CONSPIRACY

I have done this subject before, I am sure, but can't ignore that in 1966, on this day at Wembley, Alf Ramsey, one of the milder managers in charge of English football, was so incensed by the behaviour of the Argentinian opponents, in our World Cup Quarter-final tie, that he prevented our blokes from swopping shirts after the game.
He called them animals and as you can see went into a shirt stretching competition with George Cohen ( a more mild mannered footballer you could not find).

England were also much bettered prepared for this home competition, with eight internationals prepared in the 6 months before the big kick off.

In 1950 and 1954 England had just 3 warm up games leading up to the tournament, in 1958 and 1962 they had 4. Against Poland, Bobby Charlton was unfit, so Burnley's Gordon Harris took his place, but it was Bobby Moore who scored his only international goal to create a 1-0 victory.
Nobby Stiles scored in the next warm up game, beating West Germany 1-0, but the Wembley crowd booed the England team off the pitch.
Playing 4-3-3 was Alf's plan and against Scotland the team won 4-3 with Bobby Charlton making all the difference on his return. Hunt 2 and Greaves score the others. After a match against Yugoslavia with Greaves and Charlton allowing a 2-0 win n front of 55,000 at Wembley, the squad went to Scandinavia scoring 11 goals to 1 in three matches at Finland (3-0), Norway (6-1) and Denmark (2-0).

Back home, the first group match was a dull draw against Uruguay 0-0 on July 11th. Then came Mexico 2-0 (16th July) and France 2-0 (July) making this the first time England had won two World Cup games in a row!
Greaves had been gashed in the leg against the French and Hurst took his place for the next game.

Journalist, Hugh McIlvanney described the Argentina game as "not so much a football match, but an international incident".
Captain Rattin was sent off, for "violence of the tongue" as stated by the ref, who spoke no Spanish.
Rattin tried to take his team with him, it looked as though the poor inadequate referee, Rudolph Kreitlein, ironically, a German, would abandon the game.

If you look for Ken Aston in a past blog, you will soon see how this game eventually led to the use of Yellow and Red Cards!

England had committed 33 fouls during the afternoon, and their opponents only 19! The anarchy went on after Hurst's wonderful glancing header and Alf, did not help matters by referring to his opposition as "animals". over 98,000 watched the game unfold!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbCuTGF29Qw Rattin's side of things in English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq0nxUlgXm8

Alf's strategy was to bring in Geoff Hurst in place of Jimmy Greaves who had played in the previous qualifying ties, a Hurst scored the winner. It was 1-0 but of course against 10 men and no subs. Was the start of the "rivalry" between the two countries?

Three days later England had to meet Portugal and Eusebio in the Semi-finals.

https://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-falklands-v-england.html

In 1978, Rattin was employed by Sheffield United as a scout in the South American market and he brought Alejandro Sabella to the club. Later, Rattin entered politics and joined the Federist Unity Party, led by alleged torturer Luis Patti. Rattin was the first footballer to enter Congress.