History of the Spain National Team (Part 11): The 1950 World Cup in Brazil
Sixteen years after their previous appearance, in 1950 Spain returned to the world stage for the Brazil World Cup surrounded by great expectations and excitement. As such, the showpiece event required thorough preparations that started well in advance of the first ball being kicked. Led by coach Eizaguirre and his assistant Benito Díaz, the team would head to the Americas in search of success at the top level of international football.
On May 31, the national team's training camp for the World Championship began in El Escorial.
The schedule for those intense days of preparation was as follows:
At 8:30 a.m., a 70-minute walk through the gardens of La Herrería of El Escorial.
Then, to the Municipal Sports Park for tactical and physical training.
And finally, on the UD San Lorenzo pitch, they played a mini game. Lunch was at one o'clock, then a game of cards and in the afternoon a walk through the gardens with Benito Diaz taking the lead.
On June 8 and 14, the national team faced their final tests at the Metropolitano, against Hungary, a team of stateless Central Europeans. Almost all of their opponents were escapees from Soviet Eastern Europe, most of them from Hungary. The visiting side was coached by Fernando Daucik and the star of the team was his brother-in-law, Ladislao Kubala.
On June 17, the team set off for Brazil with a 22-man squad, coach Guillermo Eizaguirre, his trainer Benito Díaz, masseur Rafa and the rest of the directors. Juan Deportista also went to Brazil as press officer, former coach Eduardo Teus from the Technical Committee and Joaquín Cabot as team doctor.
In Brazil, it was “Tio Benito” who was responsible for making sure that everything went smoothly, from the administrative side to the training sessions. Marca reported that:
"Without wanting to undermine anyone else, I would say he is the best coach we have ever known. "Tío Benito" will be in charge of everything: from ordering the players’ food, to dictating the tactics to be used on the pitch.
And he would even control the players’ phone calls: in the Corcovado Hotel, in Rio, girls besieged the Spanish players and the phone calls were non-stop.
Tío Benito kept a constant eye on things and a certain player spent half an hour flirting on the phone with an unknown admirer who spoke in local Brazilian tongue and he in the Madrid version of Spanish, without knowing that Tío Benito was "listening in" from an adjoining booth just in case. Great guy Benito! He built himself a reputation for a bad temper, but for "his boys" he was the most jovial and funny man, without losing his aire of seriousness and authority, of course. When it came to training on the pitch, he was unrivalled".
This hard-fought opening victory had consequences for the team moving forward. Especially in goal, where the mistake made by Eizaguirre made the coach decide to count on Antonio Ramallets for the next match against Chile. The Barcelona goalkeeper had seen very little gametime at an international level but he had pleasantly surprised the coaching staff on the Mexico tour and played the first half against Hungary, conceding a goal to Kubala. Having been dropped from his club side Valencia took its toll on Eizaguirre and opened the door to Ramallets, who began to earn his starting place in the Mexico trip thanks to his great performances. His agility, his capacity for hard work in training and his ability as a shot stopper ended up relegating the theoretical back up goalkeeper, Acuña too.
The match not only condemned goalkeeper Eizaguirre to the bench but also defender Antúnez and Canary Islander Rosendo Hernández. Conversely, it served to consolidate Gabriel Alonso as the undisputed starting right back. In fact, when Spain returned to their headquarters in Copacabana next to Ipanema beach in Rio for their next training match against Flamengo, it was possible to see what the coming changes would be: Ramallets instead of Eizaguirre, Parra instead of Antunez and Panizoin for Hernandez. The Catalan goalkeeper had, at that moment, gracious words for the previously first-choice goalkeeper of the national team a few hours before playing his first game for Spain:
"Eizaguirre is a magnificent goalkeeper. I admire and love him warmly. I think I am far inferior to him. But I will complete my duty, giving everything I can. I wasn't expecting this selection but it fills me with enthusiasm and joy".
The Maracana stadium hosted the second match of Spain’s World Cup campaign, this time against South American opposition. Before the big match, Spaniards and Chileans began the day at the "Pulcra Blanca" chapel, near Ipanema beach, where they heard a mass officiated by Chilean Father Gilberto Lizana. During the match, the Spanish team, in blue shirts and white shorts, showed a considerable improvement compared their performance levels against the USA and ended up winning by two goals to nil, with goals by Basora and Zarra.
The Eizaguirre-Díaz duo had found their ideal starting eleven, with the splendid Ramallets in goal was "a colossus" against the Chileans, according to Marca. A defence made up of the irreplaceable Gonzalvo II who made his fourth consecutive start, the emerging revelation Parra and the return to the starting lineup of Gabriel Alonso, who would make a starting spot his own going forward. The midfield remained untouchable with Puchades and Gonzalvo III, who were a very well-balanced pairing, both able to build with the ball and hinder the opponent's attacking play and things were clicking between the pair as they had now played together seven times. And the forward line was pure speed in wide areas with Basora and Gaínza, goalscoring instincts provided by Zarra, who confessed that his best game in the World Cup was against the Chileans, all supported by great quality from the two inside forward players Igoa and Panizo. That eleven, unchanged, would play against Chile and would also start against England.
To reach the second round, Spain had to beat England, who had recently lost to the United States in Belo Horizonte. Spain needed a win or a draw and the English needed to win to go through. In order to better prepare for the match, the coaching staff decided to change the squad’s base and while staying in Rio de Janeiro, the team moved to a new hotel at the foot of Corcovado.
"... to keep them away from the dangerous deviations to which the youngsters prone to give in to temptation were exposed in that environment...".
The Spanish ambassador, the Count of Casa Rojas, would later comment on how important this move was for the subsequent success of the team: "To rest and recover, free them from the heat and take them away from the hustle and bustle of the vibrant neighbourhood of Copacabana, as well as from the dangerous deviations to which the young people prone to give in to temptation were exposed in that environment, our men were rightly moved to live at the foot of the Monument Of Christ the Redeemer, in Corcovado. After settling at the Hotel Paineiras, a solitary and austere mountain lodge, 600 metres above the pulsating city, yet close enough to it not to complicate logistical arrangements. There our boys, in cohabitation with the Swedes, played ping pong and checkers, sang to their hearts' content, breathed fresh mountain air and continued eating potato omelette and beans with chorizo. I visited them there several times and found them to be in good spirits, but not arrogant. They are subjected to a rigorous schedule and regretful of their isolation; but calmly willing to wait for their chance to take to the pitch once again".
n fact, the Spanish diplomat himself affirmed that the Americans had fallen into the temptation of the Rio night before facing Spain, and "in the early hours of the morning, we saw rivals vociferously circulating the city centre, with apparent signs of having had a lively time in nightclubs and popular bars. That match, on an almost grassless pitch of reduced dimensions, seemed to all of us like it would be a piece of cake. But those American boys, as they say happen with footballers of the time, with the sweat of the match eliminating toxins and helping them catch their breaths, turned the match into an uphill battle for us".
Telmo Zarra never knew what part of his leg he scored the goal against his friend Williams. "I don't know if i shinned it in or if it went in off my knee... All I know is that it was a goal," he repeated when asked about his goal against Williams in the victory against England
"It was a normal passage of play. I anticipated what the goalkeeper was thinking and scored the goal."
However, on occasion he admitted that while he never thought the move would end in a goal, on that occasion it did:
"The move from Alonso, Gaínza and Igoa was too good for me to waste."
It would go down in history as "Zarra's goal", a goal with enormous symbolic significance. Political symbolism as the incarnation of Spanish revenge for the Gibraltar “issue”; as well as sporting symbolism as it meant victory over the ever-powerful England.
Alonso would describe the goal in greater detail after the match:
"Actually, it's not that I was thinking it (going on the attack); I was going to pass to Basra; But I saw that the defender was closing him down and as there was space to move into so I kept the ball. Then I saw Gaínza, who was well-positioned, and I carried the ball a little further and tried to pass it to him and, just as I imagined it, the ball managed to find its way to Gaínza...".
And Igoa would finish the story:
"And Piru jumped as if he had springs in his feet... To give you an idea, despite jumping up against a much taller defender, he out-lepped him by a head!".
The English press called Zarra the "giant of the match for the way he led the frontline". the "Daily Herald" published the following match report in the style of an obituary:
"Our affectionate remembrance to English football, who passed away in Rio de Janeiro on July 2, 1950. A large circle of friends mourn his painful loss. R.I.P.: The body will be cremated and its ashes taken to Spain".
The rest of the match was a struggle to hang onto the lead and stop the English attacks. The struggle was lead by a magnificent Puchades, an intelligent Panizo, who smashed a ball against the crossbar and with Parra and Alonso stopping everything that came their way. The other standout performer in the match, apart from Zarra, was Ramallets, who made the English strikers' afternoon one to forget. Ramallets would earn the nickname of “The Cat of Maracaná”, and in doing so well and truly cement his place in the Spanish goal for the next decade to come, continuing as an international goalkeeper until 1961.
The press was full of praise for the national team and Franco himself sent a telegram of congratulations.
Another key to the victory was that the match preparations from a tactical point of view had been incredibly thorough and, in that sense, the work of "Tío Benito" proved priceless, as the team masseur Rafa recalled eight years later:
"It was played very well. But there was also a sensational tactical approach to the game provided by Benito Díaz. Benito knew that the English had three or four training-ground setplays. He took a clipboard, took us all down to Ipanema beach, and for three hours we were there soaking up Benito's words of advice. When everyone knew the game plan like the back of their hands, we went back to the hotel".
So, at the World Cup, Spain had a tactic, a style and a favourable positive feeling among the squad making a very united group. The national team qualified for the second phase of the World Cup, which consisted of a group phase in which Spain were accompanied by Uruguay, Brazil and Sweden.
The Brazilians, who had just beaten Sweden 7-1, also gave Spain a proper going over. After 15 minutes, Parra scored an own goal and the team completely capitulated. Jair and Chico scored twice more before the half-hour mark. Then came three more Brazilian goals after the break. Igoa managed to score a consolation goal but the Spanish players were devastated and gave an honest acknowledgement of the superiority of their opponents: "There are no excuses" (Zarra) and "Nothing went right" (Basora).
In the last match against Sweden, on July 16, Spain was playing to finish third and become the top placed European team at the 1950 World Cup. Alas, the team put in a poor performance, losing 3-1, and was greatly affected by Panizo's absence through injury.
The Spain side, which had three representatives in the team of the tournament in the shape of Ramallets, Puchades and Gaínza, returned to Spain on July 21 with the players eager to get back home. The travelling party landed back home on the 23rd and was received as heroes.
WHAT IS THE BRAZIL WORLD CUP LEGACY?
Spain had climbed back to the top table of world football: it was among the elite and had managed to defeat the USA, Chile and England by playing a modern game based on the WM tactic favoured by coaches Guillermo Eizaguirre and Benito Díaz, all without renouncing their traditional Spain ‘fury’. Furthermore, the management had managed to put together a great generation of players in all areas of the pitch: starting with Ramallets, followed by the Gonzalvo brothers, a midfield that worked like clockwork with Puchades as a leader and an ever-dangerous striker.
Brazil was the end of one era and the start of another. If after Antwerp, the Spanish national team embarked on what would be an eventually frustrating battle to stay at the elite level and bring more success, after Brazil, the atmosphere surrounding the team would be similar. There was an anxious search for elusive further success, a downturn confirmed by not reaching the 1954 and 1958 World Cups, being absent from the 1960 European Championships for political reasons and disappointing at the 1962 World Cup. All this atmosphere of defeat, along with the "myth of failure" that was gaining traction, would be interrupted by the success of the "fury" reborn in 1964. In World Cup terms, Brazil '50 would remain as the National Team’s greatest success in the competition until 2010.
TO BE CONTINUED...
