Mario Kempes: 🇦🇷.  Too handsome, too stylish. 1978 Argentina world cup hero

Everyone remembers Mario Kempes for the 1978 World Cup and the six goals in four games – including two in the final - that propelled Argentina to their first world title.

What’s often forgotten is that, less than two weeks before becoming the tournament’s top scorer and an instant national hero, El Matador was enduring the mother of all scoring droughts. Remarkably, in fact, Kempes took ten matches across the 1974 and ’78 editions – 11 hours and 38 minutes of football in total – to grab his first World Cup goal. It was only in the second round of the latter tournament, against a highly rated Poland side, that the floodgates opened.

“It was liberating to finally score, a huge release,” Kempes admitted in an interview with FIFA. “I didn't score many with my head but, as it happened, that's how I got my first-ever World Cup goal. I put it past the Polish keeper, [Jan] Tomaszewski.

“Curiously enough, he played against us in a friendly game in Germany four years earlier, and I missed a chance a minute after coming on when I was completely unmarked. You never know when you might get the chance for revenge, but that was my opportunity. It was my first World Cup goal, and a cracking goal it was too.”