Groucho Marxism

Two weeks ago Spain beat Argentina in the World Cup final. The 1-0 score line belies just how one-sided this game was. Spain did not so much beat Argentina as ritually humiliate them, with 20 shots to Argentina’s 2, 12 shots on target to Argentina’s 0, 65% possession to Argentina’s 35%, and 762 accurate passes to Argentina’s 358. Even these remarkably one-sided statistics do not tell the full story. Argentina did not attempt a shot on goal until three minutes before the end of extra time, when they were 1-0 down and desperately trying to avoid defeat. They became the first team ever to amass 0 shots on target in a World Cup final. The previous low was also set by Argentina in the 1990 final, when they managed just a single effort on goal in their 1‑0 defeat to West Germany.

The similarities between 2026 and 1990 are striking. On both occasions, Argentina had won the previous World Cup. On both occasions, Argentina had a mediocre team built around a fading superstar. In 2026 it was Lionel Messi, who at 39 can still influence games but is clearly way past his best. In 1990 it was Diego Maradona, who was only 29 but whose career was already on a downward trajectory due to a combination of injuries and a serious cocaine addiction. And on both occasions, Argentina was the beneficiary of some questionable good fortune, both in that World Cup and the one prior. I have already been through the examples of this good fortune in the 2026 and 2022 World Cups in a previous blog post so I won’t rehash them again here (see that post for more details).

In 1990, Argentina played the Soviet Union in the second game of the group stage. Both teams were much fancied going into the competition, Argentina as holders and the Soviet Union as finalists of the 1988 European Championship. However both teams found themselves on the brink of an early elimination: the Soviet Union had unexpectedly lost their first game to Romania, and Argentina had even more unexpectedly lost their first game to Cameroon. With the game tightly poised at 0-0, the Soviets had a shot on goal which Maradona clearly saved with his hand. For some reason however it wasn’t clear to the referee, who failed to send Maradona off or even give a foul. Argentina went on to win 2-0 and the Soviets were out.

In Argentina’s second round game against Brazil (the first game of football I can remember watching), the Brazilians battered Argentina for 80 minutes, hitting the woodwork three times. Then Maradona produced a trademark piece of skill, drew in three Brazilian defenders, and slid the ball through to his teammate Claudio Caniggia who dribbled around the keeper and side footed home. “And Caniggia… SCORES!” went Barry Davies’ memorable commentary. Argentina would go on to win the game 1-0, and even as a 9-year-old boy I could tell that this was an injustice. After the game it was alleged that the Brazilian defender Branco was handed a tranquilizer-laced water bottle by the Argentine training staff. Years later, Maradona all but admitted on television that the water bottle had indeed been spiked.

Maradona’s handball against the Soviet Union was reminiscent of his infamous ‘hand of god’ goal against England four years earlier, when everyone in the stadium could see that he had used his arm to score – except, apparently, the referee. Four minutes later Maradona would score what has since been dubbed the goal of the century. But even that was not without controversy, as there was a clear foul on an English player just before Maradona took possession of the ball to start his famous dribble, which was again not picked up by the referee. Had VAR existed back then, both goals would have been disallowed and it is likely that England would have gone on to win the game. (On the other hand this is Argentina we are talking about, so perhaps VAR would not have been invoked even if it had existed.)

So just like their victory in 2022, Argentina’s World Cup victory in 1986 was somewhat controversial. But the controversy surrounding these wins is nothing compared to the controversy surrounding their first World Cup win, on home soil in 1978. Argentina at that time was ruled by a right-wing military junta who were desperate for a victory to boost its popularity and image on the world stage. In their second round match against Peru, Argentina required a victory of at least three clear goals in order to progress to the final. They beat them by six in a shambolic exercise which tarnished the image of the entire tournament. Although nothing has ever been proven, it is clear that pressure was somehow exerted on the Peruvian players to lose the game heavily and allow Argentina to progress.

Thus all three of Argentina’s World Cup wins – in 1978, 1986, and 2022 – are shrouded with controversy and accusations of favouritism. And in all three cases this favouritism can be attributed to right-wing politics. As already noted, the 1978 victory was deliberately fixed by Argentina’s right-wing military junta in order to enhance its standing, both domestically and internationally. The favouritism shown to Argentina in the 1986 and 2022 World Cups, on the other hand, may be attributed to Argentina possessing the world’s preeminent global football superstar at that time: Maradona in 1986 and Messi in 2022. This meant that the longer Argentina stayed in these tournaments, the longer people would continue to watch. And the longer people continue to watch, the more money FIFA makes.