EL SALVADOR ROUTED, KUWAIT SHEIKH INVADES PITCH
Chris Flanagan
In an El Salvador radio poll, 60 per cent backed their nation to beat Hungary in their first game of the 1982 World Cup – with hindsight, they were probably a touch over-optimistic.
Los Cuscatlecos were making only their second outing at a World Cup – losing all three matches in 1970, having edged past Honduras during qualifying in the tie that sparked the five-day Football War.
Twelve years later, El Salvador was engulfed in civil war – it didn’t stop them reaching the 1982 World Cup instead of Mexico, but they disintegrated when they got to Spain. A jet-lagged squad arrived just three days prior to their opening game following a convoluted trip via a friendly against Gremio, then flights to Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Madrid and Alicante. They also had only 20 players instead of the permitted 22, bringing two extra officials. Outraged squad members claimed the pair headed off on a European holiday rather than attend the games – hopefully they at least remembered to send some postcards.
The team was also short of footballs to train with, and their only research of their opponents was a short video they had bought from a Spanish agent the day before. Without a World Cup win since 1966, Hungary weren’t exactly unstoppable, but El Salvador’s naive all-out attacking strategy went wrong. Very wrong. Three goals down after 27 minutes, they brought on a forward in place of a midfielder and ended up losing 10-1 – the only time in World Cup history that a side has conceded double figures in one match. Laszlo Kiss came off the bench to net a seven-minute hat-
