Cameroon slapped Maradona in the 1990 World Cup ... and changed the laws of football because of Egypt

Cameroon slapped Maradona in the 1990 World Cup ... and changed the laws of football because of Egypt

Italy had the honor to organize the fourteenth edition of the 1990 World Cup after a competition with the Soviet Union.  Italy won 11 votes in the FIFA meeting in 1984, compared to 5 for the Soviets, and the FIFA option was very successful due to the political and economic conditions of the Soviet Union that led to its collapse after a year of championship.  Italy became the second country after Mexico to organize the tournament for the second time in its history.  Here, everyone predicted the success of the fourteenth edition, which includes the country that has the strongest local league in that period.

The championship qualifiers were a big surprise, as France failed to reach the finals.  Mexico and Chile were also denied participation in the championship due to the first fraud, when they included a very old player in a championship specializing in young groups.  A Chilean goalkeeper also reaped his team when he claimed that he had suffered a firecracker in the Brazil match, but his claim was exposed when he watched FIFA video clip proving his lie, so the latter decided to deprive Chile of the World Cup 1990 and 1994.

Egypt qualified for the second time in its history to the finals after an absence of 66 years, while the UAE, the Republic of Ireland and Costa Rica attended the football wedding for the first time in the history of the championship.

 The tournament system did not differ from the previous version 1986, as the 24 participating teams were divided into 6 groups, the first two of which qualify for the round of 16, in addition to the best 4 who got the third place, where the teams play among themselves the knockout system in the advanced roles.

 The inaugural meeting at the San Siro stadium brought together the champion of the previous version with Cameroon. Before the match, the Cameroon players went to the warm-up hall, and after them Maradona and his companions arrived, and according to the narration of Cameroon keeper Thomas Nkono, “They started collapsing and asked us to leave.  Then they preferred to leave the hall, I think we have surpassed them mentally from that moment. "

Most of the fans of San Siro encouraged the Cameroon team in this match, because the Argentine star Maradona denied their team AC Milan the Italian League title to Napoli weeks before the World Cup.  Billardo and affected the general Argentine people, "Billardo says," After losing to Cameroon everyone called me to guide me what I should do, President Carlos Menem called me two former presidents, as well as the leader of the opposition. "

 Argentina defeated the Soviet Union and tied with Romania, who lost with Cameroon, and thus Cameroon qualified to the round of sixteen despite its severe loss to the Soviets 4-0, accompanied by Argentina and Romania, who beat the Soviets.

The owners of the land achieved the complete mark in their group that included the United States, Czechoslovakia and Austria, and accompanied Al-Azuri to the round of 16 Czechoslovakia winners over the United States and Austria, as did Brazil in the third group and defeated Sweden, Costa Rica and Scotland, and accompanied her to the next round Costa Rica benefiting from two wins, and Scotland did not benefit its victory  Against Sweden, they came out together in the championship.

Germany was the most prominent candidate for the title, and the Mensheviks team wanted to celebrate the Berlin Wall collapse in a distinctive way. There is nothing better than crowning the World Cup to achieve this.

Luther Matthews' colleagues started their strong performances in the first round with a landslide victory over Yugoslavia 4-1, and they followed him with a bigger victory over the Emirates 5-1, while the Germans settled for a point in the last round against Colombia, the latter beat the Emirates and lost against Yugoslavia, so it followed Germany and Yugoslavia to the next round  While the Emirates came out with three defeats and 11 goals, they scored.

Spain, Uruguay and Belgium qualified for the 16th round, where the Spaniards tied with Uruguay and beat Belgium, as the latter defeated the Latin team, at a time when everyone overcame South Korea, and thus the two Asian teams - the UAE and South Korea - emerged from the championship without achieving any points  .

5 of the six matches in the sixth group ended in a draw, and England achieved the only victory in the group at the expense of Egypt, and thus qualified for the round of 16 both the Netherlands, Ireland and England, while Egypt bid farewell to the tournament with two draws with the Netherlands and Ireland.  Football, where Egypt players mastered wasting time by returning the ball to goalkeeper Ahmed Schubert, who in turn holds her with his hand and sends it to another defender, and the latter of course will return it to him.

The incident of returning the ball to the goalkeeper in the match between Egypt and Ireland was repeated more than 30 times, which raised the ire of Irish coach Jack Charlton.  Laws of the game, it is not permissible for the guard to catch the ball if it comes from his teammate.

The group stage witnessed two pleasant surprises: Costa Rica and Cameroon, and the championship was generally characterized by poor performance, according to many of the most boring tournaments ever because of the low number of goals scored, this evaluation was after the group stage ended, but the heat of the championship will rise sharply in the next rounds.