It was a few minutes past 7 pm on June 13, 1982 when the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Spain was kicked off. It was at the Camp Nou that a rocket resounded before almost 100,000 fans began to applaud as thousands of red and yellow balloons flew through the sky of Les Corts.
The ceremony was beautiful and aroused many praises for its spectacular nature for the time. It was ‘in crescendo’, and reached its peak when almost a thousand volunteers formed snakes on the pitch, then a soccer ball and finally Pablo Picasso’s ‘Dove of Peace’, which led to one of the most applauded moments of the evening
After the ceremony, the ball began to roll on the lawn of the Camp Nou, with Argentina and Belgium measuring each other in an opening match in which Diego Armando Maradona focused much of the attention. Shortly before he had signed for Barça although he had not yet put on the Barça shirt and therefore that championship came to be his presentation in Europe. And that first match in Spain’82 was also Maradona’s debut in a World Cup. But ‘El Diego’, who wore the ’10’ of the team defending the title won four years against Argentina’78 on his back, did not measure up.
In fact, neither Maradona nor Argentina performed at the expected level in that opening match in which they were marked as favorites to win. They were surprised by the Belgium led by a Guy Thys who knew how to deactivate the Albiceleste so that the ‘red devils’ would win by
Javier Alfaro
