Maybe you're wondering if I've managed to attend a match on every day of the year? Well actually I haven't. I've had a count up and discovered that I've missed attending a match on 14 days of the year which includes Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Mainly the missing dates are in the summer months when there's less football to go to but, as you may have noticed, attendance at tournaments extends the season significantly for me. A few years ago I managed to go to a pre-season friendly in July and 364 days later I was at the same season's World Cup Final which shows that there's not really such a thing as "the football season" - it's an all year round thing!
Fear not however! I do have Football Programme related memories to fill such gaps in my calendar. Today I'm going back 43 years to 24th June 1978 and the Third Place Play-Off which was played at the Estadio Antonio Liberti in Buenos Aires (better known as the "Monumental"). The venue was used again the following day for the Final itself, Can you remember the teams that contested the Third Place Play-Off?
The programme shown is the A4 English Tournament brochure. Once again there were no programmes produced for individual matches (not even the Final). Today the programme would cost you around £12.50 from a dealer.
Although I was only 15 years old and too young to attend the 1978 Finals I have a very clear recollection of watching that tournament on TV. In such innocent times, we all supported Scotland because England had failed to qualify. The Scots were familiar to us with the majority of their players plying their trade in the English First Division. The dirge that was Andy Cameron's "We're on the march with Ally's Army" was on Top of the Pops although the BBC did have a very catchy theme tune for the World Cup which turns out to have been called "Argentine Melody" or "Cancion de Argentina". If you're of a certain age the tune will take you instantly back to 1978 and you'll recall the blizzard of ticker tape raining down every time that Argentina took to the field. I can remember shredding newspapers at York City games the following season to try to recreate the same effect but somehow I think that all we managed to do was to annoy the ground staff.
To put you out of your misery, the 1978 Third Place Play-Off was contested by Brazil and Italy. There were no Semi-Finals in the 1978 World Cup. Just a second Group stage involving the eight best teams from the original sixteen qualifiers. Brazil and Argentina had finished level on points in that second Group phase and Argentina controversially made it to the Final only on goal difference. Brazil made accusations that bribes had been offered to Peru to throw their last game against Argentina and certainly Argentina went into the game knowing exactly what they had to do to reach the Final. They needed to win by at least four clear goals and, in the end, they won the game 6-0 and Brazil had to be content with the Third Place Play-Off. Italy's Group avoided such controversy with Holland coming out on top, two points clear of second placed Italy. Had Italy beaten Holland in their Group game then they would have contested the Final instead but Holland came from behind to win that game 2-1.
Brazil aren't the most popular football team in Argentina at the best of times and they took the field to jeers and boos following their bribery accusations as well as further accusations that Argentina's Mario Kempes had been taking drugs. Italy took the lead just before half-time when Franco Causio scored a far-post header from a Paulo Rossi cross. However the second half belonged to Brazil and they scored twice with long range efforts from Nelinho and Dirceu. The grumbling Brazilians returned home as the only unbeaten team (Italy had beaten Argentina in the first Group stage) in the tournament.
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