“I watched Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait again over the weekend—this time on disc, so I had the chance to watch all the added features, including an interview with Zidane himself. If you missed it when it was showing briefly a year ago or so at Anthology Film Archives and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, you can catch it again at BAM in early June in the run-up to this year’s Cup. It’s more than worth seeing—it’s riveting soccer verité, focused completely on one extraordinarily compelling character: Zinedine Zidane. Multiple cameras follow him in real time through a La Liga match with Real Madrid against Villareal in April 2005.” (Vanity Fair)

“We’ve got a bit of a change from the normal for this week’s Video Of The Week, with a chance to see the rare drama, ‘The World Cup – A Captain’s Tale’. Produced by Tyne-Tees Television for ITV in 1982, it tells the story of the West Auckland FC team that travelled to Turin for the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy in 1909 and 1911 – the tournament that became known as the first World Cup. It’s a well known story, but this is a well-crafted dramatisation of it and features a cast with some very well-known names in it, including Tim Healy, Nigel Hawthorne, Dennis Waterman and Richard Griffiths.” (twohundredpercent)

“Just because it’s the World Cup doesn’t mean everything about it need be of World Cup quality. Take the pitch in the 1974 semifinal between hosts West Germany and Poland, for example – it looked like it belonged hosting the 400m butterfly at the Summer Olympics rather than a World Cup game. And that’s precisely why it became known as the Wasserschlacht, German for water fight.” (World Cup Blog)

“The summer of 1994 will always be remembered as a defining moment in the history of American soccer. The World Cup brought the game’s international talent to a curious nation’s doorstep in the form of Baggio, Batistuta and Stoichkov as legions of budding American soccer fans began to learn what soccer at its highest level was all about.” (ESPN)

Eusebio
“In doing the Portuguese history I popped across this video of Eusebio in his prime – the prime of his prime, even – running rampant all over England in ‘66, and it needs a spotlight. In a word: peerless. Nine goals led the tournament and earned him a wax statue at Madame Tussaud’s tells part of the story, but the gap of quality between he and those around him – Pele was quite injured – was simply staggering: bursting by defenders as though they weren’t really there; running full lengths of the half before stopping on a dime and cutting into the box; hitting balls with the ferocity of an angry jackhammer.” (World Cup Blog)

“France entered the 1986 World Cup in Mexico as newly crowned European Champions having annexed the title on home soil two years earlier. Michel Platini inspired his country to victory in that tournament and was still the heartbeat of a side desperate to bounce back from their harrowing penalty shoot-out loss to West Germany at Spain ‘82. France also included ace defender Manuel Amoros, Alain Giresse and renowned shot-stopper Joel Bats in their 1986 squad.” (Danger Here)

“This week’s Video Of The Week may be a couple of days late, but it’s well worth the wait – it’s the first episode of the BBC’s ‘Match Of The Eighties’ series. ‘Match Of The Eighties’, hosted by Danny Baker, was a six-part series that first aired in 1997. It follows a fairly simple theme, telling the story of each of the first six seasons of the 1980s (the series stops at the point at which the BBC lost television rights to show Football League matches). There’s nothing too complex going on here, but the sheer volume of the BBC’s football archive carries it along.” (twohundredpercent)

Just Fontaine
“Despite the superstars that have graced the World Cup over the decades, there is one record that may never be beaten by any player ever again. Only 3 times has a player scored double figures in a World Cup tournament, once in 1954, Sandor Kocsis scored 11, in 1970 the legendary Gerd Muller scored 10 goals. Yet one man surpassed both of these incredible efforts when he scored 13 goals at the 1958 World Cup, French legend, Just Fontaine.” (EPL Talk)

“Following the First XI goalkeepers, defenders, defensive midfielders and attacking midfielders, the latest First XI looks at the wide players who have made their mark on the World Cup.” (ESPN)