World Cup 1978 in Argentina: From upset to victory, an influential duel with Peru, the Dutch once again fall short

A historic achievement! Argentina won its first gold medals at the 1978 World Cup, albeit with a lot of help from Peru. However, the 1978 World Championships in Argentina was another tournament in which Czechoslovakia did not participate. The Netherlands did not even reach the top of the standings at this championship, Brazil came away with the bronze.

Buenos Aires, Mar der Plata, Córdoba, Mendoza, Rosario – these five cities hosted the 1978 World Championships in Argentina. And it was held between June 1 and June 25.

At that time, 107 teams entered the qualification for the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, with 16 of them traditionally taking part in the final tournament. As in the previous case, neither the Soviet Union nor Czechoslovakia took part in the tournament, while the national teams of Iran and Tunisia made their first starts at the World Championship.

Qualifiers

Moreover, as was customary in those days, the tournament consisted mainly of teams from Europe and America. The countries mentioned above, namely Iran and Tunisia, were representatives of Asia and Africa respectively. The rest, however, were teams from the American and European continents.

So what teams did the fans see at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina? For Europe, it was the following national selections – Netherlands, Austria, France, Poland, Scotland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Hungary and Germany. For the American continent – Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Argentina.

Controversial champions?

The Argentines became world champions in 1978, albeit not in a clean way. They came through the main group with one match to spare. The Argentine national team won its opening match against Hungary 2-1, and also scored full points in its next match against France. Again, the result was 2:1.

However, in the last match of the group phase, the Argentines lost to the Italians 0:1 and advanced to the next part of the tournament from second place. And since the 1978 World Cup in Argentina had the same game format as the previous championships, this national team advanced to the semi-final group with Brazil, Peru and Poland.

In their first match against Poland, Argentina won 2-0, but then drew 0-0 with Brazil and needed to beat Peru by at least four goals to finish first in this semi-final group and advance to the final.

This was done and the Argentine national team won 6: 0. But as it turned out afterwards, the match was rigged or fixed in Argentina’s favour. Anyway, you can read more about this in our World Cup special above.

The final duel between Argentina and the Netherlands then went to extra time, in which the home team was more successful. Mario Kempes scored two goals and Ricardo Daniel Bertoni one. Argentina won the final 3:1 and could celebrate the gold.

The Dutch took silver again

As in the 1974 World Championship in Germany, the Dutch finished their journey in the final, just below the top step. In fact, the Netherlands only managed to score once in the final, when Dick Nanninga scored in the 82nd minute.

At the previous championship, the Netherlands had failed to reach the final against Germany, losing 1:2. And the Dutch had a very strong team, with stars like Johan Cruijff and Johnny Rep. So for the second time in a row they couldn’t win the gold, even though they managed the semi-final group almost perfectly (5 points, score 9::4).

Brazil bronze, Italy without a medal

The Brazilian national team first advanced from the preliminary group with four points from second place, having drawn 1: 1 with Sweden, 0: 0 with Spain and beaten Austria 1: 0.

The latter, on the other hand, advanced further from first place, albeit also with four points. In the semi-final group, the Brazilians finished second behind the aforementioned Argentina.

They beat Peru 3:0, drew 0:0 with Argentina and beat Poland 3:1. The consolation was the third-place match and a 2:1 win over Italy, thus winning the bronze medal. For more information not only about Brazil’s performance, but about the whole course of the 1978 World Championship in Argentina, see our special feature attached above.

So the Italians were left without a medal, but given the strength of the top teams, we shouldn’t look for a big surprise. Yes, Italy had in its team players who can be described as stars of European football, led by Paolo Rossi.

Top scorer, stars of the tournament

The tournament’s top scorer was Argentina’s Kempes, who netted six goals – two in the final and four more in the semi-final group. In the regular group, the star striker was goal silent, with goals from Daniel Alberto Passarella and Leopoldo Jacindo Luque in addition to Bertoni.

The biggest stars of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, apart from Kempes, were the aforementioned Italian Rossi and the Brazilian Dircea. Rossi scored three times for his team, Dirceu three times for Brazil.

However, Michel Platini (France), Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Dieter Müller (both Germany) and the top scorer of the 1974 World Cup, Grzegorz Lato (Poland), were also great figures at this championship.

Disappointment for France, no success for Germany or Poland

For a team that was still led by the star Platini, the French were unable to advance out of the group. On the other hand, they had a really tough group along with Argentina and Italy, leaving only toothless Hungary behind. However, the final record of two points and a score of 5:5 probably speaks for itself.

The Germans, as previous winners, were also disappointed after the tournament. They did not make it through the semi-final group and finished behind the Netherlands and Italy, although they also had several big stars in their squad.

Poland, who were bronze medallists at the 1974 World Championships, finished in exactly the same way. This time, however, they failed to advance from the semi-final group.

A great tournament, many curiosities and political aspects

We talk about this at the end of each of our articles, or rather, our World Cup special. However, the 1978 World Cup in Argentina can also be classified as a sporting success, albeit with a few curiosities and political influences (e.g. the military coup in Argentina – ed.).

So if you are interested, you can watch our segment on this tournament in the video above. Know that you will find a number of interesting facts that are otherwise very difficult to trace in the historical chronicles.

Sources: FIFA, ESPN