IN THE the mid-to-late 1960s, Argentine football had acquired a dark image. In 1966, the national team left the field at Wembley, after an ill-tempered World Cup quarter-final, to chants of “animals, animals”, a sentiment that was echoed by prickly England manager Sir Alf Ramsey. A year later, violence erupted in the World Club Championship between Celtic and Racing Club of Buenos Aires, with multiple sending-offs and deplorable behaviour on and off the field. When, in 1968, European champions Manchester United met another team from Argentina, Estudiantes de La Plata, there were understandable fears of a bloodbath. Those fears were not without foundation. When Estudiantes, a club that dates back to 1905, came to prominence, they broke the stranglehold of the Buenos Aires quintet:…