When the second round of the 1978 Fifa World Cup came to an end, it meant that only the last two games were left in the World Cup.
The first thing that comes to mind is the battle for the third place, with Brazil taking on Italy. The two teams played a summit showdown in the 1970 World Cup final. Now that the two teams have met again, it is already a matter of fact, and Brazil's captain Rivilino and Italy's Zoff have become the few players who have witnessed that game. In the 38th minute of the match, Italy took the lead thanks to Cauccio's goal. But in the second half, Brazil overtook the score with two beautiful goals. First, in the 64th minute of the match, Nerinho Cabral equalised with an oddly curved ball from the outside. Eight minutes later, Jose Guimarães Dilseu countered the score with a volley from a distance. Brazil finished 2-1 in the World Cup, and Riviano announced his retirement from the national team.
At 15:00 on 25 June 1978, the final was played at the Buenos Aires Monument Stadium, River Plate's home stadium, against Argentina and the Netherlands. Although Argentina is the home battle, the Dutch are mainly anti-away, launched a lot of offensive opportunities, if it is not the Argentine goalkeeper Filor showed courage, the Netherlands may have taken the lead. Argentina then gradually stabilized the situation and launched a counterattack amid the cheers of more than 70,000 spectators. In the 38th minute of the match, Argentina attacked, and Luke distributed the ball to The Coampes, who entered the box and fired a low shot to give Argentina the lead.
After this, the game reached an impasse, the score on the field was slow to be rewritten, and as the game was coming to an end and the fans were preparing to celebrate the victory, in the 82nd minute of the game, the Dutch team launched a wave of attack, Ali Hahn instigated the attack, Van der Kokhov crossed from the right, and the substitute Naninga jumped high in front of the goal to head the goal to equalize the score.
In the 90th minute of the game, the Dutch team had a great opportunity, Rensemblinck received the ball after the small angle shot past the heroic Argentine goalkeeper Firoll, straight to the goal, the Dutch seemed to be about to stage a stunning reversal, only to hear a "bang", the ball flew out of the upright.
In the 105th minute of extra time, Kempes was very powerful, he picked the ball past the goalkeeper after passing two people in the penalty area, and easily pushed the ball into the net, Argentina once again exceeded the score.
At this time, the Netherlands was completely powerless, and in the 116th minute of the game, Kempes broke through with the ball and caused chaos in the Dutch penalty area, and Bettoni turned around and scored in the melee to seal the victory for Argentina.
At the final whistle, Argentina defeated the Netherlands 3:1 and lifted the Hercules Cup on their doorstep as desired, and the Dutchman folded the final for the second consecutive time. Kempes also won Top Scorer and Player of the Year with six goals.