The Best Team In The Land & All The World, Part Six: Estudiantes of The Dark Arts

The 1968 Intercontinental Cup between Manchester United wasn't quite violent as the previous years, but that wasn't really saying very much.

The 1967 Intercontinental Cup final between Racing Club and Celtic had set a clear tone for the tournament, and the following year’s match-up wouldn’t provide any respite from it. Representing South America would be Estudiantes de la Plata, who’d won the Copa Libertadores four months earlier by beating Palmeiras in a playoff match in Montevideo.

A couple of weeks after Estudiantes lifted their title, Europe confirmed that their representatives would be Manchester United, from England. It was, in several respects, a perfect storm. The memory of Argentina’s elimination from the 1966 World Cup was still very fresh in the memory in Buenos Aires, and not only that; United were the team of Nobby Stiles, who had been, shall we say, particularly ‘involved’ in that quarter-final match a couple of years earlier. Things had been bad enough against a Scottish team a year earlier. How bad might they get against an English team?

The first leg was to be played at La Bombonera in Buenos Aires on the 25th September 1968. At an official level, there was an attempt to present a positive image. Parties and an official reception were organised. There was even a polo match played in their honour. But the atmosphere started to sour when Estudiantes pulled out of the official reception at the last minute, a decision which particularly angered the United manager Matt Busby, who’d ensured that United’s players had turned out for earlier events that had been arranged with them in mind.

Things were no better on the outside. In a press interview. Otto Gloria, manager of the Benfica team beaten by United in that European Cup final that May, described Stiles as “an assassin”. This interview turned out to be a contracted version of a full interview which appeared in the match day programme for the first leg match and in which Gloria also described Stiles as, “brutal, badly intentioned and a bad sportsman”.

There were only 25,000 in La Bombonera when the teams took to the pitch for the first half, but red smoke and a bag of meat being thrown at the United players ensured that the atmosphere was lively nevertheless. With United wearing the same kit in which they’d won the European Cup a few months earlier, the home team’s tactic seemed fairly straightforward; if it’s wearing blue, kick it. If it’s wearing blue and is called ‘Nobby Stiles’, especially kick it.

The treatment that Stiles received that evening in Buenos Aires was brutal. There is no other way of putting it. He was on the receiving end of punches, kicks and headbutts, as well as constant fouling, all under the watchful eye of officials who did absolutely nothing about it. He later admitted that played most of the game with double vision and ended up getting himself sent off for two yellow cards after 79 minutes.

Nobby Stiles died in October 2020 with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated trauma to the head. He was, by his own admission, headbutted three times during the first half of this match.

It wasn’t just Stiles who was being subjected to this sort of treatment, of course. All United players were fair game to some extent or other, and it wasn’t only fouling. It was pinching, spitting, head-butting… whatever they could get away with with next to no officiating going on. Bobby Charlton required stitches to a head wound that he suffered during the second half. Estudiantes won the match 1-0 thanks to a first half header from Conigliaro, though United did also have a goal ruled out over a contentious offside decision.

A month after Stiles’ death, it was confirmed that Charlton was also suffering with dementia. He died three years later.

The second leg was to be played at Old Trafford three weeks later, on the 16th October 1968. With aggregate scores still not being used to determine the winners of this tournament, a playoff would be required should United win by any margin, and the neutral venue chosen was Amsterdam, which was a far cry from Montevideo being used in South America for Rioplatense club teams as a ‘neutral’ venue. Bobby Charlton was deemed fit to play. Nobby Stiles was suspended.

It was a completely stereotypical overcast, rainy night in Manchester when the teams took to the field for the second leg and again it didn’t take long for it to all start again. Within twenty seconds George Best was on the ground after getting caught by something picked up on by neither the match officials or the television cameras.

But those who’d been of the opinion that Estudiantes would be ultra defensive and playing for the draw were in for an early shock when Estudiantes score early. The 63,000 crowd inside the stadium fell pretty silent. Having lost the first leg, United now had to score twice against a team who’d already built a fearsome reputation for winning through attritional football and stretching the rules as far as they could get away with.

Estudiantes went on to hold United to a 1-1 draw to claim the trophy, but they couldn’t do much celebrating. Their antics throughout the remainder of the match had wound up the home supporters to such an extent that they couldn’t complete a post-match lap of honour on account of the number of missiles being thrown in their direction.

But not for the first time, questions were being asked regarding why European clubs were even taking part in this. The second leg had ended in a further two red cards, and there didn’t seem to be any thawing in the hostilities between European and South American club teams, either. At least there wouldn’t be any English involvement in this tournament for a while. There wouldn’t be another English European champion until Liverpool, in 1977. At least they could sit out whatever this debacle was becoming.

There’s more on the second leg of this match for paying subscribers, below this cut.