“White-blue” quarreled with FIFA and refused to fly to the tournament.
The FIFA World Cup in Qatar will be fateful for Lionel Messi. Together with Angel Di Maria, another of the main stars of the Argentina national team, he will try to grab one last chance to win a major international title.
The current team is rightly called one of the favorites of the tournament. The Argentines had an equally strong selection of footballers in the 1940s and 1950s, but that generation was not even destined to compete for the prestigious trophy.
All the fault was a strange conflict between Argentina and FIFA.
Hysterical boycott
The first World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930: in the final, the hosts of the tournament just beat the Argentines. Although that World Cup did not bring together all the best teams in the world due to logistical difficulties, it still went down in history as one of the greatest sporting events of the pre-war period.
Four years later, in Italy, the “blue and white” were left with nothing, but expected to be rehabilitated in 1938. The leadership of Argentina assumed that FIFA would give the next tournament to South America, alternating the venues for the World Cup between the continents. Of course, the country hoped that this time they would become the owners of the championship …
However, France was chosen instead of Argentina. And the Latin American team did not come up with anything better than to boycott the tournament. Moreover, the Argentines expressed their position in a rather hysterical manner: having thought better of it, they applied for participation, but then it was withdrawn. As a result, Argentina skipped the visit to France and laid the foundation for subsequent manipulations.
football revolution
As you know, after the French tournament, the war began, due to which two cycles were missed. When the campaign resumed, the right to host the World Cup still went to South America – but it was again received not by Argentina, but by neighboring Brazil.
Naturally, for the eight-time winners of the America’s Cup at that time, this was a reputational blow. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that in the summer of 1948, Argentine players went on strike, demanding contractual obligations and higher salaries from their clubs.
The great Alfredo Di Stefano was one of the most active participants in this protest, so as a result of it, he and several other notable players of that era fled to Bogota and decided to continue their careers in the Colombian league. It was not part of the national football federation, so all Colombian football was not recognized by FIFA:
Di Stefano, Pipo Rossi, Adolfo Pedernera are gone. It showed a lot of what they lacked,” recalls legendary Argentina goalkeeper Amadeo Carriso, who played alongside Di Stefano.
Because of this football revolution, South America’s most successful football country of the 40s did not send a team to defend the title in the 1949 Copa América, which was also held in Brazil. A year later, Argentina also did not come to the World Cup.
Di Stefano, having gone to Colombia, never played for his homeland again, accepting the offer, first of the Colombian and then the Spanish national team:
– Fate wanted the doors to be opened for him in another country. It was good for him to go to Real Madrid and have great victories,” Carriso continues, referring to Di Stéfano.
Failure upon return
The goalkeeper himself, who introduced the wearing of gloves and the game outside the penalty area, made it to the World Cup only in 1958, since the 1954 tournament was also ignored by the Argentines.
At the same time, the Brazilians were so deeply offended by their neighbors for the history of the 1950 World Cup that they decided to take revenge on them when choosing the hosts of the 1958 tournament. At that time, Argentina was considered one of the favorites, but the Selesao did not support their proposal – as a result, the championship was held in Sweden.
After 24 years, Argentina was again among the strongest teams in the world, but failed:
“We suffered a lot because of what happened in Sweden and I was the one who conceded too many goals,” said Carrizo, recognized as the best goalkeeper in South America in the 20th century by FIFA’s statistics department.
Albiceleste lost to Czechoslovakia 1:6 in that tournament, did not score a single point and flew home. Nevertheless, Amadeo had a great career, which was noted by Lev Yashin himself, who handed the Argentine his gloves during Carriso’s farewell match.
However, he, like Di Stefano, did not manage to win the World Cup. It’s all the fault of the stupid football policy of the native federation. Unlike their predecessors, Messi and Di Maria still stand a chance of winning a major international tournament. Now the main thing is not to miss this opportunity once again.
