[QUOTE=“Dirty Hands Walter, post: 980178, member: 9”]I find it difficult as I loved Argentina growing up but I really dislike Messi.
OUT.
Is there a Dutch backers thread?[/QUOTE]
What don’t you like about Messi? Not good looking enough for you?
I remember USA 94 when Bergkamp and Yonk put us out. I was only around 10 years old at the time I will never forget being surrounded by orange bastards in France and them singing “always look at the bright side of life”. For that reason I’m signing in.
He’s a drugs cheat and his refusal/inability to adapt his own game results in better players suffering from being in the same team as him; e.g. Zlatan and Alexis Sanchez.
Ayala 
the Brazilains and the Spanish maintain you should never trust an Argnetinian…that’s fookin saying something!! I’m out…
In
Malbec
Parilla
Tango
In
Date with an Argie next week. From the same town as Messi.
Even more in. (with this thread, possibly not with the bird, she’s very nice)
Signed in
The father son and Holy Ghost
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[QUOTE=“myboyblue, post: 980265, member: 180”]The father son and Holy Ghost
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Fantastic post.
Please go on the Huddleboard and bump the thread I started circa 5 years ago saying Robben was a better player than Messi in the aftermath of Robben showing Messi up tonight.
The Argies were doped up to the gills that day
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/international/2297640/Johan-Cruyff-mystery-over-not-that-of-78-Cup.html
[SIZE=6]Johan Cruyff mystery over, not that of '78 Cup[/SIZE]
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Dutch master: Cruyff in action for Holland in the 1974 World Cup
Comment
Johan Cruyff’s declaration that he missed the World Cup in Argentina 30 years ago because of fears for his family’s safety after a kidnap attempt in Barcelona may have finally drawn a line under one of football’s most puzzling episodes, yet the intrigue that surrounds that 1978 tournament will continue.
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Argentina’s ruling right-wing junta, which had seized power in 1976, was determined to use the World Cup as a political expedient and commandeer any success achieved on the pitch as their own. The regime launched an extensive propaganda campaign, run by the American PR company Burson and Marsteller, to project an image of triumphalism and unity that belied the oppressive reality of torture and death suffered by political opponents.
[RIGHT]http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00694/sport-graphics-2008_694990a.jpg[/RIGHT]
![http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00694/sport-graphics-2008_694990a.jpg[/RIGHT]](http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00694/sport-graphics-2008_694990a.jpg%5B/RIGHT%5D){kind=link}
Rather incongrously, the Argentina manager at the time was Cesar Menotti, the long-haired, chain-smoker known for his left-wing sympathies. Eight years after winning the World Cup in '78, Menotti attempted to justify his position, writing: “We were conscious and we all knew at the time that we played for the people […]. Each of us had an order when we entered the field the day of the final: to look at the people in the stands. We are not going to look at the stage-box of the authorities, I said to the players, we are going to look to the terraces, to all the people, where perhaps sits the father of each of us, because there we will find the metal workers, the butchers, the bakers and the taxi drivers.”
In the group stages, Argentina needed to beat Peru by four goals in their last game to progress to the final. General Jorge Vidal made a timely pre-match visit to the Peruvian dressing-room to talk to the players about “Latin American unity” before the host nation rattled six past a side that had previously held Holland to a goalless draw. Rumours were rife that the match had been fixed (the fact that the Peru goalkeeper Ramon Quiroga was born in Argentina did not help), with crowds pelting the Peru players with stones on their return to Lima airport.
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It has since been claimed that in the weeks following the Peru game, an impromptu cargo of 35,000 tonnes of wheat left Argentina for Lima and that the military regime issued an interest-free loan of $50 million to the Peruvian government, led by another dictator Francisco Morales Bermudez.
There was more scandal in the build-up to the final between Argentina and Holland, with the sports magazine El Grafico fabricating a letter purportedly written by the Dutch captain Ruud Krohl to his daughter extolling the virtues of the local soldiers.
And the Argentinian mind-games continued right up until the last minute when the kick-off of the final itself was delayed after officials protested about a caste worn by the midfielder Rene van de Kerkhof.
Argentina went on to win the famous ticker-tape final 3-1 after extra time, with the junta predictably manipulating the triumph for their own ends as a wave of nationalistic fervour engulfed the country.
The victory was further tarnished by claims of widespread doping amongst the Argentina players, something that Menotti has always strenuously denied. It is even alleged that the urine of the team waterboy’s pregnant wife was used as a substitute in one of the drugs tests during the competition.
One thing is for sure. The conspiracy theorists who have feasted on the myriad of controversies thrown up by the 1978 World Cup will not have had their appetites sated by the resolution of the great ‘Cruyff Mystery’.
In your wanksock
He’s not a drugs cheat though is he? Those growth hormones he took as a child were legal
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good story. Signing in
He had to resort to steroids to become the player he is, it’s the morality more than the legality.
I didn’t know steroids made you become the best footballer in the world
Ive never seen anyone question its morality before. I’d see it more as him overcoming a physical handicap to reach the top.