What if it was still 2 points for a win? (1/3: International Football)
17Football was better back in my day, they say.
So much better that in 1981, Jimmy Hill proposed a slight tweak to the game we all love that would change its very fabric for eternity.
1981. The year that Ricky Villa danced through the Wembley penalty box and scored one of the greatest FA Cup final goals as Tottenham Hotspur defeated Manchester City.
The FA Cup final was the landmark event in English football, with the winners of the cup being more renowned and much better remember than the league winners in some instances.
The European Cup was becoming popular, increasingly so in Britain when the teams of Bob Paisley and Brian Clough went out to Europe and made the trophy a semi-permanent residency in England.
The great English teams of the late 1970s and early 80s are often fondly remembered with grainy footage of Trevor Francis scoring the winning goal against Malmo for Forest, Peter Withe winning the European Cup for Villa in ’82 and the likes of Kenny Dalglish, Alan Kennedy and Bruce Grobbelaar winning Europe’s biggest prize for Liverpool.
It’s never the league champions that are most revered.
There are outliers, certainly: Brian Clough roaring to success at Derby, Don Revie with Leeds, but the great double-winning sides of Arsenal in ’71 and Spurs of ’61 and more remembered for the fact they won the double, not the league.
Stan Cullis’ Wolves remembered for how they won leagues aplenty, but also for initiating the European Cup in floodlit friendlies with Honved.
Sir Matt Busby’s Manchester United remembered, both in tragedy and success, for their exploits in the European Cup.
Because, outside of that 1961 Boxing Day fixture list that does the rounds, football had become defensive, boring. Teams played for a point. Why do you think the away goals rule held such validity for so long?
In 1981, the first domino crashed to the floor. The Football League decided to play three points for a win.
Hooliganism and stadium disasters might have marred the 1980s in England, but 80s English football delivered us a city split by the two great footballing teams of its time in Liverpool and Everton battling for the league, and sharing it between 1982 and 1988. It saw Anfield ’89 and Arsenal’s resurgence under George Graham.
It saw the birth of the Premier League.
Three points for a win became the norm in the top flights of Israel, New Zealand, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Turkey, Hong Kong, Norway, Japan, Sweden, Georgia, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Bulgaria and Ireland. The dominos continued to fall.
Until finally, FIFA took the plunge. Determined to not have a World Cup in 1990 played with the same negativity as Italia 90. With its red-headed step child, the backpass rule, also abolished, two points for a win was abolished by FIFA in 1995, with the test run being the marvellous 1994 World Cup.
In this mini-series, we’ll look at what if nothing changed:
- Firstly, would international football be the continued defensive affair as at Italia 90?
- Secondly, how would the landscape of English football change?
- And finally, would the format of the Champions League get off the ground with two points for a win?
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Voice: Jake Doyle (@jakedoyle93)
Illustrations: Jake Doyle (@jakedoyle93)
Words: Jake Doyle (@jakedoyle93)
Edit: Jake Doyle (@jakedoyle93)
What If Football is a form of footballing storytelling that takes the audience down a different path to our current reality.
What If Football covers football in all forms, from the Premier League to the Champions League, European football and the EFL as well as international tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championships.
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