The 1982 World Cup kicked off in Spain on this week in 1982, and the RTÉ Guide marked the occasion with this fun cover clearly inspired by the table-top football game Subutteo.

IT will forever go down in World Cup history for all the wrong reasons. It was a 90 minutes that still to this day gets talked about after what was witnessed in the match billed “The

Italy has lifted the World Cup four times (in 1934, 1938, 1982, and 2006), which puts the Azzurri among the most successful national teams in the history of the game. Yet the question of which specific squad stands above the rest is one that divides opinion and demands a proper look at each era.

In 1982, Spain hosted the tournament, which increased to 24 finalists, evoking considerable controversy long before a ball was kicked in what Argentina’s Diego Maradona would later label “a World Cup of bruises”.