World Cup: the short history

It is the world's biggest sporting event - bigger than even the Olympic Games - and the only sporting tournament that has the power to stop the traffic in almost every country of the world.

It has the power to change lives. People have been killed or have commited suicide over it.

It is the World Cup.

Football, the only truly global game, celebrates its own
existence every four years in the most spectacular fashion. Legends are created and fortunes assured as the world's best players come together to find out which nation is top of the pile.

International football came into formal being in 1904 with the founding of FIFA.

Right from the start, the world was clamouring for a tournament that would decide the global championship, but it was not until 1924 and the Olympic tournament in Paris that football came into its own.

There for the first time, teams from other continents arrived to take on Europeans. The tournament was a huge success and 50,000 spectators watched Uruguay beat Switzerland in the final.

 

By 1928, as professional football was exploding, many nations abstained from the Olympic tournament in Amsterdam.

The time was ripe for a new independent football tournament to be established.

On May 26, 1928 in Amsterdam, the FIFA congress voted that a new tournament was to be organised in 1930, which was to be open to all member nations. On May 18 1929, the Barcelona congress voted that Uruguay should be the first nation to host a World Cup.

Since 1930, the World Cup has captured the imagination of the world's football fans - despite the fact that only a relative handful of nations have ever won the tournament.

Brazil, Germany, Italy and Argentina have dominated the World Cup, but that does not stop the football fans of Namibia, Lithuania, the Solomon Islands and Bermuda from living and breathing every move, every kick and every goal, every four years.

Brazil leads the way with four World Cup wins. It is the permanent owner of the Jules Rimet Trophy - the first World Cup - following its first three victories in 1958, 1962 and 1970.

Inspired by the legendary Pele (pictured), Brazil beat host Sweden in 1958, Czechoslovakia in Chile, 1962, and Italy in Mexico, 1970.

 

It added a fourth success in the 1994 tournament in the United States, beating Italy on penalties.

Along the way, Brazil has two second-placings to its credit.

Germany (formerly West Germany) scored its three wins in 1954 (against red-hot favourite Hungary in Switzerland), 1974 (on home soil against the Netherlands) and in 1990 (in Italy against Argentina). Legend Franz Beckenbauer (pictured, loser in 1966 and winning captain in 1974), coached the 1990 side.

It has three second-placings to its credit.

Italy also has three World Cup wins - in 1934 at home against Czechoslovakia, in 1938 against Hungary in France, and in 1982 in Spain against West Germany. It has finished runner-up on two occasions.

Argentina and Uruguay are the only other multiple winners. Argentina scored victories in 1978 at home and in 1986 in Mexico. It has also finished second twice.

Uruguay triumphed at home in 1930 and in Brazil in 1950. The two single winners are England, which won at home in 1966 and France, which did likewise in 1998.

 

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