Argentina 1978: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Graham Dunn
- Oct 24, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 3, 2025
Three years before filmmakers produced the ultimate battle between good and evil on the football field in Escape to Victory, the Argentina 1978 World Cup had already scripted its own version of that contest between light and dark.
The dark was very dark. In 1978, Argentina was a country under a military junta, two years into a brutal “dirty war” that persecuted opponents of the regime — with as many as 30,000 said to have disappeared.
This casting as baddies is of course harsh on Argentina’s players themselves, put in the invidious position of having to represent a Jorge Videla regime given licence to grandstand on the global stage. Each win and progression to the next round, providing further ammunition for Videla’s charm offensive.
The Hollywood script could only cast one team to provide the light against this darkness. The free-flowing Netherlands and Johan Cruyff had dazzled all in front of them in West Germany four years earlier, only to fall at the final hurdle. Even without the talismanic Cruyff – who stayed at home after a traumatic kidnapping incident with his family in Spain - the Dutch were still the students of total football. Their casting as heroes to finally fulfil their destiny seemed written.
If true, the visit of a host country’s president to the opposition dressing room ahead of a crunch game, arguably goes down as the strangest dressing visit since Ron Atkinson brought in one half of Renee & Renato to grace the Aston Villa dressing room with a rendition of Nessun Dorma
This though was no film script. Rene Rensenbrink’s last-minute effort hit the post instead of crossing the line. This great Holland side went unrewarded and almost 50 years on remains World Cup-less – even after taking on the role of the baddies themselves when cast against type in the 2010 final against Spain.
This was Argentina’s story.
The ticker-tape-adorned scenes as Mario Kempes bundled the ball over the line for the all-the important goal was to be the film’s climactic finale.
Kempes, goalless in 11 Argentine appearance until going clean-shaven in a bid to break his duck, was the leading actor. The man with the golden boot, after six goals in the latter stages of the tournament. Amazingly, despite remaining on the scene long enough to play in the World Cup in Spain four years later – these were to be his last international goals for Argentina.
Kempes was joined for star billing by Leopoldo Luque, captain Daniel Passarella – a man with an eye for a goal topped by only one other defender, Ronald Koeman – and Osvaldo Ardiles.
Orchestrating it all was chain-smoking, liberal thinker, Cesar Menotti. It is difficult to imagine a manager whose ideology was so far removed from that of the leadership of the country at the time. His footballing credentials, in which he added an attacking dimension to Argentina’s traditional robustness, meant he was too valuable to the regime’s aim to win the World Cup, to dispense with.
This uneasy alliance yielded results, even if coming from a very different place. Menotti saw the World Cup triumph as a win for the people; for Videla it was a means to tighten his grip on power.
Neither was Argentina winning in line with the usual movie script of underdogs beating the odds. While Argentina had never previously won a World Cup, home advantage – particularly in South America where it was not until 2014 when a European side was to triumph – was major boost. Argentina became the fifth host nation to win the tournament.
And in 1978’s Argentina, the advantage seemed stacked even more than usual to the home side.
Many of the tricks – like the complaint about Rene van der Kerkoff’s plastercast and the ad-hoc tour of Buenos Aires Holland’s team coach took en-route to the final – can be classed within the realms of regular shit-housery. Others though, like some debateable refereeing calls and claims of widespread doping, seem more orchestrated – if difficult to confirm.
It is the Peru game – where Argentina required a four-goal win to reach the final – which is the most contentious. It is possible there was no outside help for Argentina’s 6-0 win against a Peru side they regularly beat and who had little left to play for. Equally, it’s possible that reports of a shipment of grain to Peru, the unfreezing of Peruvian debt, and a visit to the Peruvian dressing room by Videla – bizarrely supposedly accompanied by Henry Kissinger – were completely unrelated to Peru conceding the requisite number of goals.
If true, the visit of a host country’s president – who happens also to be brutal dictator – to the opposition dressing room ahead of a crunch game, arguably goes down as the strangest dressing visit since Ron Atkinson brought in one half of Renee & Renato to grace the Aston Villa dressing room with a rendition of Nessun Dorma. Mercifully, the charge-sheet against Renee, however, stops at crimes against pop music.
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The talk of potential help Argentina received in winning the 1978 World Cup remains just that, circumstantial evidence and insinuation. What is clear is the circumstances in which they triumphed, under the darkest regime in the country’s history, means this win is remembered less fondly than the one that followed in 1986. That of course may have something to do with Diego Maradona’s extraordinary performance. It begs the question what might have been had Menotti – who had given Maradona his international debut – not decided the 17-year-old was too young to handle the occasion in 1978.
Two players from the squad who were remembered fondly – at least by Spurs fans - were Ardiles and Ricardo Villa. Their performances earnt the pair a move to England, blazing the now well-trodden path for foreign stars to play in the English top league, an FA Cup Final drama worthy of any film, and – for Ardiles - a part in Escape to Victory. It turns out the filmmakers were watching all along.
Ranking
We have five categories of greatness from our five-star All-Time Greats category at the top to our one-star Blinkered Greats category at the bottom. We found it difficult to separate the team from the situation and perhaps harshly judged these World Cup winners as.
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Touch of Greatness
🎧 Listen to the full episode:
Join hosts Graham Dunn and Jamie Rooney — with guest Shane Guiliano — as they uncover the truth behind one of football’s most controversial tournaments: Argentina 1978.
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