Salvadorans don’t forget the biggest rout in the history of the World Cup

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Two images never left Mario “Macora” Castillo’s head. The crowd invading the airport of San Salvador to say goodbye to the players who would travel to the World Cup. And the anger with which they were greeted on the way back after the tournament.

“We traveled as heroes and came back as outcasts,” the defender told Sheet in 2014.

Nobody expected much from El Salvador at the 1982 World Cup. The team had only participated in one previous tournament, the 1970 tournament in Mexico. Of the three group stage games in Spain, two results were respectable: 1-0 defeats to Belgium and 2-0 to Argentina, then world champions.

Problem was the debut.

“It’s horrible. It feels like you’ve betrayed your homeland and your fans. I don’t like to remember,” defender Jaime “Chelona” Rodríguez said eight years ago.

In the first match, El Salvador suffered the biggest rout in the history of the World Cup: 10-1 to Hungary.

To date, the team has not qualified for the competition again and will not be in Qatar next month. This only adds to the displeasure of the members of that team. The image of the humiliating rout lingers.

“Sometimes you live a moment that goes down in history, but you’re on the wrong side,” added Rodríguez.

When asked how long it takes for a memory like this to be erased from the fans’ memory, the winger laughed.

“Erase? There’s no way. I remember it almost every day. None of the athletes who were on the field will ever forget it.”

The score gives the impression of a massacre. And it was, but for only 45 minutes. At half-time, Hungary won by 3 to 0. Already an extended score, but not a humiliation. In the second half, the Europeans scored seven more times.

“I have no explanation for what happened. The team got lost on the field,” said coach Maurício Rodríguez.

El Salvador in the early 1980s was a country convulsed by civil war.

Soon after the elimination, the problems that the squad had in the preparation for the Cup and in the trip to Spain began to come to the attention of the press.

Two athletes had to be cut because managers kept the airline tickets intended for them. The training shirts were threadbare. To help, Adidas donated second-hand footballs, cleats and other materials.

“We’ve waited our whole lives for the chance to play in a World Cup and something like that happens… I’m proud of what we did, of the classification we obtained and even of the football we showed in Spain, except for the second half against Hungary. There is no explanation for what happened”, lamented, decades later, Mario Castillo.

The two spots that Concacaf (the confederation that encompasses the Caribbean and Central and North America) went to Honduras and El Salvador, the top two in the 1981 qualifying tournament.

Honduras would be one of the sensations of the World Cup. Its goalkeeper Arzul would become one of the most cult characters in the tournament’s history. After drawing with Spain and Northern Ireland, the team reached the last round with chances of qualifying and was close to obtaining it against Yugoslavia. They ended up defeated by a penalty goal in the 43rd minute of the 2nd half.

Very different performance from the Salvadoran. Something that also hurt the athletes of the team that suffered the biggest rout ever recorded in the Cups.

“We faced Honduras, away from home, in 1981, and we drew 0-0. Shortly after, they went down in history for a good campaign and we for having suffered a rout”, said Chelona Rodríguez.

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