Former US secretary of state visited Peru dressing room before eyebrow-raising 1978 defeat and claimed to have devised tactics that were forerunner of catenaccio
It was the final game of the second group phase. Earlier in the day, Brazil had beaten Poland 3-1, which meant that Argentina had to beat Peru by four to make it to the 1978 World Cup final. Before kick-off, the Peru team were visited in their dressing room by Jorge Videla, the leader of the military junta that had seized power in 1976, and Henry Kissinger, who had been the US secretary of state until the previous January. This, Peru’s players felt, was deeply odd.
Kissinger, who died on Wednesday, loved football, and often attended games. In 1976, for instance, after flying to Britain to discuss the crisis in Rhodesia, he went to Blundell Park for Grimsby’s win over Gillingham with the foreign secretary Tony Crosland, a passionate Grimsby fan. Eight months later, Crosland took him to watch Chelsea draw 3-3 with Wolves in the old Second Division. Then too he had visited the dressing room, to widespread bewilderment. “He said he loved soccer,” the Chelsea striker Steve Finnieston recalled. “The players’ comments ranged from ‘All right, mate?’ to ‘Who’s that wanker?’ … Not a lot of respect was shown.”
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