1934 FIFA World Cup

The **1934 FIFA World Cup** was the second FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in Italy from 27 May to 10 June 1934.

The 1934 World Cup was the first for which teams had to qualify to take part. Thirty-two nations entered the competition, and after qualification, 16 teams participated in the finals tournament. Reigning champions Uruguay did not enter. Italy became the second World Cup champions, beating Czechoslovakia 2–1 in the final.

## Host selection

After a lengthy decision-making process in which FIFA's executive committee met eight times, Italy was chosen as the host nation at a meeting in Stockholm on 9 October 1932. The decision was taken by the executive committee without a ballot of members. The Italian bid was chosen in preference to one from Sweden; the Italian government assigned a budget of 3.5 million lire to the tournament.

## Qualification and participants

Main article: 1934 FIFA World Cup qualification

32 countries applied to enter the tournament, so qualifying matches were required to thin the field to 16. Even so, there were several notable absentees. Reigning World Cup holders Uruguay declined to participate, in protest at the refusal of several European countries to travel to South America for the previous World Cup, which Uruguay had hosted in 1930. As a result, the 1934 World Cup is the only one in which the reigning champions did not participate. The British Home Nations, in a period of self-imposed exile from FIFA, also refused to participate. Football Association committee member Charles Sutcliffe's view was: "the national associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have quite enough to do in their own International Championship which seems to me a far better World Championship than the one to be staged in Rome".

Despite their role as hosts, Italy were still required to qualify, the first and only time the host nation was not granted automatic qualification. The qualifying matches were arranged on a geographical basis. Withdrawals by Chile and Peru meant Argentina and Brazil qualified without playing a single match.

Twelve of the 16 places were allocated to Europe, three to the Americas, and one to Africa or Asia (including Turkey). Only 10 of the 32 entrants, and four of the 16 qualified teams (Brazil, Argentina, United States and Egypt, the first African team to qualify for a World Cup finals tournament), were from outside Europe. The last place in the finals was contested between the United States and Mexico only three days before the start of the tournament in a one-off match in Rome, which the United States won.

The majority of the 16 teams were making their first World Cup appearance. These included nine of the 12 European teams (Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Austria, and Switzerland) together with Egypt. Egypt were the first team from Africa in the finals and would not qualify again until the next time the competition was held in Italy, in 1990.

## Italy as hosts

Like the Berlin Olympics two years later, the 1934 World Cup was a high-profile instance of a sporting event being used for overt political gain. Benito Mussolini was keen to use the tournament as a means of promoting fascism.

## Squads

For a list of all squads that appeared in the final tournament, see *1934 FIFA World Cup squads*.

## Participants

### Europe

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### South America

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### First round

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### Quarter-finals

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Replay
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### Semi-finals

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### Final

Main article: 1934 FIFA World Cup Final
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## Goalscorers

With five goals, Oldřich Nejedlý is the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 70 goals were scored by 45 different players, with none of them credited as own goal.

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5 goals
* Template:Flagicon Oldřich Nejedlý

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4 goals
* Template:Flagicon Edmund Conen
* Template:Flagicon Angelo Schiavio

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3 goals
* Template:Flagicon Raimundo Orsi
* Template:Flagicon Leopold Kielholz

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2 goals
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* Template:Flagicon Johann Horvath
* Template:Flagicon Bernard Voorhoof
* Template:Flagicon Antonín Puč
* Template:Flagicon Abdulrahman Fawzi

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* Template:Flagicon Karl Hohmann
* Template:Flagicon Ernst Lehner
* Template:Flagicon Géza Toldi
* Template:Flagicon Giovanni Ferrari
* Template:Flagicon Giuseppe Meazza

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* Template:Flagicon José Iraragorri
* Template:Flagicon Sven Jonasson

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1 goal
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* Template:Flagicon Ernesto Belis
* Template:Flagicon Alberto Galateo
* Template:Flagicon Josef Bican
* Template:Flagicon Anton Schall
* Template:Flagicon Karl Sesta
* Template:Flagicon Matthias Sindelar
* Template:Flagicon Karl Zischek
* Template:Flagicon Leônidas
* Template:Flagicon Jiří Sobotka
* Template:Flagicon František Svoboda

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* Template:Flagicon Jean Nicolas
* Template:Flagicon Georges Verriest
* Template:Flagicon Stanislaus Kobierski
* Template:Flagicon Rudolf Noack
* Template:Flagicon Otto Siffling
* Template:Flagicon György Sárosi
* Template:Flagicon Pál Teleki
* Template:Flagicon Jenő Vincze
* Template:Flagicon Enrique Guaita

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* Template:Flagicon Kick Smit
* Template:Flagicon Leen Vente
* Template:Flagicon Ștefan Dobay
* Template:Flagicon Isidro Lángara
* Template:Flagicon Luis Regueiro
* Template:Flagicon Gösta Dunker
* Template:Flagicon Knut Kroon
* Template:Flagicon André Abegglen
* Template:Flagicon Willy Jäggi
* Template:Flagicon Aldo Donelli

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## FIFA retrospective ranking

In 1986, FIFA published a report that ranked all teams in each World Cup up to and including 1986, based on progress in the competition, overall results and quality of the opposition. The rankings for the 1934 tournament were as follows:

## External links

* FIFA page for Italy 1934
* Details at RSSSF; note that they often disagree with FIFA on goal scorers and times
* History of the World Cup-1934

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