CHILE 1962

WOZA SA 2010 WOZA

CHILE 1962

The 1962 FIFA World Cup was held back in South America after 12 years, this time Chile was the host nation. In May 1960, Chile suffered the largest Earthquake of the 20th Century which caused massive damage to Chile’s infrastructure. Carlos Ditton, President of the World Cup Organizing Committee, in respect to the Earthquake coined the famous phrase “Because we don’t have anything, we will do everything in our Power to rebuild”. Chile succeeded in recovering from the Earthquake to stage the 1962 World Cup. The format of the 1962 World Cup was the same as that of 1958 with 4 groups of Four Teams whereby the top 2 teams qualified for the quarterfinals. The 4 Seeded Nations for the draw were Brazil, England, Italy & Uruguay. The only difference was that payoffs were not needed to separate teams on the same points, rather goal difference would be used.

Group 1
Uruguay, Columbia, USSR and Yugoslavia. Both Uruguay and USSR won their opening games against Columbia & Yugoslavia respectively. Yugoslavia then beat Uruguay 3-1 and USSR played out to a 4-4 Draw with Columbia, letting a 4-1 lead slip, but then went on to beat Uruguay 2-1 to top the Group. Yugoslavia then thumped Columbia 5-0 to qualify 2nd along with USSR.

Group 2
Group 2 contained both of Europe’s former champions in West Germany and Italy along with hosts Chile and Switzerland. Hosts Chile got their tournament of to a good start with a 3-1 victory over Switzerland while Germany and Italy played to a goalless draw.

Battle of Santiago
Before the Group 2 Match between Chile and Italy even started it was destined to be a violent battle. Tensions between the 2 nations and the 2 teams were already at boiling point. As mentioned earlier Chile suffered the largest earthquake of the 20th century just 2 years prior to them hosting the World Cup. Two Italian Journalists Antonio Ghirelli and Corrado Pizzinelli had written many unsavoury articles regarding Santiago and Chile in local newspapers that enraged the Chilean Population. Comments such labelling Santiago as a poverty stricken dump full of loose women were made by them. They actually had to leave Chile prematurely in fear of losing their lives. The referee for this match was Englishman Ken Aston. There was hardly any football being played in this match but the final score was 2-0 to Chile. However boxing, brawls, police was the highlights and plot of this game. Italy’s Giorgio Ferrini was sent off in the 12th minute for a foul on Honorino Landa. However Ferrini refused to leave the pitch and had to be dragged off by police (Photo).


Chilean Leonel Sanchez gave Italian Mario David a solid boxing upper cut and this offense was overlooked by referee Aston, who the sent off Mario David for kicking Sanchez in the head a few minutes later. Highlights of the match include numerous brawls between the 2 teams which had to be broken up by police present at the match. In fact Sanchez again used his boxing talents to break Maschio’s nose with a classic left hook. One of the most violent and roughest football games in the history of the World Cup. BBC Commentator David Gibbs introduced this match on BBC Television as “ The most Stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game.

West Germany beat Switzerland 2-1 and then beat Chile 2-0 to top the group and qualify along with hosts Chile. Italy beat Switzerland 3-0 to finish 3rd in the group.

Group 3
Defending champions Brazil began their defence with a 2-0 win over Mexico with Pele and Zagallo scoring. Czechoslovakia beat the Spanish side containing the likes of Great Players such as Francisco Gento, Jose Santamaria, Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo Di Stefano (Who Did not play any games) 1-0. Brazil and Czechoslovakia then played to a goalless draw, in a game where Pele got injured and would not feature again in the tournament, while Spain beat Mexico 1-0. Brazil then beat Spain 2-1 to qualify top of the group with Czechoslovakia even though the Czech’s lost their last game 3-1 to Mexico.

Group 4
Argentina and Hungary both won the opening games in Group 4 against Bulgaria and England respectively. England recovered from that defeat to beat Argentina 3-1 while Hungary blasted Bulgaria 6-1 with Florient Albert scoring the tournaments only hatrick. Both the final games of the groups ended in goalless draws which meant Hungary topped the group and qualified along with England who qualified ahead of Argentina due to their superior Goal Difference.

Quarterfinals
Chile beat USSR 2-1 in the quarterfinals. USSR goalkeeper, Lev Yashin, who was considered the greatest goalkeeper at the time had a poor game and was responsible for Chile’s Rojas scoring the winner. Yashin was actually hugged by Rojas as he was amazed at scoring past the Legend. Czechoslovakia beat Hungary 1-0 and Yugoslavia beat West Germany 1-0 to both qualify for the Semi-finals. Brazil beat England 3-1 with Garrincha netting twice in a superb performance by the Dribbling Winger from Brazil. Garrincha’s 2nd goal was a superb. Jimmy Greaves of England was also embarrassed in this match by catching a dog that ran onto the pitch. The dog then urinated over his shirt.

Semi-Finals
Due to host nation Chile’s surprise appearance in the semi-finals the 2 fixtures changed venues as the hosts played their encounter with Brazil at the bigger Estadio Nacional in Santiago. This proved to be the right decision as Czechoslovakia beat Yugoslavia 3-1 in front of a crowd of under 6000. In the other semi-final, played in-front of a capacity crowd of 76500+ Brazil beat Chile 4-2 in a heated game that saw both Garrincha of Brazil and Landa of Chile sent off. Garrincha was hit in the head by a Bottle thrown by a Fan. Garrincha was again brilliant with 2 goals. Chile’s surprise appearance in the semi-finals saw them beat the likes of Switzerland, Italy & USSR along the way. Before each of those matches the Chilean players ate Swiss Cheese before beating the Swiss, Spaghetti before beating the Italians, Drank Vodka before beating the USSR. Before the Semi-

Final against Brazil they drank coffee but to no avail.

3rd Place Playoff
In the 3rd place playoff, hosts Chile beat Yugoslavia 1-0 with a Rojas goal in the very last minute of the game.

Final

The mighty Brazilians reached the final as favourites even though they did not manage to beat the very same Czechoslovakians in the group phase, which was the only game they failed to win. The Brazilians used only a record low of 12 players throughout the tournament with the 12th player being Amarildo who replaced the injured Pele. Captains Mauro of Brazil and Novak of Czechoslovakia (Photo).

The game’s first goal came from the Czech’s star player Joseph Masupost after splitting open the Brazilian Defence. Brazil however equalised instantaneously through young starlet Amarildo who broke down the left and beat Star Czech Goalkeeper Villem Schrojf at the near post. In the 2nd half, Midfielder Zito gave Brazil the lead (Photo Below) and Vava later made sure Brazil won their 2nd title in a row with Brazil’s 3rd goal of the final. Vava became the first player to score in 2 finals. This goal was Vava’s 4th of the tournament which would make him joint leading goalscorer along with teammate and player of the tournament Garrincha, Chile’s Leonel Sanchez, Yugoslavia’s Drazan Jerkovic, Hungary’s Florient Albert and USSR’s Valentin Ivanov.


The Mighty Brazilian had successfully defended their 1958 Success (Photo Below), even though Pele was injured in the group phase. Pele’s injury reflected the violent tactics used throughout the tournament. Garrincha (Picture Below) was brilliant throughout the tournament and was the inspiration and hero of Brazil’s successful defense of the World Cup. “The most extraordinary right Winger the World has ever known”. His dribbling and match winning performances were breathtaking. Almost Single-Handed, Garrincha (Photo) won the World Cup for Brazil.

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