Sleeper Hit History #1: Haiti and Zaire at the 1974 World Cup

1974年西ドイツ大会

In 1974, the first two Black teams qualified for the FIFA World Cup. Zaire and Haiti were described as “inexperienced minnows,” and soccer fans and sport historians alike remember their supposedly dismal showings in West Germany. But if we dig a little deeper it becomes clear that the narrative doesn’t match what actually took place on the fields. In this video, I argue that the memory of the first two Black teams was skewed by commentators who were anxious about Europe’s declining position in the world.

This video is based on an essay I wrote during my MA for sports history course at the University of Guelph offered by professor Alan McDougall. Check out his latest book about history and football here: https://www.amazon.ca/Contested-Fields-Global-History-Football/dp/1487594569. (For another excellent book on the topic, see Laurent Dubois’s Soccer Empire: https://www.amazon.ca/Soccer-Empire-World-Future-France/dp/0520269780). I presented most of the content at the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies “Sport and Society” panel at their 2019 conference.

Clip from Between the Cup and the Election used by permission. Check out this excellent documentary about the Zaire team by Monique Mbeka Phoba and Guy Kabeya Muya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4lt0t3D5e8 (links in description).

Further reading:
(Disclaimer—I don’t endorse the tone or arguments of some of these articles):

Burnton, Simon. “World Cup Stunning Moments: Haiti shock Dino Zoff’s Italy.” The Guardian 26 April 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/apr/29/25-stunning-world-cup-moments-haiti-italy-1974
Dummett, Mark. “1974: Zaire’s Show of Shame.” BBC Sport, 22 May 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport3/worldcup2002/hi/history/newsid_1993000/1993333.stm
Edwards, Piers. “João Havelange, the unlikely godfather of African football.” BBC News, 19 August 2016. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37120388
Gachuhi, Roy, “Zaire: The tale of Africa’s disastrous entry into the World Cup,” Daily Nation, 26 April, 2014. https://www.nation.co.ke/kenya/sports/talkup-/zaire-the-tale-of-africa-s-disastrous-entry-into-the-world-cup-977122
“Haiti — The Dark Heart of the 1974 World Cup.” Beyond the Last Man, 18 June 2014. https://beyondthelastman.com/2014/06/18/haiti-the-dark-heart-of-the-1974-world-cup/
Kirby, Paul. “Dictators and Soccer: Mobutu Sésé Seko of Zaire.” Cult Football, 29 October 2012. http://cultfootball.com/2012/10/dictators-and-soccer-mobutu-sese-seko-of-zaire/
Laurent Dubois, “Haiti in the World Cup,” Pilgrimages (blog), 11 June 2010, http://www.pilgrimages.org.za/haiti-in-the-world-cup
Merrill, Austin, “Zaire, the Leopards, and the 1974 World Cup,” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/04/zaire-the-leopards-and-the-1974-world-cup
Weeks, Jim. “Throwback Thursday: The Bizarre Tragedy of Zaire’s World Cup Debut.” VICE. 25 June 2015. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/537pwn/throwback-thursday-the-bizarre-tragedy-of-zaires-world-cup-debut

Primary Sources:

L’Equipe, June 1974
The Evening Times, June 1974.
Glasgow Herald, June-July 1974.
The Globe and Mail, May-July 1974.
Haïti Observateur, 16 May 2007-30 April 2008.
Le Monde, February-June 1974.
Montreal Gazette, June 1974.
Montreal Star, June 1974.
The New York Times, Dec. 1973-June 1974.
Shoot, 9 March-6 April 1974.
The Times, December 1973- June 1978.
Vancouver Sun, 20 June 1974.
World Soccer, August 1974.

Secondary Sources:

Darby, Paul. Africa, Football and FIFA: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2002.
Dietschy, Paul. “Making football global? FIFA, Europe, and the non-European football world, 1912-1974.” Journal of Global History 8 no. 2 (July 2013): 279-298.
Dietschy, Paul. “Football imagery and colonial legacy: Zaire’s disastrous campaign during the 1974 World Cup.” Soccer and Society 13 no. 2 (2012): 222-238.
Dumore, Tom. Encyclopedia of the FIFA World Cup. London: Rowan & Littlefield, 2015.
Glanville, Brian. The Story of the World Cup. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.
Holt, Nick. The Mammoth Book of the World Cup. London: Little, Brown Book Group, 2018.
Schiller, Kay. “The 1974 World Cup in West Germany: A Non-Event?” In The FIFA World Cup 1930-2010: Politics, Commerce, Spectacle and Identities, edited by Stefan Rinke and Kay Schiller, 220-239. Wallstein: Göttingen, 2014.
Schiller, Kay. WM 74: Als der Fußball modern wurde. Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 2014.
Sugden, John, and Alan Tomlinson. “Global power struggles in world football: FIFA and UEFA, 1954-1974, and their legacy.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 14 no. 2 (1997): 1-25.

Music licensed from Envato. Theme song composed by Matt Robertshaw. Stock photos from Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay. Soccer in Nigeria photo by Dotun55 used under Creative Commons 4.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Street_soccer_in_Lagos.jpg). Additional photos provided by Rick Tyler and Hans Michel Fortunat. Stock videos from archive.org and YouTube.

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