The definition of a true champion, it is said, is the capacity to come back and win whatever it is they’ve won already again and again. There are, meanwhile, those champions who have come back and made a real pig’s ear of it.
In 1934 Uruguay didn’t even turn up to defend their title, probably to get the Italian hosts back for not turning up for the inaugural competition in South America. At least France, like the teams below, had the grace to turn up and bugger it up in person.
Brazil 1966
They were the holders and favourites, but went to England with an in-between squad of players who had already seen plenty of glory at the previous two finals (four of their starting line-up were over 34), and a handful whose time would come four years later (Jairzinho, Tostao, Edu).
Pele was still El Rey, though, and scored the first in their opening 2-0 win over Bulgaria, but he got a taste of the brutal man-marking that saw to his and, so it is remembered, Brazil’s participation. He was rested in the next game against Hungary, but one wonders whether he would have made much difference as the Magyars, with echoes of their great 1950s team, took the South Americans apart.
There were shades of Zizou’s limping return as Pele was brought back for the crucial last group game with Portugal, but the Portuguese were less hospitable than the Danes this week. Pele was kicked about inelegantly all afternoon, and finally left the field with a coat round his shoulders, vowing never to play in the World Cup again. Luckily for football history, he was just in a huff.
Brazil 1974
Having won the Jules Rimet trophy outright in 1970, the Brazilians famously had it nicked before they had a chance to start their bid for the new bit of goldware we know and love today. By melting down the trophy the thieves who did away with the cup showed a cynical lack of appreciation for the beautiful game which, nonetheless, characterised Brazil’s approach to their 1974 defence.
Coach Mario Zagallo felt that the skills and showmanship exhibited by his 1970 side would never survive against the physical game of the strongest Europeans. Instead he sought to match them with an athletic but far from watchable side with really bad hair, even for the time.
They became the only Brazilian side not to outclass Scotland in the finals with a 0-0 draw to follow up another against Yugoslavia in the first round, and only progressed from there thanks to beating mighty Zaire. They won untidily against Argentina before facing Holland, handing them their reputation for playing the most finely choreographed football, only for the Dutch to go and forget to win anything before they could even hand it back pathetically. Damn.
West Germany 1978
The holders got off to an iffy start with a goalless draw with Poland on a potato patch in Buenos Aires, but it was hard to tell which of their 6-0 win over Mexico and another dreary 0-0 with Tunisia were the real West Germany.
They progressed to the second group stage but hardly seemed grateful, going out with a whimper after a late defeat to the already eliminated Austria. With debuts for the likes of Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, it wasn’t as if the Germans completely shamed themselves. It’s just that, without Gerd Muller, they weren’t very good any more.
Argentina 1990
On one hand, Argentina’s defence of Diego Maradona’s title was pretty successful. They reached the final, for heaven’s sake. Their passage, however, was cause for some feeling at the time that they were the least deserving finalists since the whole football thing began.
After their historic opening-day defeat to Cameroon, they beat an unlucky Russia and drew with Romania to qualify for the second round — in third place. Maradona, suffering with a bad toe, was not at his best throughout the tournament, and it showed in Argentina’s far more cautious, and often cynical, play.
They knocked out Brazil, but even then seemed to be playing for the extra-time and penalties they duly got in the next two rounds against a cursed Yugoslavia and, more violently, in beating the hosts in the semifinal. It took nerve to beat the Italians in a shoot-out on their own patch, for sure, but by then it seemed that that was all Argentina had.
They did little more to enhance this impression thereafter, receiving the first- and second-ever red cards in a World Cup final. It was the ugliest final we may ever have the misfortune to see, won by the Germans with, you guessed it, a penalty.
France 2002
What of France, then? Well, their opening day defeat to Senegal was a massive shock, but they weren’t the first. The world’s growing respect for African football, as well as an opening round with more surprises than a Kinder egg factory, meant France somehow got off lightly in the pointing-and-laughing stakes.
Their 10-man scrap with Uruguay even earned them plaudits for their fighting spirit and they entered their third and final game needing a two-goal win that few thought beyond them, especially with the returning Zizou. The suspicion was that the script was already written.
Well, look again. Les bleus magnifiques crashed out without even a goal. Were they unlucky after hitting the frame of the goal five times in their three games? Maybe. But when a team plays with disrespect for their opponents — as the French reportedly did this time by putting their feet up the day before Senegal and doing no homework on the Danes –then no one’s going to wring their hands at the injustice of it all.