The year was 1993 and it was a few hours after Argentina had broken Australia’s hearts with a 1-0 victory in Buenos Aires. The defeat was in the second leg of a World Cup qualifier and had denied the Socceroos a spot in the 1994 tournament.
Crestfallen captain Paul Wade and assistant coach Raul Blanco had been invited onto an Argentinian TV show, and after surprising the panel with a revelation he only earned $5000 a season, the studio suddenly started buzzing.
“Maradona was watching and he rang up the TV station, so the floor manager is going nuts, everyone is frazzled,” Wade recalls.
“So they put him on and he said: ‘Paul, congratulations to you and your team for the way you played, you pushed us so hard’, and he goes, ‘your tears of sadness today will be tears of joy sometime soon’.”
You can see where this is going. Paul, could those tears of joy arrive almost 30 years later, on Sunday morning at about 8am (AEDT), via the deeds of Mat Ryan’s Socceroos against Lionel Messi’s Argentina?
“Absolutely. If Saudi Arabia can do it, so can we – they are wounded,” Wade told the Herald and The Age. “They are not a 1986 World Cup-winning team. They can be pushed off the ball. I truly believe it.”
Paul Wade and Diego Maradona walk onto the Sydney Football Stadium in the first leg of a World Cup qualifying tie in 1993.Credit:Getty
Wade is a high-energy, high-optimism guy but if there is anyone who can talk about the power of belief when it comes to taking on Argentina – and taking down Argentina – it is the 84-cap Socceroo.
Australia has played the South American powerhouse seven times, with a record of one win, one draw and five defeats.
Wade played in five of them, and apart from his duty of marking Maradona, no nights were more memorable than when the Socceroos first met Argentina in 1988, and he helped Australia to a 4-1 upset win at the new Sydney Football Stadium.
Argentina were the best team in the world, having won the 1986 World Cup, and they’d come to Australia for a Bicentennial Gold Cup tournament against Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. The Socceroos had lost to Brazil and beaten Saudi Arabia, and everyone expected Argentina would cruise past the hosts and into the final.
“There were only 19,000 people there. That’s how many believed we could do it,” Wade said.
“And they were the reigning world champions. Yes, they had no Maradona on that trip but they had some very high-profile players.
“But what a night that was. It all came together.”
Wade scored the opening goal and Argentina levelled soon after but then up stepped captain Charlie Yankos, and one of the greatest goals ever scored by the Socceroos.
Charlie Yankos on the attack against Argentina in 1988.Credit:Greg White/Fairfax
From a free kick 35 metres away from goal, Yankos figured he’d give it a crack. It looked decidedly ambitious.
“Against Saudi Arabia I had hit the target and we scored from the rebound, so I had confidence and I had been practising a fair bit at training,” Yankos told the Herald and The Age.
“I’d mostly been hitting the corner flags or someone in the stands or something. But on this particular occasion I just thought I’ll go for it. It was a bit slippery, I thought it might slip and be a chance or something.
Jose Rodriguez and Frank Farina compete for the ball in 1988.Credit:AP
“I just hit it sweet and it did what it did. I will tell you now though, I didn’t mean it.”
The old-style leather ball, which Yankos reckons was a tad flat, swerved left to skim the left edge of the Argentinian wall, and then curved massively right and into the goal. It was a worldie.
“You wouldn’t have wanted to be the Argentinian standing on the end of a four-man wall. If that had have hit him, he would not be with us right now,” Wade said.
“Everyone was going nuts. I don’t think anyone could believe. It was such a sense of ‘they’re not that good after all’. They’re very good on paper but the game is not played on paper. Everything we did that night worked. You would not have known at times which team was Argentina and which team was a working-class Socceroos.”
Yankos scored a second from a penalty, and Vlado Bozinovski headed a fourth goal, and it was all over. As leading commentator Martin Tyler said post-game: “It is a result to shock the football world.”
Current Socceroos coach Graham Arnold was also a member of the team, and joked in the sheds he’d need an ambulance after the party that night. The team drunk their body weights in beer at the Camperdown Travelodge, and unsurprisingly, Brazil beat them in the final three days later.
Argentina beat Wade’s team four years later in a 1992 friendly in Buenos Aires, and then triumphed over two legs in the World Cup qualifiers in 1993. Even with Maradona, Argentina were famously held to a 1-all draw at the SFS.
Three more games have been played since, with Argentina winning all three – in 1995, 2005 and 2007.
Diego Maradona required police escorts at training when in Sydney in 1993.Credit:Steve Christo, Getty
On Sunday morning (AEDT), the Socceroos will line up again against the might of Argentina but this time, for the first time in a World Cup. Wade sees a moment in history beckoning, linked back to the first clash 34 years ago.
As then, no one expects Australia to win, except the Socceroos themselves.
“Back in the day, we never, ever thought we were going to lose. It wasn’t an arrogance. We just never got intimidated by anybody,” Wade said.
“Sure, we got smacked every now and then but you had to be at your best playing us. We weren’t going to lie down and take it, and if you weren’t at your best, we were going to win. That was the mentality and I see it in the team now, too.”
Graham Arnold celebrates with Jamie Maclaren and Jackson Irvine.Credit:Getty Images
Yankos’ teammates still joke he carries a DVD of his goal in his jacket pocket, ready to show anyone who asks. Perhaps he should pop the disc in express post to Doha, for his old teammate Arnold to show the team? To perfectly highlight the power of self-belief?
“They don’t need it mate,” Yankos laughed.
“Arnie has instilled a belief that 11 against 11, if we play as an 11-man unit, that the team can perform and perform with confidence. When you feel confident, 80 per cent of your passes are going to work because you feel confident. If you feel under the pump, you’ll feel that pressure.
“The team didn’t make mistakes (against Denmark). It was a great outcome.
“Argentina? I think they are confident enough to have a go at them. That’s important. Work as a unit, don’t work as individuals, and really have a go at them.
“You never know what can happen.”
