Connections - Argentina, part 2

In the second part of our look at Tottenham' s connections with Argentina we discover some more games with their club sides, some guest players and a steam ship.

But we start with our last meeting with one of their sides which occurred in South Korea.

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The last time we met a side from that country was in 2005 when the famous Boca Juniors were our opponents in a 2-2 draw during the  Peace Cup held in South Korea. 2005. Mido and Defoe scoring for us that day as we went on to win the trophy.

As well as being a player and manager Ossie Ardiles (and a qualified lawyer) also found time to appear in the film ’Escape to Victory with Michael Caine and Sly Stallone. The clubs cup final song of 1981 ’Ossies Dream’ contains the lines
 
“Ossies going to wemb…ley
His knees have gone all tremb…ley
Come on you spurs”
 
As well as Ossie singing ‘Come on Tottingham” which is how he pronounced it when he first arrived in the country even thou he now said it correctly he recreated it for the recording. Sadly his return to the club as manager and his desire to play beautiful football arrived at the same time as off the field problems for Spurs and his reign only lasted from June 1993 to November 94.

Mendes V Boca Juniors 2005

Hoddle & Waddle, as well as future Spurs players Fenwick, Hodge and Lineker all played for England in the ‘Hand of God‘ game at the World Cup in 1986.
In which one of the most famous players in the world Maradona showed the ugly side of his game.

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His brilliance was on display when he played for Spurs in Ossie’s testimonial game against Inter Milan in 1986.  The crowd chanting ‘sign him.‘

Right - Maradona in a Spurs shirt.

Another South American legend and team mate from the 1978 World Cup Mario Kempes played for Spurs on trial in 1984. At thirty years of age he played in a game V Enfield but didn’t score in our 7-0 win. He had previously played on our tour in Norway and scored a hat trick V Stjordal Blink. He also featured in a game in France. Enfield was however his only UK appearance.

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The only major competition to date held in that country was the World Cup in 1978. This had limited Spurs links but these can be found @
http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/flying-down-to-rio-flight-fifteen

Other England V Argentina connections - 1991 Gary Lineker captained and scored for England in a 2-2 draw.
Then in 2000 when the teams drew 0-0 at Wembley one of the Argentinean substitutes was Mauricio Pochettino coming on after 34 minutes. He also started the World Cup game in 2002, England winning 1-0.

Left - Pochettino in 1997 / 98 pictured with Espanyol.

Tottenham’s Glenn Hoddle and Alf Ramsey both played and managed England in meetings between the two countries.

While Jimmy Greaves and Gary Lineker have both scored during their time as Spurs players against the South Americans for England.

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That 1909 connection comes from our tour to Argentina and Uruguay that summer. When touring met traveling by stream ship. The story of that amazing adventure that includes Spurs missing the boat, a Calvary charge on the pitch and a stop over in Brazil is told @
http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/hotspur-towers-spurs-in-south-america
 
The Argentina national side were guests at White Hart Lane in May 1951 for the game between Spurs (the new league champions) and Liverpool a couple of days before they played England at Wembley, (see part 1).

At the time of writing the club have two players from the country registered, Erik Lamela who is currently injured, unfortunately at a time when he was starting to exhibit the skills that attracted Spurs,  and thus his statistics until the end of the 2016/17 season will read 222 games and 44 goals.

The other is Federico Fazio, who joined us in 2014. In doing so he upset the Sevilla chairman where he had been captain and won three major trophies including the Europa League and was banned from their stadium. He has won the under 19 World Cup and Olympic titles. He also has two under 23 and two full caps. Strong in the air and aggressive on the floor it was a surprise when he did not make more of an impact at Spurs and after eighteen months he was loaned back to a forgiving Sevilla (winning the Europa League again). The following season he was loaned to Roma. Whilst he remains a Spurs player it seems unlikely he will return to the club having made 32 appearances.

If you know of any other connections please contact me.
A full set of ‘Connections’ can be found @
http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/hotspur-towers-the-international-index

Top Picture - Maradona, Lamella, Ardiles and Villa.

Above left - Kempes in action @ Enfield. Right - A more recent picture of Ardiles, Pochettino and Keith Burkenshaw the manager who brought the Argentinians to England in 1978.

Come On Tottingham,
Keith Harrison.
t- Keith 16024542
f - https://www.facebook.com/keith.harrison.9659
My profile / archive is @ -  View Full Bio

part 1 - http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/the-international-connection-argentina