World Cup Football’s iconic moment…The Embrace of Soul , 1978

The World cup that was…….

The 1970s….. Football was having one of its finest decades. The rock and roll era of football as the 1970’s often referred to, was a defining one. It saw the emergence of not just legendary footballing icons but also the finest tactical brains.

While the Hungarian Magical Magyar’s redefined football in earlier decades, the ’70s brought the concept of “Total Football”. Johan Cruyff, the unassuming Dutchman who revolutionized the sport was operating at Ajax. Germany had their own legends in Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller. Eusebio, the graceful Portuguese, played briefly in the decade before retiring.

The game was changing as time chugged along. Cruyff, having led the Dutch rather imperviously to the final in 1974, only to lose to a German masterclass had gifted football some of the best moments. However, it was the last World Cup of the decade that gifted the world the most iconic moment. A moment in time that defined the very essence of human emotion that a spectator sport can bring to the fore.

The year was 1978. Argentina amid political turmoil was hosting the World Cup. It was to turn out to be one of the dirtiest World Cups. The Argentine General Videla who was ruling the country used it as a distraction from the horrendous events since the 1976 military takeover. Despite widespread protests from the footballing community FIFA went ahead with the event in Argentina. Some players like Johan Cruyff and Paul Breitner boycotted in protest. Cruyff, would about three decades later confess to the fact he decided to keep away because he and his family were threatened at gunpoint in his apartment in Barcelona.

It was a month of shame for football. There was news of threats to players and referees, all to ensure that Argentina reached the final. Football had surrendered to politics. More of it can be said later, somewhere else. To cut to the chase, Argentina was safely in the final with the Dutch on the other side.

The Final and the moment

The Estadio Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires was jam-packed. 70000 noisy fans were as partisan as a crowd could get. In a final mired in controversy, Argentina won by three goals to one. Mario Kempes, the Argentine front man scored twice to gift Argentina its first World Cup.

As the crowd erupted at the end of the match, in the backdrop of the dark events of the past and the delirium of the Argentine win, football’s human face emerged.

A fan, Victor Dell’Aquila jumped the fence, evaded the police, rushed onto the field, and hugged his heroes Alberto Tarantini and Ubaldo Fillol, who were kneeling on the field embracing each other.

What made the moment a representation of football’s emotional pull, was the fact that Dell’Aquila, the ‘fan’, was a double amputee who had no arms to hug his heroes.

A moment that traveled throughout the world to become immortalized as ‘El abrazo del alma’ (Embrace of the soul). “ To this day, it is considered as one of the most iconic photos in Football history.

It’s a picture that stays with you… it’s magical.” Alberto Tarantini said.

“When I hugged Tarantini, I felt that someone touched his back. That someone was Dell’Aquila,” Ubaldo Fillol recalled later.

Despite all the madness that the world of football was encompassed in, a small flickering flame of human emotion made the World Cup one to remember and cherish……

Sports imitates life too often and it is the heart-warming moments like this that make it as meaningful as life itself….

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