Group 6. Theoretically, Portugal had the edge, but Bulgarians were quite confident that they had very good chances too. Portugal was aging and clearly not the great team of 1966, was the argument, which proved to be the correct one. Cyprus were the obvious outsiders – proven by the following photo:
Pampoulis, Stylianou (top, left to right), Charalambous, Kavazis, and Stefanos – any recognizable name?
Yet, from Bulgarian perspective the matches with Northern Ireland were important and they approached them with caution: the Northern Irish were not real challengers, but they were capable of spoiling somebody else’s fun. They had George Best…
Since 1971 Best was spending most of his time in disciplinary hearings and
on the Mallorca beach. Hardly the best anymore, George is perhaps the greatest player never to play at World Cup finals.
Leaving nothing to chance, the Bulgarians provoked Best at the first leg in Sofia and George was red-carded. According to the most popular legend, Bonev, the captain and the star of Bulgaria inserted his finger into the Irish anus to get the result. I don’t remember details – on TV it looked like just a constant verbal abuse until Best lost his cool. Bulgaria won 3-0.
Bonev scores from penalty. Jennings dives, trying to catch the ball. Far right – George Best, still on the pitch.
Pat Jennings, the other big Irish name, on his knees – Bulgarians score again.
With Best out of the picture, the battle focused on the two remaining stars:
Eusebio and Bonev – who deserved to go to the finals?
At the end, Bulgaria managed to win 2-1 in Sofia and clinched a 2-2 tie in Lisbon.
Mladen Vasilev and Georgy Denev celebrate a goal against Portugal.
The decline of Portugal showed clearly against Northern Ireland – two 1-1 ties. Bulgaria played defensively the second leg with the Irish and extracted a point from 0-0 tie.
1. Bulgaria 4 2 0 13-3 10
2. Portugal 2 3 1 10-6 7
3. Northern Ireland 1 3 2 5-6 5
4. Cyprus 1 0 5 1-14 2
Bulgaria reached their 4th consecutive World Cup, but how good was the team? Well, the 1970 squad was considered the best Bulgaria ever had, which proved to be fluff. The new team was not that great, played tough, but outdated football, and depended on defense. The concept was to win at home and avoid losing away. However, a great duo carried on the campaign – Hristo Bonev and Georgy Denev.
Bonev (in the middle, playing for Lokomotiv Plovdiv against Lokomotiv Sofia, tackled by Christakiev) was in his prime and perhaps played his best season in 1972-73. Great playmaker and goal scorer, perhaps the best ever Bulgarian midfielder.
Denev of CSKA (right, playing one of his pretty much always lost battles against fellow teammate in the national team Ivan Stoynov during the Levski – CSKA derby of the season) was still young, but already severely criticized for his egoistic manner of playing. Usually he played midfield, but was moved as left-winger in the national team and he and Bonev combined into a deadly pair, inspiring each other. Because of their sparkling performances, little attention was paid to the real deficiencies, particularly in attack, where the right wing and the centre forward were more or less out of the game. Bulgaria depended on her left wing, becoming dangerously predictable – and thus easy to neutralize. Portugal, herself in trouble, was unable to use the shortcomings, but better teams surely would have been able to capitalize on them. The defense was sluggish and the list of available talent was short. Yet, there was euphoric mood in Bulgaria again – after eliminating Portugal, the team was good!
In reality, the group stage was normal European ‘tough’ group of equals – equal in their decay. One can’t be sorry for the Irish – they did not play great either, managing to give Cyprus a rare win. This group perhaps presented best the great divide occurring in football – teams still playing football from the 1960s and increasingly lagging behind those who embraced total football. But also this was the arch-typical European group – two fairly equal teams, no certain favourite. Much depended on a third, weaker, team – a single point denied to either candidate was crucial at the end.

Group 7. Greece was the obvious outsider, so what really mattered were the matches between Spain and Yugoslavia. They were unable to beat each other, ending in two ties. But neither was able to reach superior goal difference when beating Greece. The point is not much Yugoslavia, but the regular failure of Spain. It was no longer a question of disappointing performance at the final stages – by now Spain was unable even to qualify! Yes, they played tough football, but nothing more. They had no inventive spark and stifled by fighting spirit, the Spaniards were clueless what to do with the ball when finally having it. For a nation traditionally thought flamboyant, technical, and imaginative in football, Spain played incredibly dull and mean game. Hardly a single player impressed.

1. Spain 2 2 0 8-5 6

2. Yugoslavia 2 2 0 7-4 6

3. Greece 0 0 4 5-11 0

Play-off was scheduled for January 1974 in Frankfurt, West Germany. Yugoslavia won 1-0 with a goal of their stopper Katalinski. Not a great win, but suggestive – Yugoslavia was more oriented towards the change of the game. The Yugoslavians were approaching total football, but Spain was not even contemplating it.

Zero points!

Spain in 1971: Back, left to right: Iribar, Sol, Tonono, Gallego, Anton, Costas, Abelardo.Front: Amancio, Pirri, Arieta, Claramunt, Churuca.More or less, the core of the team for the World Cup campaign. Judging by the names, not a bad squad. Yet, only Iribar made positive impressions outside Spain. There was something very wrong with the very attitude to football in Spain and failure trumped failure.

Iribar worked hard, but was unable to qualify Spain alone – Yugoslavia, the more attacking team went to the finals.

Golden Yugoslavian goal. Triumphal Hadziabdic and Katalinski and very unhappy Garate (left).

USSR to the finals! I don’t remember anybody doubting that with Salvador Allende for President of Chile. The last qualification round was to be a joke… I think even the Soviets did not count the coming qualification with Chile – their scheduled friendlies for were clearly geared as a preparation for the finals – England, Brazil, West Germany. Confident Russians, which was unusual and not only because of the sudden change of old habit to fret and fear, at least on paper. This time they really had to fret and fear – their football was lagging behind, it was outdated and no players and coaches capable of total football were in sight. The last international results were mixed at best: second in the European championship in 1972, but absolutely outplayed by West Germany. Second at the Olympics in same 1972, but with a team which disgusted everybody at home. The following severe critique of the Olympic team reached alarming conclusions: lack of talent among the lower echelons of Soviet football. With aging key players and nobody to replace them, something drastic had to be done – but nothing was done. The first match with Chile was in Moscow and Allende was still president. Uninspired, slow, and boring game ended 0-0.

Trouble in Moscow – Olivares saves again, despite his tiny size (1.71 m tall).

Happy Chileans in Moscow.Before the second leg came, General Pinochet and the Chilean army ruled in Chile and Allende was no more. The Russians cried murder. The general political reasons are not important here, but they swallowed football as well – the Soviets refused to play on a stadium used for a concentration camp and torture. Sensitive, the Soviets… as if they never had concentration camps and never used torture. FIFA, still governed by Stanley Rose, kind of ‘inspected’ the stadium in Santiago and proclaim that politics has no place in football; the stadium is not a concentration camp; no sign of torture is visible anywhere in the stadium; and the second leg should be played precisely there and not on proposed by the Soviets neutral place. USSR stuck to her guns and refused to play in Santiago; Rose and FIFA were unmoved. At the scheduled time Chile run on the pitch, the referee whistle the beginning, their was a pass and slow run of a striker to the ‘Soviet’ net, slight kick and – goal. The referee blew the final whistle right away – it was all symbolic, there was no Soviet team present, Chile won and qualified for the finals.

The game of one team, lasting one minute.Huge noise over that was made in Eastern Europe, but doubt hold firm – was it just a convenient excuse? What if the match was played – even on neutral field – and Chile won? It was more than possible after the tie in Moscow. Now it looked like the Soviets twisted their own football situation – they were victims somewhat and therefore – moral winners – no matter how grim was the reality of Soviet football.

The declaration of the Soviet Football Federation, protesting the FIFA decision to stage the second leg in Santiago. Just about as big was the report of the first leg played in Moscow. To compare: the friendly with Brazil was covered in three issues of ‘Football-Hockey’ plus following analysis. Nevertheless the whole affair was and is murky: FIFA playing apolitical game, yet, some dictatorships were problem and others were not. Let say the expulsion of Israel and South Africa for political reasons was right – then what about Zaire, Haiti, and Chile? And many others. And what about Eastern Europe? In 1968 almost all East European clubs walked out of the European tournaments, ordered to ‘protest’ in this way the Western protest over the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately, football cannot be separated from politics big and small. Personally, I don’t think USSR would have made the World Cup 1974 a better tournament.

Group 9: USSR was supposed to win. Ireland was an outsider and France in crisis. At the end France performed worse than expected. USSR won.
1. USSR 3 0 1 5-2 6
2. Ireland 1 1 2 4-5 3
3. France 1 1 2 3-5 3
Revelli – the French striker, who was to make name for himself… later.
Republic of Ireland was expected to play mostly desperate defense. Alan Kelly (Preston North End) and Joe Kinnear (Tottenham Hotspur, right) do just that.
France – Ireland. Revelli attacks, Kelly tries to save. Busy goalkeeper.
USSR – France: the last match of the group, played in Moscow. The French had to win; the Soviets needed only a tie. Two young unknowns – Tresor (left) and Blokhin (#11) – already in the centre of events, but both will become established stars a few years later. Blokhin scores the first Russian goal here.
According to the Soviet report, team USSR played great. Here Onishchenko – another young broom – scores the second goal for USSR. Tresor is helpless one more time and France ends instead of first last.

Europe was the real tough qualification zone. However, it looks tough only when compared with the rest of the world – practically every European group had a clear outsider (some groups more than one) and there were in general two teams in a group really competing for a final place. Well, some groups did not have real favourite and appeared relatively equal, but there was a compensation - Italy had no real opponent in her group. I am not going into details for every group and will pay bigger attention to only four groups. The ‘easy’ groups first:

Group 1: What to say? Malta obviously was a punch bag. The other three countries finished with equal points. Hungary ended third on goal difference – and they did not lose a single match! Sweden and Austria had equal goal difference and had to play a play-off match in West Germany. Sweden won 2-1 in Gelzenkirchen.

1. Sweden 3 2 1 15-8 8

2 Austria 3 2 1 14-7 8

3. Hungary 2 4 0 12-7 8

4. Malta 0 0 6 1-20 0

With Hungary in decline and Austria in long decline, it is rather surprising that Sweden was unable to get clearly the upper hand. Middle of the road group, nobody expected future world champions to come from here.

Snow was no trouble for Sweden – Bo Larsson scores a penalty against Austria. Group 2: One horse race – Turkey, Switzerland, and Luxembourg were no problem for Italy. Which cemented the illusion about the state of Italian football. Dino Zoff registered a world record (I think still unbeaten) – between September 1972 and June 1974 he kept clean sheet in the national team. Italy did not allow a single goal – for 1142 minutes.

No wonder Zoff was voted number 2 European player in 1973, perhaps his finest season.

1. Italy 4 2 0 12-0 10

2. Turkey 2 2 2 5-3 6

3. Switzerland 2 2 2 2-4 6

4. Luxembourg 1 0 5 2-14 2

Italy was considered a prime candidate for the world title. Not only the Italians were blind – the rest of the world was blind too.

Group 4: East Germany won, a mild surprise. Nobody counted Finland and Albania and rightly so. Romania was in decline and, therefore, relatively equal teams contested the final spot.

1. DDR 5 0 1 18-3 10

2. Romania 4 1 1 17-4 9

3. Finland 1 1 4 3-21 3

4. Albania 1 0 5 3-13 2

Lost point to Finland doomed Romania, but no one expected anything great from whatever winner of Group 4.

DDR to the finals, Romania stays at home.

Group 8: Lucky Scots. Czechoslovakia was considered favourite and Denmark – the hopeless outsider. Well, the Czechoslovaks underperformed; the Scots played bravely, and the Danes decided who will go to the finals by sneaking their single point from Czechoslovakia.

1. Scotland 3 0 1 8-3 6

2. Czechoslovakia 2 1 1 9-3 5

3. Denmark 0 1 3 2-13 1

Nothing special here; Czechs in decline.

Central and North America played similarly complicated scheme, ending with 6-team final tournament. Which was to be the usual easy walk over for the Mexicans… but they finished third. Haiti was first and going to the finals – a big surprise, but hardly for the better of football. Africa, considered the best among the rabble and not to be outdone by Asia and other exotic places, organized three eliminatory rounds, after which the survivors played in a final group. The original 24 teams gradually distilled a winner – Zaire. The rabble produced newcomers, never reaching World Cup finals before – which was expected result of weak football. But there was another kind of exotic fun – FIFA was notoriously apolitical. Yet, Arab countries managed to expel Israel from Asian competition and Africa did the same to South Africa. Let say for the moment, justly so. At least it was fair on one level – continental federation did that and FIFA had no instrument to overrule the decisions. Both countries were expelled for political reasons – which is really funny when one takes a look at the finalists: Zaire and Haiti. Great dictatorships both, regularly condemned by the rest of the world… or, at least parts of the world. And the circus was not to end with that.

South America was divided in three groups with three teams each. The third group – the 12th world group was to play further elimination round against the winner of the 9th European group.

Group 10 was won by Uruguay:

1. Uruguay 2 wins 1 tie 1 loss 6-2 goal difference 5 points

2.Colombia 1 3 0 3-5 (impossible!) 5

3. Ecuador 0 2 2 3-8 2

Celeste at the Minicopa in 1972: top, left to right: Alberto Carrasco, Masnik, Jauregui, Juan Carlos Blanco, Montero Castillo, Pavoni.Bottom: Julio Cesar Jimenez, Luis Villalba, Maneiro, Esparrago, Lattuada.

Hugo Bagnulo was appointed national team coach in 1973. He used pretty much the same players from 1972 – readjusting here and there, but without major changes. However, he declared 24 players untransferable abroad before the end of the World Cup campaign. Familiar measure, yet, a sign of desperation as well – talent was in short supply.

Argentina topped Group 11:

1. Argentina 3 1 0 9-2 7

2. Paraguay 2 1 1 8-5 5

3. Bolivia 0 0 4 1-11 0

One of the many Argentine formations of that time – no shortage of stars, new and old, in Argentina, but was it a strong enough team? Top, left to right: Bargas, Mastrangelo, Carnevali, Telch, Rosl, Heredia.Bottom: Boveda, Pastoriza, Mas, Avallay, Semenewicz.

Group 12 was rough fun: Venezuela withdrew and only Peru and Chile remained. Peru won 2-0 in Lima; Chile won 2-0 in Santiago. Third match was played in neutral Montevideo – Chile clinched 2-1 win. Chile qualified for the next qualification round. As for the teams going directly to the finals – the usual suspects qualified and everything looked bright and normal.

Not so fast… club football ends, but lets go to the national teams – qualifications for the World Cup finals stretched from 1972 to the end of 1973, when the finalists became known and preparations for the finals started. The best abbreviation is the final tables of course. But elimination of rabble first: the world was divided in 16 groups – 3 of them were for the rabble, for in football equality has peculiar definition. In short, one European group equals a group dedicated to a whole continent. Luckily South America has only 10 countries… if it were different, the rest of the world probably would not have a single place in the finals. Well, reality supported the system – outside Europe and South America only Mexico was somewhat competitive. Anyway, Asia and Oceania (the lowest of the low) were combined together to compete for one spot at the finals – it was complicated and relatively ill-fated staged tournament, spitting out Australia to go the World Cup at the end. Actually, it did not matter at all who were Asian winners – no country had even half-noticeable football.
1973 Cangaroos.