1981
Optimism returned, at least for a part of the year. Suddenly it was like 1971 again, a fresh air in the stuffy football world, seeing decline at the end of the 1970s. Technically, the positive signs belonged to 1980, but really affected the mood for 1981. The European championship ended with bright new West Germany and exciting Belgium, then, at the end of 1980 started Mundialito, bringing more interesting stuff, particularly the new Brazil.
Mundialito was billed as 1980 tournament, but really it was played in 1981. This unofficial tournament fueled more hopes, for West Germany – the strongest and most exciting European team at the moment – was blown away easily by brand seemingly stronger then 2 years ago Argentina with Maradona and brand new Brazil lead by Socrates. The reigning world champions themselves were unable to reach the final and on top of everything Brazil lost to Uruguay at the end. All this easily translated into a whole bunch of teams playing great football and outdoing each other. The players were largely young, freshly discovered talents – none of the great old names played any role anymore. The 1980s were suddenly promising, contrary to ominous predictions, based on the end of the 70s. Football was alive again – or so it seemed.
But there was another big news – perhaps bigger than Mundialito – and it happened in the summer of 1980. Italy opened its market for foreign players. It was expected and anticipated, but finally happened – it changed the European football map instantly. And in the same time the East European countries started to export players Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria joined Poland and Hungary. Since USSR already had an exported player, the last resisting were DDR and Albania.