Bonnie Tyler's song helped Argentina win the 1986 World Cup

Argentina would not have won the 1986 World Cup title if it weren't for a song by Bonnie Tyler, a Welsh singer who died this Thursday (9), aged 75.

At least that's what Albiceleste players believed when they put a cassette tape on the bus that took them to the Azteca Stadium for the World Cup games.

The ritual was just one of many "cabalas" on the team of coach Carlos Bilardo, himself obsessed with details and superstitions.

Journalist Andrés Burgo says in the book "The Game - Argentina x England, 1986" that Bonnie Tyler's song was part of a playlist that should be played on the way to Azteca.

In addition to "Total Eclipse of the Heart", by the Welsh singer, Diego Armando Maradona and company also had to listen to "Gigante Chiquito", by Argentine Sergio Denis, and "Eye of the Tiger", by the band Survivor, a hit from the film Rocky.

Superstitions were taken so seriously that it was necessary to listen to these three songs in full. On some occasions, the bus arrived at the stadium with the last song still playing on the speaker, and only when the song ended did the athletes get out of the vehicle.

"When the Rocky song played, it motivated us, we felt like we were part of the film",

says Sergio Almirón, world champion in 1986, in the book "The Game". "We arrived screaming on the field, it was crazy.

"Rocky's played last. We started when there were two blocks left to get to the stadium. We needed to get into the Azteca with this song", says Ricardo Giusti, another world champion with Argentina in Mexico. "And until it was finished, we wouldn't get off the bus."

The song "Total Eclipse of The Heart" was not the only one by Bonnie Tyler to enter the popular imagination of Argentine football. Years later, the song "It's a Heartache" would receive a version for the stands by fans unhappy with their own team.

"Jugadores... / The shell of your mother / To see if you ponen huevos / Who don't play with nadie."

In short, the adaptation of the hinchadas, which is still sung in the country's stadiums today, asks athletes to run and fight because "they are playing against no one". Something that Bonnie Tyler, when she wrote the song, certainly couldn't imagine.

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Source: CNN