On June 22nd, 1986, Argentina faced England in the semi-finals of the world's most televised sporting event: the World Cup. The rivalry between the European instructor and the South American apprentice, extended beyond soccer and shared history. Just four years after the Falkland War (or Guerra Malvinas), the game between Argentina and England possessed political tension.
For England, the match represented a chance to reclaim sporting supremacy. Across Argentina, however, this was a chance to re-establish pride and identity after eight years of dictatorship and a devastating loss in war and international affairs.
When Argentine icon Diego Armando Maradona used his hand to score an illegal goal against England, his response that it must have been the "hand of God" typified Argentine defiance towards what they perceived as English aggression. Minutes later, Maradona scored a second sublime goal past weaving past seven English players-widely hailed as one of the best goals in history. Defiance became vindication.
Dictatorship, Political Repression, and the 1978 World Cup
FIFA, the world's governing body on soccer, selected Argentina as the site of the 1978 World Cup ten years before a military regime took control under General Jorge Videla. The junta took power after the weakened presidency of Isabel Martínez de Perón (Juan's widow) failed to quell leftist uprisings against state authority. 2
The alliance between the Peronist state and the military was a marriage of convenience. After Juan Perón returned from exile in 1973, he abandoned the ambiguity of a seasoned political survivor and reminded his more radical followers- the ERP and Montoneros- that Peronism was not about socialism or guerrilla tactics that included the assassination of kidnapping of prominent members of society. On May 1, 1974, Juan Perón expelled these radical groups. That same year, the President asked the military to control the guerilla movements and the repression began. 3
Isabel, elected President after Juan's death, strenghtned these new ties to the military and ended whatever remained of Juan and Eva Perón's old political base. The new junta quickly moved to arrest and intimidate “subversive elements” throughout the country, leading to the “disappearance” of nearly 30,000 Argentinians over the next four years.
courtesy of Pablo David Flores, Flickr (CC)The “Dirty War”, as it became known, is today recognized as a genocide by the Argentine courts and earned its name for the methods by which the government tortured, raped, murdered, and interrogated opposition figures—mostly youth and educated students.4 To combat an increasingly negative international reputation, the Videla regime understood that the hosting of the 1978 World Cup provided a chance by which the state could reflect a more positive and harmonious image to the world, and to those in the political middle of Argentine politics. Staging the World Cup was also a sign of upward mobility and modernization for nations, like Argentina, often stuck with the “third-world” label.
1Tony Mason, Passion of the People?: Football in South America (New York: Verso, 1995), 73.
2Bill Smith, “The Argentinian Junta and the Press in the Run-up to the 1978 World Cup.” Soccer and Society 3, no.1 (2002): 69-78.
3Luis Alberto Romero, A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century, trans. James P. Brennan (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press,1994), 212-213.
4“Condenaron a Etchecolatz a reclusión perpetua” La Nación19 Sep 2006, 1 Mar 2010 http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=841762.
