# Mini Episode 002 - The Battle of Santiago

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 11 Jul 2023, 4:19.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/73287978/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2023-6-11%2Fffcb96c9-ec24-8dbe-df77-0ffe47f2728d.mp3

Vineeth delves deep into the the Battle of Santiago - the infamous football match. Listen to our main Episode 026 - Nike, Vaccines & Musical Morse Code to listen to the question which links to this story. Tune in to find out! You can reach us at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/areyouquizzingme/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/areyouquizzingme Email: areyouquizzingme@gmail.com

## Transcript

[0:00] Welcome to Mini episode #2. The subject of today's mini
[0:04] episode is the Battle of Santiago.
[0:07] The Battle of Santiago that I'm referring to is the World Cup
[0:10] match between hosts Chile and Italy in June of 1962, and not
[0:16] the clash between American and Spanish naval forces of 1898.
[0:20] Both, however, were particularly bloody affairs.
[0:23] Tensions were running high even before the match, primarily due
[0:27] to the efforts of two Italian journalists.
[0:30] By the names of Antonio Ghirideli and Corrado
[0:33] Pizzinelli, their characterization of the city of
[0:37] Santiago was, to put it lightly, unfavorable.
[0:41] The two insisted that their reports had been distorted, but
[0:44] what appeared in the Italian media was anything but
[0:48] favorable. And I quote the phones don't
[0:51] work. Taxis are as rare as faithful
[0:54] husbands. A cable to Europe costs an arm
[0:57] and a leg, and a letter takes 5 days to turn up.
[1:00] Its population is prone to malnutrition, illiteracy,
[1:04] alcoholism and poverty. Chile is a small, proud and poor
[1:08] country. It's agreed to organize this
[1:10] World Cup in the same way that Mussolini agreed to send our Air
[1:14] Force to bomb London. They didn't arrive.
[1:17] The capital city has 700 hotel beds.
[1:20] Entire neighborhoods are given over to open prostitution.
[1:24] In this country and its people are proudly miserable and
[1:27] backwards. Yikes.
[1:31] Chilean newspapers fired back, describing Italians in general
[1:35] as fascists, mafiosos oversexed and because some of Intervalon's
[1:40] players had recently been involved in a doping scandal by
[1:43] calling them drug addicts. The journalists involved, the
[1:47] Italian journalists involved were forced to flee the country
[1:50] while an Argentinian journalist mistaken for an Italian in a
[1:53] Santiago bar was beaten up and hospitalized.
[1:57] Poor fellow. As for the match itself, spit
[2:01] was exchanged between the teams before the 1st whistle and the
[2:05] first foul came within 12 seconds.
[2:09] Within 5 minutes, referee Can Aston had to break up a
[2:12] potential fight between the two teams.
[2:15] In the 12th minute Giorgio Farini retaliated against what
[2:19] he thought was persistent fouling by Honorina Landa by
[2:23] aiming a kick at him in full view of the referee.
[2:26] Aston sent him from the field and Farini went mad.
[2:30] It took 8 minutes and a squad of police to finally remove the
[2:35] kicking and screaming Italian from the field, but was was to
[2:40] follow. When Chilean Leonel Sanchez, the
[2:44] son of a professional boxer, responded to a series.
[2:47] Of kicks from Mario. David by.
[2:49] Turning and delivering a left hook.
[2:51] To David's face. After referee Canaston did
[2:54] nothing. David took things into.
[2:55] His own hands by delivering a flying.
[2:57] Boot. To Sanchez's head, getting
[2:59] himself. Sent off.
[3:01] This left Italy down by two men. Sanchez got away with another
[3:06] blatant punch later on in the game.
[3:08] This time with. Humberto Macchio being the
[3:10] victim. Times the game resembled rugby
[3:13] more than football and police intervened several more times as
[3:17] the game threatened to devolve into total anarchy.
[3:21] The Italians left the field beaten 2 nil.
[3:25] Chile eventually came third in the tournament, while Italy went
[3:28] home in disgrace. At the end of the game, referee
[3:32] Ken Aston, who would later invent the red and yellow card
[3:35] system, admitted I wasn't refing a football match.
[3:39] I was acting as an umpire in military maneuvers.
[3:42] He wasn't wrong when highlights from the match was shown on
[3:45] British television a couple of days later, not the same night,
[3:48] because films of the matches had to be flown back to the UK.
[3:52] The match was introduced by BBC Sports commentator David Coleman
[3:56] as, and I quote the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and
[4:00] disgraceful exhibition of football possibly in the history
[4:04] of the game. During his commentary he
[4:06] described what he was watching. As the Battle of Santiago, it is
[4:11] a label that is stuck to describe what is likely the most
[4:15] lawless match in World Cup history.

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