Aftermath. It may be risky claiming that, but the 1986 World Cup was the last satisfying tournament. In general, everybody was pleased at the end. Apart from the general impression, the details were less pleasing and there were important negative and alarming conclusions. So, point by point without pretense for completeness.
Mexico was graceful host just like in 1970. Considering the short notice for getting ready, the Mexicans did very good job and, most important, the whole atmosphere was festive and friendly. It may have been the distance helping to that, but there were hardly any confrontations between fans of different countries – the only noticeable accident was the brief fight on the stands between English and Argentinian fans. On the negative side were: the lingering questions about how exactly Mexico got the hosting of the finals – suspicions remained, but the truth was not established. Also, there were large protests of angry Mexicans going on during the whole tournament – it was also an open and unanswered question: why Mexico spent money on the World Cup instead of using that money to help the victims of the devastating 1985 earthquake.
Players without shadows. This was more important problem: FIFA was getting more and more commercialized. In the oppressive Mexican heat, the games were played in midday – because of TV, especially European TV. There was no way – because of the time differences – to broadcast live games in the early evening across the ocean. Late night or early morning broadcast meant little audience and because of that – little revenue from advertisers for both FIFA and TV companies. Thus, the games were schedule at noon… at the worst heat. It is a miracle that the players endured and actually played quite fast football. But it was absolutely clear after this World Cup that revenue is the prime motivation and everything else only had to comply with commercial demands – money first, game just a lure, players’ health – private business. Socrates directly accused FIFA for pushing Mexico and Brazil ahead for profit. FIFA retaliated after the finals and in arrogant manner: Sep Blatter expressed concerns about the way many country conducted their preparatory friendlies – national teams played many meaningless games, often against clubs, and only for profit. FIFA, of course, was not to order countries how to prepare their teams for World Cup finals, but the appalling practice depreciating the sport had to stop. It was easier for Blatter than for Socrates to prove his point: Bilardo, for instance, used only local junior teams for sparring partners and absolutely refused to play a friendly with Poland, touring Argentina for some obscure reason. It was easy for FIFA officials to blame individual countries – Blatter did not say anything how exactly a team should be prepared for Mexican conditions: high altitude, scorching summer heat, and games scheduled at noon, for FIFA was very much concerned for the profits from TV and other sponsors.
The end of the beautiful football. It was clear in 1982, now it was confirmed – Brazil, France, Denmark, USSR achieved nothing. It was particularly painful to see Brazil and France out, for it repeated 1982, firmly establishing the brutal truth: those playing artistic football and pleasing the eye were the losers. They were never going to win and the lesson was easy to learn: play brutal rational game and you may triumph at the end. West Germany was the strongest argument.
Yet, the 1986 World Cup satisfied both fans and specialists because of good number high quality dramatic matches. Almost all of them happened after the group phase, rising the problem of numbers. Arguably, the memorable extraordinary matches were pretty much the same number as in the past, say, about 10. But in 1974 the total of games played was 38. Now there were 52, 36 of them in the low-quality group phase. It was clear that great football could be expected only after the group phase, teams too careful and not in top gear at first. It was becoming too much for the fans, though – they watched what used to be the whole tournament before the real fun began, gradually becoming saturated with football, spent there excitement in empty expectation something great to happen, and too picky and easily irritated later. One reason the match for the third place attracted smaller and smaller interest. The combination worked negatively: the great matches were as in the past, the number of dull games increased, endangering overall assessment of the tournament. Low scoring did not help either – the 1986 World Cup had the lowest scoring in all finals played so far. The biggest reason was the modern way football was played.
As a whole, the quality of the teams increased and there were practically no outsiders, but it was the lower level of the football pyramid getting closer to the leading nations and also the leaders going down a bit. Practically everybody was capable of strong physical football, thus, it was difficult to score goals. Looking from this perspective, perhaps the worst team in 1986 was Bulgaria and not because they too bad, but because it was the team leaving no memories at all. There was certain irony in that: Bulgaria played a fifth World Cup without winning even one match. And in the same time this tournament was Bulgarian best ever, for the first time the team went beyond the group phase. Not an encouraging sign – you have never winning dull team climbing up and unable to imprint any memory of itself. However, they were not a team easily destroyed by others – if they lose, it was by small difference. Modern football dangerously oscillated between 0-0 and 0-1, winning was increasingly becoming a 
matter of lucky goal scored.
The game was generally physical and rough, no team shying away from brutality. Uruguay was the chosen scapegoat and behind its back hided all others – they played ‘manly’ football, the Uruguayans were the beasts. Convenient, but hardly true… Uruguay may have been more open about it, but hacking, kicking, punching was the norm. It was casual, cynical, going on constantly and everywhere on the field. It was professional… even the term ‘professional foul’ was already firmly established, it was normal, a matter of preventing the opposition from scoring. With that booking was no longer real punishment shaming the perpetrator and bringing him in line – getting yellow card was now part of the game, a normal risk, made no impression on anybody. With the mentality that football is a war, gentlemanly approach was thrown to the garbage – cheating, simulating, diving, everything was alright.
Wide spread brutality taxed referees to the limit and sometime beyond – they were under heavy scrutiny and harsh criticism in 1986. In general, refereeing was found appalling and incompetent. In part, it was because of higher number of finalists, so more referees were needed, but also the FIFA policy of including more of the ‘third world’ in the important phases of the sport. Competence was lacking, there were many mistakes. Of course, the most scandalous offense was the goal scored by ‘the hand of God’ – ultimately, the referees were guilty for that, especially the lineman Bogdan Dotchev. Let’s face it: if Maradona did the right thing and went to the ref to tell him he played with hand, then what? Dotchev did not signal that, the ref signaled goal scored… a reverse? Since when referees reverse decision made? And what kind of referee could be the one who has to be instructed by players on what happened during the match? Impasse… The referees were caught by the transformation of the game into a war and had no tools to function – vicious kicking started with the first whistle and ended only with the last. Let it go unpunished and everybody was accusing the ref for the ugliness. Be stern, register and punish every foul and everybody was accusing the ref of pettiness, too happy to be in the center of the things and flash cards, and not letting players play. The original outcry about brutal play in 1986 was quickly reversed – just as soon as the yellow cards piled up – into accusation that the referees were excessive, it was not right to show so many cards. Five yellow cards were shown at the final and it was laughable: 3 of them were for arguing and obstruction, but vicious deliberate tackles were left unpunished at all.
here were no complaints against Arppi Filho, he was found sound and good, and it was true – he did whatever possible to let the game flow uninterrupted, but still had to break the game almost every minute because the hacking started from the first minute and never stopped. Not even counting all other dirty tricks both teams employed. The Brazilian tried as much as possible, even closing his eyes for quite a lot, and yet he had to show 5 cards and blow the whistle almost every minute. What really can be done to satisfaction when the whole game is like the moment above? What a referee could do if the players do not even react to his instruction? FIFA was also very inconsistent in its own instructions to the referees: tackles from the back were to be booked, but the referees did not follow that – and how could they, when there were so many such tackles? In the middle of the tournament, when the cards became too many, FIFA quietly insisted that referees restrict bookings. It was neither here, neither there – clearly, there was no available way to fight brutality, for it was the norm, a key ingredient of modern football.
No new tactics were observed – the norm was already familiar: the key battle was going in midfield, players had to be physically conditioned to press anywhere on the pitch and endure high tempo more than 90 minutes, team work and universality were a must, the preferable scheme was 4-4-2, with slight variations. Ideally, a team should be flexible enough to change on occasion to 3-5-2 or 4-5-1. Thus, most valuable players were those able to change position easily and prime examples were West Germany, where essentially midfielders were used as full backs – Brehme on the right and Briegel on the left, Argentina, where midfielder Olarticoechea was used as left full back, Brazil using Junior as pivotal midfielder, but ready to cover his original position – left full back. However, constructive playmakers were getting fewer and fewer and most teams were becoming similar – fast, tough, but lacking imagination. With the exception of Josimar, there were no new bright players discovered at the 1986 finals. Similar teams galloping 90 minutes most often canceled each other and scoring was getting very difficult and scarce. Artistic football was proved to be the loser, but impoverished skills severely limited the options for beating tough opposition: the example of Morocco against West Germany was not explored by any other team, except Argentina – it was simple concept, but needed skillful playmaker, who could slow or increase the tempo at will and thus frustrate one-speed teams. Denmark was prime example of team unable, no matter what, to change their approach when the game was going wrong: it did not work, yet, Denmark run and attacked and attacked Spain, remaining to the last minute the more attractive and dangerous team, but lost 1-5. The same problem had USSR and England was hopelessly outdated, stubbornly using line defense and reluctantly giving up typical center-forward on occasion. In general, nothing new was displayed, but there were some different nuances, which were employed and they alarmingly old, giving the impression that the development of the game was going backwards. The best examples were Argentina and West Germany and their coaches.
This time even the Germans did not expect their team to go far, so bad it was, so ridden with scandals, and so impoverished on skills, imagination, and creativity. It was also the prime example of modern football and thus soldiered to the final. The success should be credited almost entirely to Franz Beckenbauer – he managed somehow to keep constantly quarreling squad ready to play, overcoming all kind of disasters – from Schuster’s refusal to play to the deliberate injury Schumacher delivered to the defender he did not want to play with. West Germany only run, producing nothing and seemingly incapable of creating anything, but triumphed at the end, thanks to will and taking whatever chance popped up. Beckenbauer simply had no options for changing anything at all – so dull was his team and Schuster was absolutely right to say that whether he played or not makes no difference, for there is nobody to play with. As a last resort, Beckenbauer only increased the number of strikers in the second half, fielding Hoeness and Voeler. But he was clever to take advantage of whatever available – finishing second in the group phase, West Germany had open road practically to the semi-finals, for it was going to meet the weakest possible opponents. There was a way to beat the Germans, but hardly any team was smart enough to try it: Morocco showed it – playing slow, possessing the ball in the middle of the pitch, destroyed the fast physical Germans – they were easily outplayed by technical opponents and were uncomfortable with slow tempo. Unfortunately, Morocco did not have good enough strikers and was a team still not experienced enough, so they lost. West Germany was deadly opponent, no doubt about it, but beatable – if one knew what to do. It was one-track team and Beckenbauer knew it best: he said after the lost final that if he had to play it again will play it excatly the same way. That is, he had nothing else, no players to change anything at all. Yet, ugly as they were, the Germans were winners at the end and with some weird good luck could have been even world champions. That was their lesson and unfortunately football in the 1980s came to that – field 11 soldiers, let them run and battle, and will win the war.
Bilardo used slightly different approach – yes, what he was saying was in line with predominant wisdom: collectivity, alertness, perfect physical condition, coverage of the whole field. But he insisted on intelligence. And on defensive approach. His model was Estudiantes (La Plata) of the late 1960s, the team he played. On the surface, Bilardo was introducing some outdated kind of football – 10 defenders and 1 free roaming star, left to do whatever he wants. But this approach not only did not look very different from the prevailing norms, but provided an edge to beat those very norms – Argentina run as the Germans did, fought opponents everywhere on the field, as the Germans did, saturated the midfield with players as the Germans did, but was flexible enough to move into fully attacking football when the opposition was weaker, to slow the tempo to make one-track speedy teams uncomfortable, to switch from slow tempo to fast one, to move its defensive line from way back to the center of the field, and back, depending on demands of the moment or particular opponent. It was intelligent, if not very attractive play, play and Bilardo had not only players willing to execute his requirements, but the right kind of players – not just willing, but actually capable to think on the field, able to do what the coach wanted. The notion of having a star, free to do whatever he sees fit, with the whole team just supporting him, was lifted right from the 1960s, but it worked, for it was terribly confusing for robotic opponents, used only to matching, marking and fighting equal numbers.
Of course, Maradona was supreme. It was said that the 1986 World Cup was one-man show, but it was not entirely correct. True, Maradona shined and made enormous difference, but he was also unselfish – taking the brutality of opponents on himself, taking their attention, so the ball can dangerously go to some empty zone, where free team-mate could score, giving great passes, acting as playmaker, controlling the pace and the flow of the game. Maradona was also the prime example of the football of the 1980s – a villain and a hero at once, good, bad, and ugly in the same time, but unstoppable. He was not alone too – there was excellent Batista in midfield and defense, Burruchaga ready to take over from Maradona when the occasion needed it, Valdano tormenting opposing defenders just with his presense, Olarticoechea, roaming on the whole left side of the field, selfless working man Enrique, fearless burly defenders. The Argentines destroyed West Germany, proved it was beatable team, what was needed was equal physical toughness and endurance, but having technical skills and intelligence to make full use of them. Good reading of the game and ability to control and change the tempo; flexibility to make slight changes in approach depending on specific opponent and concrete moments of the match. Strange as it was, generally defensive concept was the best tool to beat rapid warrior football. But it was not up to everybody… to make use of Bilardo’s idea, one needed a player like Maradona and there was only one Maradona. Collective football in want of universal soldiers reduced skillful visionary midfielders to almost endangered species. Platini, Socrates, Zico, Junior were too old by now and there was nobody young coming in. Compared to Netzer, Overath, Beckenbauer, Matthaus was pathetic and he was not just the best West German football had, but almost the whole world had to offer now. That was the sad part of Argentinian example – without great midfielder like Maradona, Bilardo’s concept was useless, impossible. Again, West Germany was the prime example: Beckenbauer used not one, but two midfield conductors – Matthaus and Magath – in hope that they could do something creative. It was desperation… and did not work, the two of them were unable to match even a quarter of Maradona’s play and creativity. The future of the game did not look very bright and time proved it – this was the last really entertaining World Cup.