The men’s 4×100 metres was, along with Bob Beamon’s ‘Leap of the Century’, the talk of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Jamaica had improved their own world record in the semi-finals. Cuba had beaten the United States comfortably in the heats and the semis. In the final, however, a supersonic last leg from Jim Hines powered the USA to gold and a new world record.
A relay was also the talk of the next major sporting event in Mexico, the FIFA World Cup™ which was held in the country just two years’ later. Ferruccio Valcareggi’s ‘Staffetta’ (‘Relay’) polarised Italy. Instead of fitting two of the planet’s greatest playmakers into his XI, he elected to send AC Milan’s Gianni Rivera on for Inter Milan’s Sandro Mazzola at half-time.
A goal and an assist following his interval introduction against the hosts in the quarter-finals hiked Rivera’s hopes of starting in the semi, but Valcareggi resumed the relay. After being sent on for the second half against West Germany, ‘Il Bambino d’Oro’ (‘The Golden Boy’) was eager to make an impact. He did, but at the wrong end, failing to fulfil his duty of guarding the post and allowing Gerd Muller to make it 3-3 in extra time. “[Enrico] Albertosi went mental at me,” recalled Rivera.
Sixty-seven seconds later, however, Rivera made amends, burying the goal that won Italy ‘The Game of the Century’.
