Flashback: 1982

History: That’s what’s great about momentous occasions like the World Cup. Each góóóóóóóóóóóól we witness in the latest version of the tournament carries shadows from the past, yet is utterly original. Each golden shoe award recalls a dominant performance of the past, every save someone’s anguish from yesteryear.

In this entry, a flashback to World Cup 1982.

World Cup España in 1982 would mark the last occasion for Grzegorz Lato to represent the red and white in high-level competition; indeed, the Cup represented a sort of homecoming for Lato, as he’d been playing for Lokeren in Belgium since the commies had issued him a visa in 1980.

The presence of Gorski’s Eagles was slowly dissolving by 1982, and only Lato, Szarmach, Kusto and Zmuda remained from the ’74 squad. However, Team Polska was an exciting mix of, as a sportswriter cliché goes, grizzled veterans and upstart youngsters. This was soon to be Zibi’s team and the Cup the 26-year-old’s time to shine. Poland was in fact a pre-tourney favorite to go far.

World Cup España also featured a new format for the tournament, with both an expansion to the overall pool to twenty-four and of the second group round to twelve.

Poland won a spot in Group A, placing them with Italy, Cameroon and Peru. As often appears to be the case historically, Team Poland started s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y. On day two of the tournament, Poland’s aging strikers seemed to be showing their, um, seasoning with a limp 0-0 draw against Team Italia. Nevertheless, the Polska D had to have been happy about holding Paolo Rossi and his boy scoreless, the only time the eventual champion Italians were to be shut out during the entire tournament. The Italy game was followed by an inexplicable 0-0 draw with Cameroon.

Everyone either awaited a Poland goal explosion or was ready to write the squad off as too dependent on their aging stars. The latter came. A torrent of goals rained on Peru to close out Polish group play with a 5-1 onslaught. Five different Poles scored including Smolarek, Zibi and Lato, in what would be his final World Cup goal. Lato also had one assist and Zibi added two. Thanks to weak play by Italy (their first round results consisted three draws), Poland won the group.

Then came one for the ages. In one of the most impressive one-man shows in Cup history, Zibi netted a hat trick against Belgium in the first game of Group 1 play, accounting for all three goals in the 3-0 victory. Zibi would be key, too, in the following match against the Soviet Union, but not in positive fashion. In the midst of the tense scoreless draw, Zibi was yellow carded for the second time and thus had to sit and watch the following match.

And then the streaking Poles were stopped. The opponent was once again Italy, winners of Group 3 and eliminators of Brazil. This would be no rematch of the first meeting, though, as the adaptable Italians were not to be stymied. Rossi ran the shagged-out Poland ragged, scoring in minutes 22 and 72 in a reportedly easy 2-0 win.

Team Polska saved some face in the third-place game, feeling freewheeling enough to beat France 3-2 in a game that featured about ten minutes of absolute dominance by the Poles surrounding the halftime break.