Peru national football team popular culture during the 1900s and 1910s. Over the following decades, Augusto Leguía's government institutionalised the sport into a national pastime by promoting and organising its development. Consequently, the national football team became an important element of Peru's national identity. According to the historian Carlos Aguirre, nationalist fervor spiked during the qualification phase for the 1970 World Cup finals, because the revolutionary government of General Juan Velasco Alvarado tied the national team's success with the alleged cultural, social, and psychological changes spurred by the country's new political project. Peruvian football fans are known for their distinctive cheer "¡Arriba Perú!" ("Onward
Juan Velasco Alvarado another uprising or a takeover from the APRA party, seized absolute power and close down Congress, almost all of whose members were briefly incarcerated. General Velasco seized power on October 3, 1968, in a bloodless military coup, deposing the democratically elected administration of Fernando Belaúnde, under which he served as Commander of the Armed Forces. President Belaúnde was sent into exile. Initial reaction against the coup evaporated after five days when on October 8, 1968, the oil fields in dispute were taken over by the Army. The coup leaders named their administration the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces, with