The 1970 World Cup in Mexico was won by Brazil, which made Brazil the first team to win three World Cups, so FIFA allowed Brazil to keep the Remit Cup permanently. In this tournament, Salvador, Israel and Morocco qualified for the world cup finals for the first time in the history of the team. Among them, Salvador from Central and North America competed with Honduras for the right to qualify for the group in the previous year's World Cup qualifiers.
First, the root causes of conflict
Map of North and Central America
The root cause of the conflict is the aging controversy between El Salvador and Honduras, not just excessive fanaticism or nationalist sentiment. The root cause of the conflict is the geographical and demographic division of society caused by the overexploitation of land in El Salvador: wealthy landlords control the main agricultural lands in El Salvador, resulting in the long-term migration of poor peasants to vast tracts of land between El Salvador and neighbouring Honduras.
In 1969, Honduras decided to distribute land to Honduran farmers and confiscated the land of Salvadoran farmers, who had been living on it for generations. The move sparked a wave of returns from Salvadoran farmers, which created tensions that fueled political and social unrest. Social conservatives in El Salvador feared that their return would intensify the rhetoric of land reform, while military leaders launched guerrilla operations fearing that peasant reform ideas would not be satisfied.
Second, the trigger of the conflict - the nationalist sentiment triggered by the football frenzy
In June 1969, el Salvador and Honduras competed for the last place in the ninth World Cup in the North American qualifiers. On June 6, Honduras won 1:0 at home to El Salvador, and just after the match, angry Salvadoran fans poured into the stadium to attack Honduran players, and Honduran fans broke out in a large-scale clash with the other side to protect their own players, which was finally calmed by the expulsion of the police.
On 15 June, the match was played at the home of El Salvador, who won 3–0. After the match, fans on both sides once again erupted in a large-scale conflict. That night, Honduras' unilateral announcement of the expulsion of 20,000 Salvadoran refugees and the blockade of the Pan-American Highway exacerbated already tensions over migration between the two countries.
The tiebreaker was held in Mexico on June 27, with El Salvador narrowly winning 3-2 to secure the last ticket to mexico's World Cup, followed by violent beatings, expulsion of Salvadoran migrants and property looting in Honduras. That night, the two countries announced the severance of diplomatic relations, and the relations between the two sides deteriorated rapidly.
3. Go to war
El Salvador marches
On 14 July, the Salvadoran Air Force bombed an air base outside Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, and war broke out, with the two air forces engaged in a fierce chase.
On 15 July, Honduras counterattacked by bombing an airfield in Irobango, Sahara, and then turned to attacking oil storage facilities and refineries on the country's seashore, thereby attacking El Salvador's fuel supply. On the same day, El Salvador sent more than 12,000 ground troops to invade Honduras and occupy several border towns and along the Pan-American Highway. However, due to supply problems, the Salvadoran army was forced to halt its advance shortly after the invasion.
On 16 July, the Salvadoran Air Force attacked again due to the suspension of the ground offensive, but due to improper air traffic control of the airport, the aircraft collided, thus halting the operation of the airport. When the Air Force mission was interrupted, the Salvadoran ground forces continued to advance after being resupplied. Honduras recruited more than 1,000 veterans to form an Honorary Guard battalion to transport aircraft to the front line to resist the Salvadoran army and harass the enemy with 10 escort fighters. This continued until the Sacramental army had captured Santa Rosa Copán before the Honorary Guard battalion withdrew.
On July 17, air combat broke out between the air forces of the two countries, and the Sacratic army was defeated, and the air force was greatly reduced. At the same time, honduras also gained land battles, but due to lack of ammunition, they failed to drive the Salvadoran army out of the country, and the war between the two sides was in a stalemate.
On 18 July, El Salvador began a small guerrilla war in Honduras to cut off the Honduran Army's backing, while El Salvador also acquired fighter jets from neighboring countries to revive the air force, but it would take five days to reach the country.
Fourth, a ceasefire
On the evening of July 18, 1969, under the mediation and pressure of the United States and the Organization of American States, the two sides had to sign a ceasefire agreement. The Honduran army stopped advancing at 9:30 p.m. that same day and withdrew from El Salvador at 10 p.m., and El Salvador did not withdraw all its troops to the country until August 5, and the war caused by football finally came to an end.
On October 30, 1980, the two countries signed a contract to legally end the war over football and bring the territorial dispute to the International Court of Justice.
5. Results of the War
Current situation in Honduras
Neither side won a decisive victory, but the death toll on both sides approached 2,000. The war wiped out the economic integration of Central and North America. Although El Salvador qualified for the World Cup, he lost 3 games in the 1970 World Cup, scored 0 goals and conceded 9 goals (PS: this data is not very familiar), and finally exited early with the penultimate result.
After the war, the social situation in El Salvador deteriorated sharply after the war, El Salvador was originally ruled by a democratically elected government, the government originally wanted to use the war to solve the land and immigration problems and increase prestige, but it failed to meet the wishes, and could not meet the economic needs of the people returning from Honduras, land pressure was once again highlighted, leading to social unrest, and a few years later, the junta shouted the slogan of revitalizing the country, and El Salvador was ruled by the junta. In the late 1970s, due to the incompetence of the junta, El Salvador was plunged into a 12-year civil war, in which more than 70,000 people lost their lives and the economy returned to World War II levels.
Honduras remained poor, and the comprador government supported the exploitation of farmers by transnational corporations. In the mid-1970s, banana exports in Honduras were hit hard by the collapse of the United Fruit Company and the ongoing natural disasters. Since then, the economy has fallen into a trough and has not recovered for decades. Honduras remains to this day the poorest country in the entire Central American region.
6. Others
1. In addition to the "world-famous" war due to football, it is often mentioned that the air battle in this war was the last aerial battle in the world in which spiral fighters exchanged fire with each other, and the air forces of both sides deployed World War II-type American-produced fighters such as the P-51 Mustang fighter, the F4U Corsair fighter, the T-28 trainer aircraft, and the conversion of C-47 transport aircraft into bombers. With no bomb-dropping device, the occupants of the aircraft had to manually open the hatch to drop bombs. The accuracy of this throwing method is poor.
Honduran Air Force Captain Fernando Soto
During this war, Honduras' Air Force Captain Fernando Soto, piloting the "Viking (F4U-5N, later version of the Viking)" fighter, single-handedly shot down 1 P-51 and 2 "Viking (FG-1D, the early version of the Pirate)" fighter on the third day of the war on July 16, staged a "hat-trick" in the air combat of piston fighters, while pilot Soto's "Viking", number FAH-609, It was handed over to the Honduran Aviation Museum after 1981, and its fuselage is painted with three plane shoot-down signs, two "pirates" and one "Mustang". These three emblems symbolize the end of the era of air combat for propeller fighters. In 2003, Fernando Soto was declared a national hero by the Honduran National Congress.
The war lasted only 100 hours (4 days), so it was also jokingly referred to in the West as World War 2 in 1969.
3. In the World Cup journey, Honduras reached the World Cup finals three times in 1982, 2010 and 2014, but did not qualify from the group. After the 1970 World Cup, El Salvador also reached the 1982 World Cup (also lost 3 games), and was swept by Hungary in the first round with a score of 10:1.