Johan Cruyff was victim of a kidnap attempt. This resulted in him refusing to attend the World Cup
Cruyff's absence was one of the reasons that fans believed Holland did not win the competition, after they fell to a 3-1 defeat to Argentina in the final.
One of football's great mysteries was why Johan Cruyff missed the 1978 World Cup.
The Dutchman was in the prime of his career but turned down the chance to play for the Netherlands on football's biggest stage.
Holland went on to reach the final in Argentina but lost 3-1 to the hosts, with many blaming Cruyff's absence as the reason that they did not go on to lift the trophy.
But back in 2008, Cruyff revealed exactly why he did not choose to represent his country.
He quashed the talk that he had fallen out with the Dutch football association over sponsorship or that he objected to Argentina's right-wing military junta.
The truth was that his family had been the subject of a kidnap attempt just months before the tournament took place.
Cruyff revealed that a total of seven criminals entered his Barcelona home and held him and his family at gunpoint after being tied up.
At the time he was living with his wife, Danny Coster, and their three childen.
He insisted that the episode changed his outlook on life and that was the reason why he opted out of the 1978 World Cup finals.
Speaking to Catalunya Radio in 2008, Cruyff said: "You should know that I had problems at the end of my career as a player here and I don't know if you know that someone [put] a rifle at my head and tied me up and tied up my wife in front of the children at our flat in Barcelona."
Cruyff escaped and the kidnap attempt was foiled by authorities.
He said: "The children were going to school accompanied by the police. The police slept in our house for three or four months. I was going to matches with a bodyguard.
"All these things change your point of view towards many things. There are moments in life in which there are other values.
"We wanted to stop this and be a little more sensible. It was the moment to leave football and I couldn't play in the World Cup after this."
Backstory
Kidnapping for ransom or political gain has become such a universal agony that it is easy to forget that 40 years ago it was the world's rich nations that suffered most.
In the 1970s, the proliferation of leftwing guerrilla groups from the US to Germany, Spain and Italy determined to wage war on wealth, capitalism and the established political order left a trail of victims and instilled fear among the rich and famous that anyone was a target.
Patty Hearst, an American newspaper heiress was seized in 1974 by urban guerrillas known as the Symbionese Liberation Army and went on to join her captors.
Peter Lorenz, a conservative candidate for mayor of Berlin, was abducted and freed in 1975.
Hanns Martin Schleyer a German industrialist, was kidnapped in 1977, held for 43 days while ransom demands were made, and ultimately murdered.
The Red Army Faction behind the abduction also counted leading banker Alfred Herrhausen and Karl Heinz Beckurts among its victims.
In Italy the communist Red Brigades kidnapped Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro. He was killed after a 55-day standoff.
Spain was less acutely affected, though Eta and a shadowy leftwing group known as Grapo also resorted to abductions for political gain.
Sports stars and athletes were rarely targeted, though the hostage taking at the Munich Olympics in 1972, which resulted in the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes, arguably set the chilling standards for the next decade.
As the tactics migrated, footballers found themselves vulnerable in South America, as family members fell prey to kidnapping for ransom.
Sources: Mirror, The Guardian
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