World Cup qualifying · 1973
Argentina's ghost team
To win in La Paz, Argentina sent a second squad into the mountains for weeks, short of money and poorly housed. On 23 September 1973 they did what they had been sent to do.
The Estadio Hernando Siles in La Paz sits at more than 3,500 metres. The air is thin, sustained effort is harder, and the ball behaves differently. In 1973 Argentina had to go there in qualifying for the 1974 World Cup, and they decided to prepare in an unusual way.
They sent a second national team into the mountains.
Tilcara
While the main squad carried on as normal, a separate group of players travelled north to Tilcara, in the province of Jujuy, about 2,500 metres above sea level. The plan had originally been to go even higher, to La Quiaca. The expedition was led by Miguel Ignomiriello. Because it trained in parallel with the real team, it became known as the Selección Fantasma: the ghost team.
It was not a comfortable assignment. The hotel was poor. Money and supplies that had been promised did not arrive reliably, and the players washed their own kit. To cover costs, they played friendlies against local sides. Two of them, Reinaldo Merlo and Juan José López, could not cope and went home. Mario Kempes lost seven or eight kilos.
The squad was stronger than its circumstances. Alongside Kempes it included Ubaldo Fillol, Ricardo Bochini, Aldo Poy and Oscar Fornari.
La Paz
On 23 September the ghost team, with most of its players in the starting line-up, played Bolivia at the Hernando Siles. Fornari scored with a diving header, and Argentina won 1–0.
"It was the most important goal of my life," Fornari said.
The win did not finish the job on its own. Argentina completed qualification with a victory over Paraguay in Buenos Aires.
What happened to them
The ghost team had been put together for one match. Four of its players went to the 1974 World Cup: Fillol, Rubén Glaría, Kempes and Poy.
Two of them went further. Fillol and Kempes were central to Argentina's World Cup win in 1978.
It is a story about a football federation willing to try something unusual, and about the players who put up with it. They were sent into the mountains to win one match at altitude, and they won it.