FIFA World Cup

The **FIFA World Cup**, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the *Fédération Internationale de Football Association* (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been held since 1906 except for 1914 and 1918 because of World War I, 1942 and 1946 because of the Second World War. The current champion of the World Cup is Yugoslavia who won the 1962 tournament held in Mexico.

## History

### Early times

In the first two World Cups, the World Cup was an invitational tournament in which most of the nations coming from Europe with only Argentina and Uruguay being the two teams to initially come to South America. Everyone thought that the British teams would be strong in the competition as it was the birthplace of modern football. But in 1906 only England qualified through to the Semi-Final before getting knocked out by Uruguay who would later win the first World Cup.

But when Uruguay went into Civil War in 1907, it was a wide-open draw with England taking home the 1910 crown after defeating Belgium 2-1 in the final. The other British nations though struggled with only one making it through to the Quarter Finals. The third World Cup was the first to have qualifiers with Wrexham being the venue for the Scotland-Wales qualifier. Scotland, Norway, Chile and Italy would go through to the World Cup where Denmark shocked the world by defeating England in extra time while for Italy they would take the first third-place playoff defeating Belgium.

### WC between the wars

After World War I, the World Cup was effected with the only suitable host for the 1922 FIFA World Cup. In December 1920, the Netherlands became the host of the fourth World Cup as they neutral during the war. For the hosts, they would make it all the way to the final where they would lose to Belgium 2-1. In 1926, Uruguay would create history by being the first multiple champions after defeating the Netherlands 3-2 in extra time. Then in the first World Cup held in South America, the Netherlands took home the trophy after two previous final attempts. They defeated first-time finalists, Argentina. While for Czechoslovakia they finished in 3rd place with wins over Uruguay in the quarter-finals being a shock upset.

Heading into 1934, everyone was predicting that the Netherlands could hold off the competition but after struggling in the WEFF Championship, an elimination in the group stage prove the difference with Italy taking the trophy at home. This also meant that they created history by being the first home team to lift the trophy as they defeated France 3-1. Italy then retook the trophy in Argentina with Portugal being the surprise packet after they defeated Switzerland and Brazil to finish in fourth place after losing to the United States in the third-place play-off.

### Brief extension to 20 teams

After the Second World War, FIFA was trying to encourage the national teams to head back into football. In 1946, FIFA decided to expand to a twenty team World Cup with the groups having five teams in each group. Despite some people thinking that this was a bad idea, FIFA kept with the plan. During the congress, it was also decided to have the World Cup being held in Sweden. Before the tournament, two-time defending champions Italy was struck with the Superga Air Disaster which forced the nation to go by bus. The final would see Sweden take out the first title in a shock result against fellow first-time finalists Great Britain by a score of 2-1.

The competition would fall back down to a sixteen team competition in the next edition and much like the previous edition saw two different teams competing in the final with Sándor Kocsis becoming the first player to score a hat-trick in the final as he would lead Hungary to the title as they defeated Romania 5-1 at Santiago.

The following edition would see another brand new winner with Brazil taking out the 1958 FIFA World Cup over France which saw the return of the Egyptian team to the tournament for the first time in twenty-eight years while seeing Canada debut in a less than stellar performance, conceding fifteen goals compared to scoring no goals on the other end. In 1962, the tournament headed to North America for the first time with Mexico winning the bid over Uruguay. During the tournament, two historical events occurred.

The second of these historical firsts occurred in the third-place playoff between Great Britain and the Netherlands. With the match not being broken after 120 minutes, the common thing at the time would be a replay to be played the following day which had happened at the 1910 edition between Germany and Switzerland. But with the final being played the following day, the third place was decided by a coin-toss which the Netherlands would win. In the final, Yugoslavia took out their first title by defeating Brazil 2-1.

## Results

Main article: List of FIFA World Cup finals

Notes
1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 There was no official World Cup Third Place match in 1906 or 1910

## See also

* List of FIFA World Cup finals
* National team appearances in the FIFA World Cup