Rattín Won't Leave the Pitch

In the 1966 World Cup quarter-final between England and Argentina at Wembley, German referee Rudolf Kreitlein sent off Argentina's captain, Antonio Rattín. There was just one problem: no card existed to signal it. Rattín, unsure exactly what was being communicated and furious at the decision, refused to leave the pitch for several minutes while officials and players tried to sort out the chaos.

It wasn't only Argentina's confusion. Bobby and Jack Charlton were both cautioned for England in the same tournament — and only found out about it the next morning, from the newspaper. A dismissal delivered by pointing and shouting, in front of 100,000 people and international broadcast cameras, communicated almost nothing to anyone who wasn't standing right next to the referee.

Ken Aston — the same referee from the 1962 Battle of Santiago, now chairman of FIFA's referees' committee — was asked to help fix the mess. According to the story he told for the rest of his life, the idea came to him at a stoplight on his drive home from Wembley: red means stop, yellow means slow down. Four years later, at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, football had its card system.