Word: cups
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...outburst of rambunctious, aggressive soccer by the Dutch and the Argentines on the World Cup's 21st day, the last of the eliminations, came just in time to save the tournament from putting a quarter of the world's population into a state of narcolepsy. FIFA, the august and powerful Federation Internationale de Football Association, has almost as many member countries as the United Nations (146 to 149) and probably more active communicants than any religion. Its officials claim that well over a billion people watched, in person or on TV, some part of the month-long World...
FIFA's insistence on color is understandable. El Mundial-'The Global," as this competition was called-really is a world cup. A young Italian electrician working in South Africa saw the '74 Cup final on television, resolved to see the next final in person, and last week, well pleased with his bargain, had spent four years of savings on a month of soccer. It is a safe bet that some fans some where watching Sunday's game were making the same daft but splendid decision. And it is an even safer bet that kids everywhere, especially...
Dreary possibilities lurked everywhere in World Cup statistics before the two finalists emerged. One was that Brazil's team, a cinder of its old self, could reach the final by playing its third scoreless tie in six games, and by scoring only five goals and winning only two games in the entire tournament. During the enchanted years of the great Pele, Brazil won the World Cup three times-1958, 1962 and 1970-but the marvelous flair for which it was legendary has been dampened by age and a disciplinarian coach, Claudio Coutinho, who admires the rough and rigidly patterned...
Ironies abounded. Holland was respected, even though lacking the attacking power of Striker Johan Cruyff, who, now aged 31 and rich beyond reason, refused to bother with this World Cup. Still, the Dutch team at first was clearly not the "clockwork orange" of the 1974 tournament (orange because of its uniforms and clockwork because everything it tried worked that way until the final against West Germany). It was a Dutch concept of "total football"-no stratagem at all but a blazing and relentless rush of soccer in which every team member played both attack and defense-that had dazzled...
Long before the games began, Videla seized upon the World Cup as a means of taking the Argentines' minds off their many troubles. And never mind the $700 million officially (and conservatively) estimated cost of building or renovating six stadiums and several airports, and of constructing the color television broadcasting system necessary to pipe the World Cup to the world...