BEWARE THE DIRTIEST TEAM EVER

Nestor Combin's face told the story of the 1969 Intercontinental Cup better than any match report.

- Andrew Murray

Blood poured from the Milan midfielder's nose down a severely swollen, clearly broken left cheek and onto what had been a shimmering white shirt. His left eye was already shut from the savage elbow he'd just received. A boxing referee would have stopped the fight long ago.

"I truly have no idea why he had it in for me," said Combin the next morning, on the

topic of one Ramon Aguirre Suarez. It wasn't just Combin on the Estudiantes defender's radar - he had already kicked forward Pierino Prati out of the game and nearly decapitated Milan's playmaker prince, Gianni Rivera, with a chest-high assault. His personal call sheet that night read: one goal, one red card, three elbows, five headbutts, 10 drop-kicks, at least two spits and one arrest for defacing a public spectacle. Not to be outdone, however, two team-mates also joined him in the slammer.

Such brute force was merely the natural continuation of the cynicism that had come to define Osvaldo Zubeldia's ferocious team.

Los Pincharratas (The Rat-Stabbers) taped pins to their wrists and pierced opposition ribcages, goaded players into retaliation by investigating their private lives and, with an intimate working knowledge of what fell marginally within the laws, manipulated referees better than peak Derren Brown.

Success was almost as plentiful as the punches. From 1967 to 1970, Estudiantes won an Argentine title, three straight Copas Libertadores and the 1968 Intercontinental Cup, beating Manchester United in another symphony in barbarity worthy of Alex DeLarge's Droogs.

An altogether more salubrious Clockwork Orange would come to be inspired by their smoother edges, but anti-futbol was born.

THE KILLER KIDS

Argentine football existed in isolation when Zubeldia arrived at Estudiantes in January 1965. River Plate's supreme 1940s side had bred a generation who, though extremely technical, were bullied when they travelled.