Against a backdrop of a
natural disaster for the country just two years before, Chile hosted the World
Cup in 1962. Not a rich nation by any
means they had withstood the most powerful earthquake recorded which devastated
the country and only after desperate re-building measures were they able to
welcome the world.
The hosts won their
opening game against Switzerland and were then up against Italy, twice winners
of the trophy before the War. The game
at Santiago would become infamous and earned the right to be prefaced, “The
Battle of”. Over 66,000 people packed
into the National Stadium in Santiago and witnessed something resembling more
akin to licensed violence than a football match. Two players were sent off, both Italian, and
yet there had been other matches in World Cup history with multiple
sendings-off. What made this particular
match go into the annals was that the television cameras were there.
In England we had an
edited highlights programme introduced by David Coleman. This was how he addressed the viewing public
“The game you’re about to
see is one of the most stupid, appalling, disgusting, and disgraceful
exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game. Chile versus Italy. This is the first time the two countries have
met and we hope it will be the last.
The motto of Chile is ‘by
reason or by force’. Today the Chileans
were prepared to be reasonable, the Italians only used force, and the result
was a disaster for the World Cup.
Now if the World Cup is
going to survive in its present form, something’s gotta be done about teams
that play like this. Indeed, after
seeing the film tonight, you at home may well think that teams that play in
this manner ought to be expelled immediately from the competition. See what you think”
And so we watched, rather
in disbelief, at the blatant kicking and punching out on the pitch. Within five minutes there was a mellee with
two Chileans on the ground, and the players crowding the referee, Englishman
Ken Aston. Twelve minutes in and one of
the Italian players, Ferrini, kicks out at a Chilean player and Aston sends him
off. In keeping with the rather
disjointed nature of the game, Ferrini refuses the leave the pitch and so the
Army is brought on to escort him, unceremoniously, from the proceedings. It didn’t get any better from there.
Perhaps the moment which
defines the whole sorry affair came when Sanchez (Chile) and David (Italy) got
tangled up near Italy’s right corner flag.
David kicked Sanchez a couple of times.
Think of Hazard and the Swansea City ballboy and you get the idea. Sanchez got up and lumped David on the
jaw. Remarkably Sanchez wasn’t sent-off
despite the linesman standing right there and signalling to Aston straight
away. Within minutes when the ball was
back in the Chile half, the ball was played in the air to Sanchez and out of
nowhere came David flying, Cantona-style, through the air, feet first and
landed his studs on Sanchez head. David
is immediately sent-off and this time Aston is taking no chances as he
man-handles the Italian off the pitch himself.
The second half wasn’t
any better apart from two goals from Chile to win the game. Aston rarely had control of the game and his
final act was when two players just kicked each other rather than bother about
the ball and Aston seemed to finally lose patience and call an end to it
all. The atmosphere inside the stadium
was poisonous but the home fans had a victory to celebrate, a ticket to the
next round and delight in seeing the Italians elimination confirmed.
David Coleman actually
coined the phrase The Battle of Santiago, during commentary and he was right to
be astonished at the futility of what he had witnessed. But to truly understand the full effect of
why this occurred you need to go back a few days before the game itself. After the earthquake, some associations had
called for an alternative venue to be chosen, and Italy was especially vocal in
this regard. But what really sparked
things off was comments from two Italian journalists about the state of the
capital city. The local press was
incensed and proceeded to fan the flames resulting in the journalists needing
to leave the country for their own safety.
This situation was made worse by some Argentinians with Italian
passports being allowed to play for Italy.
Given all this, perhaps it was inevitable a needle match would ensue,
but few expected what really broke out.
A rather interesting
postscript to this game is that neither Italian player was shown the red card
as they hadn’t been invented yet. The
man who invented them? Ken Aston.
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