Could this have been the point when a true footballing feud was forged between these two nations? Perhaps. Most likely.
The sides faced off in the quarter-finals, a match Argentina still claim they were cheated in, arguing that Geoff Hurst’s decisive goal should not have stood due to an offside position.
That disagreement was merely the beginning of a series of flashpoints, however, as Argentina’s skipper Antonio Rattin received his marching orders after only 33 minutes for two infractions in quick succession.
The initial foul was for clipping Bobby Charlton, and the subsequent one came from his persistent dissent aimed at the German official Rudolf Kreitlein.
Play was held up for nearly eight minutes because Rattin would not depart the playing area.
The home side managed to see out the win in an extremely hostile encounter, with their manager Alf Ramsey later branding the Argentine players as ‘animals’ and stating his squad had been instructed not to exchange jerseys.
Looking back on the 1966 World Cup-winning campaign in a 2009 interview, England full-back George Cohen offered his perspective.
“Tackling is fine,” he noted. “But it was the underhanded stuff, the spitting, tugging the small hairs on your neck, pulling your ear. They were trying to rattle us. The issue was, once they realised they couldn’t have it all their own way, they resorted to some of the most appalling behaviour I’ve ever witnessed.
“I see it as a real pity they didn’t display the quality they were truly capable of. We could easily have lost, but they simply should have got on with things and demonstrated their skill.
“There was a great deal of chaos in the tunnel afterwards. No one was permitted to leave, so we didn’t witness any of it.”
The match is also widely thought to have spurred the creation of the red and yellow card system, which made its debut at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. Up until that point, officials had to manage players solely through spoken cautions.
Rattin, whose international career spanned from 1959 to 1969 and included appearances at the 1962 and 1966 World Cups, passed away on Saturday at the age of 89.
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