An Earlier 9/11

Thirty-three years ago today, the Chilean armed forces launched a coup against the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende. The new regime proceeded to use the Estadio Nacional – home of club side Universidad Chile and site of the country’s third-place triumph in the 1962 World Cup - as a concentration camp for several weeks after after the coup.

Just two weeks after the coup, the national team had to play a match in Moscow against the Soviet Union, as part of a tie to decide the 16^th and final spot available for the World Cup finals in Germany. The return match was scheduled to be held in Santiago on the 21^st of November, a fact which helped to persuade the regime to wind up its operations in the Estadio Nacional in mid-October.

However, the Soviet Union protested the venue, saying they could not possibly play in a stadium that had so recently been as a venue for executions and torture (yes, yes, pot/kettle/black, I know). FIFA sent a fact-finding mission to the stadium, which came back with the view that conditions in the stadium were good, that Santiago was calm and that since FIFA was a non-political organization, the match should go ahead.

The Soviets, to what would have been their credit had it not been for that pot/kettle thing, refused to play the return match and thus forfeited both the match and their chance of making it to the World Cup. Chile was awarded a 3-0 victory (they were allowed to score on an empty net first) and headed off to Germany ’74.

An interesting video of this can be found over on YouTube here.