Tags: Scotland, Rod Stewart, 1978, World Cup, football
In the summer of 1978 World Cup fever was well and truly alive across the world as the tournament took place in Argentina. However, England hadn’t qualified following a poor campaign in the qualifiers, Maradona was left out of his home tournament, while Johan Cruyff was at his peak of his powers but missing from the tournament as a political boycott. The home nations’ hopes of winning the tournament were all on Scotland who perhaps took the hope a bit too seriously, and genuinely thought they would win the tournament. They even had a song by Rod Stewart to reinforce the belief in the nation. This is Scotland at World Cup 1978.
Scotland manager Ally Macleod said that his team were going to “shake them up” in terms of how good they were going to be. He had good reason to be confident with players such as Joe Jordan, Graeme Souness and the man they called ‘The King’ Kenny Dagleish in the team.
Scotland received a hero send off to Argentina with thousands of fans packing into Hampden Park.
Rod Stewart whose song ‘Ole Ola’ reflected Scotland’s belief of winning the World Cup as it featured lyrics such as “To bring the World Cup is Scotland’s goal” and “Ally’s army had it under control”. The whole country took the tune and made it the song of the summer as it was belted across the nation.
The nation was expecting big things with Macleod even saying that at least they would come home “with a medal”.
With the nation’s hopes on the line Scotland faced Peru in an eagerly anticipated opening game. Joe Jordan scored the opening goal 14 minutes in, procedures going to plan. However, in the second half Scotland collapsed and eventually lost 3-1.
Left humiliated, Scotland’s campaign got even worse before a ball was kicked in the second game, Dalgleish and Willie Johnston were selected for random doping tests. Johnston returned a positive test, and was ultimately sent home, who was never to put on a blue jersey again and humiliated at home.
The next game was against Iran, and surely things could not get any worse? It certainly did, an own goal meant that Scotland took the lead, but yet again let the lead slip and were lucky not to lose.
The whole nation’s mood was summoned up perfectly by an image of Macleod with his head in his hands wondering what went wrong.
To make things even worse, in the final game they were to play pre-tournament favourites the Netherlands. The nation needed to win with 4 goals against the best team in the world and could barely look in fear of one of the worst embarrassments in football history.
The Netherlands took the lead through a Rensenbrink penalty. However, if you are Scottish you know this feeling all too well. Scotland never backed down against the big boys and King Kenny got an equaliser and then Archie Gemmill converted a penalty to take the lead but what was to come was perhaps the greatest moment in Scottish sporting history…
With around 70 minutes on the clock Archie Gemmill takes the ball from just outside the box, skips past two Dutch defenders and slots it over the keeper to make it 3-1 Scotland to keep their hopes alive. It was a goal for the ages and is still considered as one of the best individual goals from a World Cup ever.
However it was not to be as Johnny Rep scored for the Netherlands to make it 3-2 and ultimately knock out Scotland. The Netherlands went onto the final where they were to lose to hosts Argentina in what people call ‘the dirtiest World Cup of all time’ because of Argentina’s dictatorship using the win to consolidate power, meaning that match fixing was suspected.
However this isn’t about the Netherlands, Scotland left with their heads held high after beating the best team in the world.
Ultimately the tournament was a mixed bag of emotions- a feeling that Scotland fans know all too well. From high hopes to low humiliations to a great victory, Scotland came home way too early. In a tournament, in the words of Rod Stewart people thought, “we’re gonna bring that World Cup back from over there” – well that didn’t exactly go to plan.
Image credit: Beth Walsh – Rod Stewart and band members – J’Anna Jacoby, Don Kirkpatrick, Conrad Korsch during Maggie May at Chicago’s United Center, Oct 24 2013