1958 FIFA World Cup qualification

1958 FIFA World Cup qualification
A total of 55 teams entered the 1958 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds, competing for a total of 16 spots in the final tournament. Sweden as the hosts and West Germany, as the defending champions, qualified automatically, leaving 14 spots open for competition.
Qualification Process
The qualification rounds for the four previous World Cups differed widely, with controversial rules and many withdrawals. From this tournament onwards, FIFA divided the teams into several continental zones, assigned a pre-determined number of places in the final tournament to each zone, and delegated the organisation of the qualifying tournaments to its confederations: UEFA of Europe, CONMEBOL of South America, NAFC of North America, CCCF of Central America and Caribbean, CAF of Africa and AFC of Asia (and OFC of Oceania after it was formed later).
The 16 spots available in the 1958 World Cup would be distributed among the continental zones as follows:
Europe (UEFA): 11 places, 2 of them went to automatic qualifiers Sweden and West Germany, while the other 9 places were contested by 27 teams.
South America (CONMEBOL): 3 places, contested by 9 teams.
North, Central America and Caribbean (NAFC/CCCF): 1 place, contested by 6 teams.
Africa (CAF) and Asia (AFC): 1 place, contested by 11 teams (including Israel, Cyprus and Turkey).
However, FIFA also imposed a rule that no team would qualify without playing at least one match because many teams qualified for previous World Cups without playing due to withdrawals of their opponents. Because Israel won the African and Asian zone under this circumstance, FIFA required them to enter a play-off against a team from Europe who initially did not qualify, with the winner of this play-off qualifying. Therefore, effectively in the end, a total of 11.5 places were granted to Europe while only 0.5 places were granted to Africa and Asia.
A total of 46 teams played at least one qualifying match. A total of 89 qualifying matches were played, and 341 goals were scored (an average of 3.83 per match).
Listed below are the dates and results of the qualification rounds.
Confederation qualification
AFC and CAF
CCCF and NAFC
The 6 teams were divided into 2 groups with 3 teams each (Group 1 with teams from North America and Group 2 with teams from Central America and Caribbean). The teams played each other on a home-and-away basis. The group winners advanced to the Final Round. The two teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis with the winner qualifying for the final tournament.
CONMEBOL
The 9 teams were divided into 3 groups of 3 teams each. The teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis. The group winners would qualify.
UEFA
The 27 teams were divided into 9 groups, each featuring 3 teams. The teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis. The group winners would qualify. Denmark, East Germany, Iceland and the Soviet Union made their debuts in World Cup qualification.
Inter-confederation play-offs: AFC/CAF v UEFA
A special play-off was created between Israel and the runner-up of one of the UEFA/CONMEBOL/CCCF/NAFC Groups, where the teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis, with the winner qualifying. Two-time champions Uruguay withdrew, while Northern Ireland and Italy had one final match yet to play, so all three were left out. Belgium, Bulgaria, Wales, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Peru, Bolivia and Costa Rica were left to draw. After Belgium refused, Wales, the runner-up of UEFA Group 4, was the team drawn from the UEFA group runners-up.
Qualified teams
Goalscorers
8 goals
Tommy Taylor
7 goals
Thadée Cisowski
5 goals
Crescencio Gutiérrez
Jackie Mudie
4 goals
Paul Vandenberg
Tadeusz Kraus
John Atyeo
Ferenc Machos
Rusli Ramang
Edward Jankowski
Nikita Simonyan
Ladislao Kubala
3 goals
Omar Oreste Corbatta
Norberto Menéndez
Gerhard Hanappi
Maurice Willems
Máximo Alcócer
Hristo Iliev
Jorge Hernán Monge
Rodolfo Herrera González
Álvaro Murillo
Jean Vincent
Dermot Curtis
Alfredo Hernández
Héctor Hernández
Salvador Reyes Monteón
Abe Lenstra
Noud van Melis
Jimmy McIlroy
Juan Bautista Agüero
Florencio Amarilla
Anatoli Ilyin
Eduard Streltsov
Des Palmer
Muhamed Mujić
2 goals
Roberto Zárate
Hans Buzek
Theodor Wagner
Henri Coppens
Victor Mees
Richard Orlans
Georgi Dimitrov
Panayot Panayotov
Art Hughes
Brian Philley
Gogie Stewart
Jaime Ramírez
Mario Cordero
Rubén Jiménez Rodríguez
Danilo Montero Campos
Wilfred de Lanoy
Ove Bech Nielsen
Günther Wirth
Duncan Edwards
Célestin Oliver
Roger Piantoni
Joseph Ujlaki
Francisco López Contreras
Lajos Csordás
Nándor Hidegkuti
Ríkharður Jónsson
Þórður Jónsson
Þórður Þórðarson
Guido Gratton
Carlos González
Héctor Hernández
Ligorio López
Enrique Sesma
Cor van der Gijp
Harald Hennum
Ángel Jara Saguier
Enrique Jara Saguier
Lucjan Brychczy
Gerard Cieślik
Manuel Vasques
Alexandru Ene
Anatoli Isayev
Igor Netto
Estanislao Basora
Alfredo di Stéfano
Luis Suárez Miramontes
Josef Hügi
Roger Vonlanthen
Ed Murphy
Ivor Allchurch
Cliff Jones
Miloš Milutinović
1 goal
Norberto Conde
Eliseo Prado
Robert Dienst
Walter Haummer
Karl Koller
Ernst Kozlicek
Helmut Senekowitsch
Karl Stotz
Otto Walzhofer
André Van Herpe
Denis Houf
André Piters
Ricardo Alcón
Ausberto García
Didi
Índio
Spiro Debarski
Todor Diev
Ivan Petkov Kolev
Krum Yanev
Norm McLeod
Ostap Steckiw
Guillermo Díaz
Nian Weisi
Sun Fucheng
Wang Lu
Zhang Honggen
Carlos Arango
Ricardo Díaz
Jaime Gutiérrez
Juan Soto Quiros
Edgard Meulens
Hubert Sambo
Vlastimil Bubník
Pavol Molnár
Anton Moravčík
Ladislav Novák
Aage Rou Jensen
John Jensen
Manfred Kaiser
Helmut Müller
Willy Tröger
Johnny Haynes
Olavi Lahtinen
Mauri Vanhanen
Said Brahimi
René Dereuddre
Maryan Wisnieski
Kostas Nestoridis
Vaggelis Panakis
Augusto Espinoza
Jorge Vickers
József Bozsik
Károly Sándor
Lajos Tichy
Eddang Witarsa
George Cummins
Johnny Gavin
Alf Ringstead
Sergio Cervato
Dino da Costa
Gino Pivatelli
Jean-Pierre Fiedler
Johnny Halsdorf
Léon Letsch
Jaime Belmonte
Toon Brusselers
Coen Dillen
Kees Rijvers
Servaas Wilkes
Billy Bingham
Tommy Casey
Wilbur Cush
Billy Simpson
Kjell Kristiansen
Óscar Aguilera
Alberto Terry
Ginter Gawlik
Matateu
António Dias Teixeira
Cornel Cacoveanu
Titus Ozon
Iosif Petschovsky
Nicolae Tǎtaru
John Hewie
Tommy Ring
Archie Robertson
Alex Scott
Gordon Smith
Genrich Fedosov
Valentin Kozmich Ivanov
Boris Tatushin
Yuri Voinov
Miguel González
Enrique Mateos
Suleiman Faris
Siddiq Manzul
Robert Ballaman
Ferdinando Riva
Jabra Al-Zarqa
Harry Keough
Ruben Mendoza
James Murphy
Javier Ambrois
Eladio Benítez
William Martínez
Óscar Míguez
Dave Bowen
Mel Charles
Roy Vernon
Dobrosav Krstić
Aleksandar Petaković
1 own goal
Edgar Falch (playing against Hungary)
Ray Daniel (playing against Czechoslovakia)
See also
Conspiracy 58
Notes
Wales is the only team to ever qualify after having been eliminated and then reinstated. Their qualification meant that all four Home Nations qualified (the only time in history), and that no team from the separate African and Asian zone qualified. This remained Wales' only appearance in the finals until 2022, when they qualified through the European zone for the first time.
Two-time former champions Uruguay, who in their three previous appearances had always benefited from direct qualifications or withdrawals, now failed in what was the first time they actually had to play qualifying games.
Italy were eliminated in qualifying for the first time.
Footnotes
External links
FIFA World Cup Official Site - 1958 World Cup Qualification
RSSSF - 1958 World Cup Qualification
Qualification
FIFA World Cup qualification
World Cup
World