The Battle of Santiago (, ) was a football match during the 1962 FIFA World Cup, played between the hosts Chile and Italy on 2 June 1962 in Santiago. It gained its nickname from the level of violence seen in the game, in which two players were sent off, numerous punches were thrown and police intervention was required four times. The referee was Ken Aston, who later went on to invent yellow and red cards.

Background

In this Group B clash, already heightened tensions between the two football teams were exacerbated by the description of Santiago in crude terms by two Italian journalists, and Corrado Pizzinelli; they had written that Santiago was a backwater dump where "the phones don't work, taxis are as rare as faithful husbands, a cable to Europe costs an arm and a leg and a letter takes five days to turn up", and its population as prone to "malnutrition, illiteracy, alcoholism and poverty. Chile is a small, proud and poor country: it has agreed to organise this World Cup in the same way as Mussolini agreed to send our air force to bomb London (they didn't arrive). The capital city has 700 hotel beds. Entire neighbourhoods are given over to open prostitution. This country and its people are proudly miserable and backwards." Chilean newspapers fired back, describing Italians in general as fascists, mafiosos, oversexed, and, because some of Inter Milan's players had recently been involved in a doping scandal, drug addicts. The Italian journalists involved were forced to flee Chile, while an Argentinian scribe mistaken for an Italian in a Santiago bar was beaten up and hospitalised.

Match

Summary

left|thumb|One of the countless disputes between the Italian footballers and the referee Aston

The first foul occurred within 35 seconds of kick-off. Italy's Giorgio Ferrini was sent off in the eighth minute after a foul on Honorino Landa, but refused to leave the pitch and had to be dragged off by policemen. In the ensuing scramble, Chilean outside-left Leonel Sánchez broke Humberto Maschio's nose with a left hook punch, but English referee Ken Aston did not notice the foul as he was busy telling Ferrini to leave the field.

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|GK ||1||Misael Escuti

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|RB ||2||Luis Eyzaguirre

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|CB ||5||Carlos Contreras

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|CB ||3||Raúl Sánchez

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|LB ||4||Sergio Navarro (c)

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|RH ||8||Jorge Toro

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|LH ||6||Eladio Rojas

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|OR ||7||Jaime Ramírez

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|IR ||9||Honorino Landa

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|IL ||10||Alberto Fouilloux

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|OL ||11||Leonel Sánchez

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|colspan="3"|Manager:

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|colspan="3"|Fernando Riera

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|GK ||12||Carlo Mattrel

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|RB ||18||Mario David ||

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|CB ||19||Francesco Janich

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|CB ||4||Sandro Salvadore

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|LB ||16||Enzo Robotti

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|RH ||20||Paride Tumburus

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|LH ||21||Giorgio Ferrini ||

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|OR ||7||Bruno Mora (c)

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|IR ||9||José Altafini

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|IL ||8||Humberto Maschio

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|OL ||11||Giampaolo Menichelli

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|colspan="3"|Manager:

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|colspan="3"|Paolo Mazza

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Linesmen:

<br />Leo Goldstein (Israel)

<br />Fernando Buergo Elcuaz (Mexico)

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Aftermath

When highlights from the match were shown on British television a couple of days later (not the same night, because film of matches had to be flown back to the UK), the match was introduced by BBC sports commentator David Coleman as "the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game."

Coleman also observed that it was the first meeting between the sides and "we hope it will be the last."

See also

  • Battle of Berne
  • Battle of Bordeaux
  • Battle of Nuremberg
  • Football War
  • Chile at the FIFA World Cup
  • Italy at the FIFA World Cup

References

Reports

  • Video of the match in full length