct, pragmatic, incisive. The French either counter-attacked at thrilling speed or else slowed the tempo, worked their way slyly forwards. The better France played, the easier they made it look, trading the ball between each other, the West Germans apparently unwilling to intercept.

With less than five minutes left, Tigana picked the ball up in his own half and surged down the right past first Breitner, then Briegel, and sent a marvellous cross hanging perfectly to the far post, where in the absence of a defender Rocheteau managed to get in Six's way, depriving the winger of a clear heading opportunity. The last chance of the 90 minutes, surely.

But no. France once more gained possession. Platini laid the ball into the path of Amoros with a 20-yard gap in front of him. Amoros drove forward and from 35 yards out let fly a missile of a shot. Schumacher dived in vain, the ball flew over him, dipping, and on 90 minutes and 02 seconds hit the underside of the bar... and bounced out.

There was, necessarily, a good deal of injury time to be added, in the third minute of which Tigana lost possession to Breitner, outside the left of the France penalty area. Breitner shot towards the far post. Ettori dived to his left but fumbled the ball: it dribbled away from him and, as he scuttled after it, Klaus Fischer bore down like a bird of prey. Denied a chance all night by Janvion, he was suddenly presented with this morsel. It was a race between the tips of Ettori's gloves and the toe of Fischer's right boot, which the Frenchman just, bravely, won, poking the ball away for a corner.

One-all, at full-time.

Now the managers could talk to their players, who collapsed on the grass. Trainers, physios, subs came on to pass round water, massage the muscles of tired legs.

Those of us watching then - as now, so many years later - knew that we were witnessing something extraordinary, but few could have imagined how much more these players were to give us. In the third minute of extra time, Briegel obstructed Platini out on the right, and now something inexplicable happened. The penalty area was packed. As Giresse shaped to dispatch the free-kick, France players began to move, to dart this way and that, their markers shadowed them, and at the moment Giresse's cross arrived the middle of the penalty area was suddenly empty. Except for the French sweeper, Marius Trésor, who stood all alone just in front of the penalty spot. With perfect, joyful technique, he walloped the volley into the net.

Two-one.

The French celebrated and when play resumed there was something hectic about their movement. They dashed helter-skelter. It appears, watching the match again, as if they were intoxicated with a sense of justice. A wrong had been done, and was being put right, and the more they attacked so the more justice would be served. They broke forward again, Tigana shooting wide.

Jupp Derwall brought his injured but totemic captain, current European Footballer of the Year Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, off the bench in place of Briegel, and the substitution jolted the Germans: a shock of effort rippled through the team, sending them pulsing forward, without threatening the French goal. On the contrary. In his own half, Giresse tapped a simple free-kick up the right to Rocheteau, who advanced and squared the ball to Platini on the front edge of the penalty area. Faced with three defenders ahead of him, Platini sent the ball on across to Six on the left. Six controlled the ball and then, in his most positive contribution of the match, caressed the ball from one foot to another while others moved around him: Platini went forward then suddenly out to the right, dragging defenders with him as if magnetised. Into space in the middle came Alain Giresse, and now Six laid the ball off gently, invitingly, into his path. Giresse met the ball with the outside of his right foot, giving it a flight path that curved outside Schumacher's dive and then inside towards the goal, glancing in off the right-hand post.

Three-one, in extra-time.

France did not sit on their lead, by playing square passes simply to keep possession. They wanted to score a fourth, and surged forward. Six was fouled, another Platini free-kick. This one ripped through the wall and cannoned back off Schumacher's chest.

'Germany are dissolving,' the commentator Martin Tyler said. 'I can't remember ever saying that about a German side.' Giresse, Rocheteau, the marauding Bossis, Tigana and Platini attacked all together down the right. Six was in the middle ahead of them. This was how these musketeers would protect their lead: attack in numbers. Giresse was fouled and lay in pain. Rocheteau stopped playing to attend to his comrade, but the French retained possession and the referee waved play on. A moment later Platini was bundled off the ball: no free-kick was given and suddenly the French had lost possession with half their team stranded high upfield. Rummenigge and Littbarski combined on the vacant left, Stielike joined in, the sweeper at last making an advanced contribution with a fine pass out to Littbarski, who floated the ball forward into space at the near post between the France defence and the goalkeeper. Janvion and Rummenigge ran forward, Ettori rushed out, all three lunged but the West German got there first, and with a deft, incisive flick sent the ball past Ettori and fractionally inside the near post.

Three-two after 103 minutes.

Into the second period of extra time and, if there was a lesson to be learnt, France showed no sign of having learnt it. They seemed incapable of common sense or caution: compelled to win with swashbuckling style, they recalled the writer André Breton's dictum that 'beauty shall be convulsive, or not at all'. But all this emotion was exhausting. Tigana would keep running all night and Rocheteau remained a courageous, willing target man. Trésor was a towering figure at the heart of the defence. But all around them, one by one, French players were coming to a standstill.

West Germany advanced down the left, Littbarski crossed, Hrubesch headed back from the far post into the middle. Klaus Fischer had been dominated throughout by Bernard Janvion. But a top-class striker has to be obtuse, undismayed by all that has gone before, eternally alert to that one opportunity. There were two defenders plus the goalkeeper on the line, but Fischer met Hrubesch's lay-off with a brilliantly executed bicycle kick into the top corner.

Three-three after 108 minutes.

Janvion was limping. Platini was drained. But still the game remained open. Like two blind, exhausted fighters the teams kept going. From a West German corner Fischer knocked the ball back into the danger area. Trésor leapt to head clear and the ball was worked up to Six, who played it out to space on the right into which Tigana - clearly in pain still from an earlier collision - struggled: he reached the ball before Stielike and shot, well wide. It was the last significant action of the game. Moments later Corver blew his whistle.

'So, abominably, irrationally and unforgivably,' as Brian Glanville wrote, 'a World Cup semi-final would be decided, for the first time, on penalties.'

Giresse, Kaltz, Amoros, Breitner and Rocheteau all scored. Uli Stielike shot weakly, Ettori easily saved. Stielike collapsed, curled up on the ground. Eventually, as if his body had doubled in weight, he dragged himself up and stumbled back towards his colleagues in the centre, bent head in hands, weeping. Littbarski came to meet him, and escorted him back, arm around the older man's shoulders.

But then Didier Six shot softly to Schumacher's right, for an easy save, and Littbarski evened things up at 3-3.

Platini and Rummenigge scored. Next up came Maxime Bossis. An exact contemporary of Platini - the two born just five days apart in June 1955 - they had done their military service together in the Joinville battalion, and their 10-year international careers ran in tandem. If Platini embodied the art of this team, Bossis encapsulated its spirit, and was prime candidate for man of the match. He struck his penalty to Schumacher's right, and watched as the goalkeeper dived the same way: although the shot was a half-decent one, the save was easy enough.

Horst Hrubesch now lumbered up, and shot low and hard for the winning penalty. West Germany were through to the final.

As Jupp Derwall asserted afterwards: 'You must give my players the credit they deserve, they showed such strength of character.' And so they had. 'The taste, however,' according to Brian Glanville, 'was exceedingly sour. Michel Hidalgo, by nature quiet and moderate, condemned Corver's flaccid refereeing. "We have been eliminated brutally," he insisted.' Even in a recent interview, the wound for Hidalgo was still fresh. 'People witnessed a great injustice. The match reignited the Franco-German antagonism that had faded.'

When Schumacher was told after the match that Battiston had lost two teeth, he said: 'If that's all that's wrong, tell him I'll pay for the crowns.' In a post-World Cup poll in a newspaper for the least popular person among the French, Schumacher shaded Adolf Hitler into second place.

There are times in this sporting life when looking back only leads to disappointment; technical ability isn't quite what you remembered it to be, pace is pedestrian, professional physicality is lacking. How many of us continue to pick Pelé and Bobby Moore for our 'Ultimate World Elevens' whilst quietly fretting about how they might actually cope with the lightning-fast giants playing the game today?

But in this case....Seville, the 8th of July 1982... no such sense pervades. The memory of that event remains unassailable and true. I look forward to witnessing a better World Cup game, but I doubt that I ever will.

William Ruby

Latest list:

Best Ever World Cup Goals

Maradona (2nd) for Argentina v England 1986

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk-kXwjASEE)

Alberto for Brazil v Italy 1970 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZdaldtVssc)

Pele for Brazil v Italy 1970 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz0O83sdl08)

Owen for England v Argentina 1998

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPC6Yv3BPVY)

Haan for Holland v Italy 1978 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp_1ih86sTU)

Pele for Brazil v Sweden 1958 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NYFncumAvc)

Al-Owairan for Saudi Arabia v Belgium 1994

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ2wi08iuuM)

Eder for Brazil v Russia 1982

 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx9KMhX4lzo)

Cambiasso for Argentina v Serbia and Montenegro 2006

 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5W6vBI3mGE)

Matthaeus for Germany v Yugoslavia 1990

 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep19w4VMhSo)