Sport

Brendan Crossan: Brazil versus France in Mexico '86 - the greatest game ever

The 1986 Brazil World Cup side that fell to France in the quarter-finals
The 1986 Brazil World Cup side that fell to France in the quarter-finals The 1986 Brazil World Cup side that fell to France in the quarter-finals

AFTER our 45th penalty shoot-out competition in the back garden, and with an insatiable appetite for 45 more during lockdown, it was a 50-metre race with my daughter in a local park that reminded me to always respect a back injury.

All back complainers know this to be true: once your back goes, you never truly recover.

Most lumbago sufferers can also forecast when they'll be able to walk upright again without pain.

I give myself five days.

The previous day I was wrestling with my four-year-old son in the same park - in another epic Hulk versus Iron Man contest - and tweaked a nerve in my shoulder/ upper back region. It's like someone's pushing a raging hot butter knife in between the bone and muscle when I turn on the kettle.

For the past three days, I’ve been waddling around the house at a 45-degree angle and growling at anything that moves.

The vacuum cleaner also blew up and my wife’s car wouldn’t start.

I've been fantastic company lately. Full of banter.

It’s the early hours of Thursday morning and I’ve poured myself a tin of draft Guinness. It'll not be the last either.

As the kids continually ran riot around the house earlier today, there were times when I wanted to waddle into my rusty 2004 Volkswagen Passat, close the door and do one of two things: scream or cry. Or both, when the scream flows seamlessly into a proper blubbering session.

In between these mad, mad days, one of the best things that’s emerged from lockdown has been the BBC’s World Cup Rewind series.

It’s perfect escapism for an hour and makes you forget about your ailments.

It goes without saying we all dearly miss ‘live’ sport – God knows when it will return – but being transported back to some memorable World Cup games has been one of the few joys over the last month.

The best game I ever watched was the 1986 World Cup quarter-final between France and Brazil in the Jalisco Stadium Guadalajara in Mexico.

Football fans of a certain vintage will probably agree that the ’86 finals was the greatest major tournament of them all. Every team seemed to have a brilliant playmaker.

France had Michel Platini and Jean Tigana. Brazil had Socrates, Zico and Junior. Spain had the vulture, Emilio Butragueno – a marvellous technician and goal poacher.

Denmark had the stunning Michael Laudrup and Preben Elkjaer.

Hosts Mexico were blessed with the flamboyant Hugo Sanchez. Uruguay had Enzo Francescoli.

A young Enzo Scifo and ageing Jan Ceulemans carried the hopes of Belgium and Igor Belanov was outrageously good for the Soviets.

And, of course, Argentina had Diego Maradona who produced a string of outstanding performances that will never be bettered at a World Cup.

I fell in love with Brazil in 1982. How could you not love Socrates, Junior, Zico and Falcao?

By the time they’d reached Mexico four years later, injury and age had sorely blunted this stylish quartet.

Even though they were pale imitations of their former selves, coach Tele Santana flooded his team with plenty of legs to compensate in the sweltering heat of Guadalajara.

Elzo and Alemao were classy midfield operators and did the hard yards when Junior and Socrates began to wilt in the second half of games.

Little-known Josimar, who was a late replacement for '82 right back Leandro, scored two wonder goals, one apiece against Northern Ireland and Poland while 23-year-old central defender Julio Cesar was another rookie who left Mexico with his reputation enhanced.

I loved that Brazil-France game so much that I travelled to Guadalajara in January 2004 with the singular intention of paying a visit to the Jalisco Stadium where the greatest-ever game took place.

Javier, my taxi driver, brought me to the stadium on a beautiful sunny day and waited outside.

There were no stadium tours back then, you just wandered into the concrete arena – and there it was, the beautiful baked green canvas, where the unforgettable drama unfolded.

I sat in the empty stadium trying to get my bearings. Which half of the pitch did Michel Platini send Bruno Bellone through on goal, only for the French substitute to be man-handled by Brazilian goalkeeper Carlos in one of the most controversial moments in World Cup history?

And Zico. Poor Zico. A football God.

By the time he reached Mexico he was 33 and ravaged by knee injuries. Up until the quarter-final, he hadn’t started a match. He begged Santana to start him against France but he was again held in reserve until 18 minutes of normal time remaining.

Within a few minutes of Santana throwing him into the action, Zico hit a sublime pass - probably the greatest World Cup pass ever executed - that split the French defence and found Branco, Brazil’s classy left back, who was brought down for a penalty by ‘keeper Joel Bats.

We all know what happened after that. Socrates, the team’s regular penalty taker who would miss a vital spot-kick in the subsequent shoot-out, made way for Zico to take it.

But Bats made a comfortable save to deny Brazil’s number 10. Sitting in the Jalisco, I tried to piece together in the mind’s eye where Zico was and how on earth he'd spotted Branco’s run.

Years later, the late Socrates defended the decision to allow Zico to take the penalty with the game delicately poised at 1-1.

“You only miss a penalty if you take one,” he said. “They said Zico was cold. That’s bullsh*t. Do you need to be hot to take a penalty? If I get out of bed and take 100 penalties I’ll score 99 of them.”

Julio Cesar also missed his spot-kick smacking the post and it was Luis Fernandes who famously slotted home the winning penalty.

In Andrew Downie’s absorbing biography of Socrates, the languid midfielder recalled Brazil’s quarter-final exit.

“The 1986 team was more or less put together during the weeks before the competition,” Socrates said. “So maybe the expectation was a little different. We had a great time with the 1982 team. And in this side we had a lot of worries, fixing this, fixing that. The team was structuring itself during the tournament but, at the same time, the best game we played was the game we lost.”

It was a Saturday night and I vividly remember going out and kicking a ball against our gate, feeling utterly devastated by Brazil’s exit.

The summer of ’86 will never be beaten for drama.

The BBC’s World Cup Rewind has been a godsend in this lockdown. The only regret was that they didn’t show the entire game.

But I can always dust off the 34-year-old VHS video tape buried somewhere in my bedroom and relive the magic of yesteryear.

The 34-year-old VHS video tape of the greatest game ever played
The 34-year-old VHS video tape of the greatest game ever played The 34-year-old VHS video tape of the greatest game ever played