Football World Cup 1978

The 1978 Football World Cup was held in Argentina. It was won by Argentina who beat the Netherlands 3–1 after extra time in the final. This win was the first World Cup title for Argentina who became the sixth team (after Uruguay, Italy, Germany, Brazil, and England) to be world champions.

The format of the competition stayed the same as in 1974: 16 teams qualified, divided into four groups of four. Top two teams in each group would advance to the second round, where they would be split into two groups of four. The winners of each group will play each other in the finals, and the second place finishers in the third place match.

The Netherlands lost their second World Cup final in a row, both times to the host nation, after already bowing to Germany in 1974. Mario Kempes of Argentina lead the competition in scoring with six goals.

In a first-round game against the Netherlands, Scotland's Archie Gemmill scored a famous goal, which was later made a part of a memorable scene in the movie Trainspotting. Scotland needed to win the game by three goals to advance to the second round, and Gemmill made it 3–1 only for the Dutch to score and deny Scotland with a 3–2 result.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding this World Cup, most notably dealing with Argentina's final game in the second round against Peru. Because of the goal difference criteria, Argentina needed to defeat the Peruvian side by at least four goals to qualify to the finals instead of Brazil, thanks to Brazil's 3–1 victory against Poland played a few hours earlier (which cleary gave the Argetinians an advantage). The controversy lies with the fact that the Peruvian goalkeeper (Ramón Quiroga) at the time was actually born in Argentina and had, until that game, let in six goals in five matches. Argentina, it should be noted, had only scored six goals in the competition up to this point; they put the same number past Peru, winning 6–0 and advancing to the final match. Nevertheless, players of boths sides still deny any agreement to favor Argentina.

First round

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Second round

Group 1

Group 2

Third place match

Final

References

Paul Marcuccitti's collum UEFA's description of the world cup