“When Joao Havelange claimed, in 2008, that the 1966 and 1974 World Cups were fixed, his claims were largely laughed out of court. Depending on who you listened to, he was either deliberately misconstruing events or demonstrating little more than the first signs of senility. What was, however, curious about his comments was what he missed out. No mention was made of the 1978 tournament, which many have pointed to as being a tournament of less than sturdy moral fibre (and was, coincidentally, the first held under Havelange’s tutelage) and, even more curiously, none was made of the second World Cup of all, which was held in the Italy of Benito Mussolini in 1934.” (twohundredpercent)

Johan Does the Cruyff Turn in 1974
“World Cups aren’t just about who lifts the trophy at the end. They’re also about the incredible moments that are shared by a global audience. In this series of feature posts, we focus in on such moments so football fans everywhere can relive (or maybe even learn about) the events of World Cups past. This is a menu of all our World Cup Moments feature posts. Simply click the title to read the full post.” (World Cup Blog)

“The concept of England having a high level of expectation at the time of a World Cup finals is a comparatively recent one. As recently as 1990, most adults could remember their two successive failures to qualify for the whole event and, once there, they only seldom lit the tournament up. In 1982, a good performance in the opening match against France was followed by an almost linear deterioration in performance, which ended in their elimination in the second group round after two goalless draws against West Germany and Spain. Much was made of the fact that they were eliminated, due to the peculiar tournament structure, unbeaten, but they only scored one goal in their final three matches. Four years later, Diego Maradona’s various antics overshadowed a slow start that saw them lose to Portugal and draw with Morocco before Gary Lineker’s goals breathed some life into them.” (twohundredpercent)

“The Official World Cup Film is a film genre in its own right. It still exists, although FIFA tends to prefer to peddle goal compilations in the market place these days and its powers are now much diminished. A quarter of a century, though, they still mattered. “G’Olé”, the official film of the 1982 World Cup finals, is a classic of the genre. Narrated by Sean Connery, it is in turn fascinating, excrutiating and pretentious beyond belief, to the extent of having a soundtrack by… Rick Wakeman. When it hits its stride, though, it is stunning. The slow-motion footage of Marco Tardelli losing his mind is quite a thing to behold.” (twohundredpercent)

“The former Notts County manager Jimmy Sirrel once said, “The best teams wins, the rest is gossip.” If that’s the case, there’s been an awful lot of idle talk during World Cups. Some of the greatest teams to play the game did not lift the trophy; here’s a subjective list of the top 10…” (SI)

“Falcao: Brazil vs. Italy (1982). From the outside, Falcao was seen very much as the quiet man of the Brazilian side that travelled to Spain 1982. His equaliser in a losing cause against a Paolo Rossi-inspired Italy in the semi-final tie saw him cut inside onto his left foot, dragging three Italian defenders away from the goal and fire a fine shot into the net before charging towards the bench. With veins bulging from his forearms, he evaded Luizinho before doing his best impression of a kangaroo in front of the fans.” (ESPN), (Grand Inquisitor)

“One of the most natural finishers ever to have played the game, Gerd Muller was an accomplished international poacher whose prolific World Cup record for West Germany is a testament to his striking prowess. Der Bomber – as he is affectionately known by the German public – netted an incredible 14 goals in just 12 World Cup games, culminating in the winning strike in the 1974 final.” (ESPN)

Camouflage Comics
“There have been, over the last eighty years or so, several questionable decisions made regarding the hosting of World Cup tournaments. None, however, have been met with quite the fury that met the hosting of the 1978 World Cup finals in Argentina. The decision made to award the 1978 finals to Argentina was made in July of 1966, but after a military coup in March 1976 left the country in the hands of a military dictatorship, there were calls for the tournament to be moved elsewhere in a clash of ideologies that pitted the liberal left of popular opinion in Western Europe against the more right-wing politics of FIFA.” (twohundredpercent)

“The story of football in the years immediately following the end of the Second World War often seemed to be following a pre-prepared script, but it was a script that, at the World Cup finals at least, the competing nations seemed unwilling to follow. In 1950, the tournament should have been a procession for the host nation, Brazil, but in the final minutes of the final match, Uruguay silenced the Maracana. And four years later, one of the greatest teams in the history of the game would come unstuck in similar circumstances. They were the ‘Golden Team’ – the Hungarian team of Ferenc Puskas, Nándor Hidegkuti and József Bozsik. This Hungarian team was, tactically, one of the most important in the history of the game, and it only lost one match in four years. It just so happened, however, that the match that they did lose was the most important of all.” (twohundredpercent)

Gheorghe Hagi, ‘Maradona of the Carpathians’
“Back at the ‘94 World Cup, Romania’s Gheorge Hagi was the bee’s knees. He was so good he was allowed to join that rarified group: players who’ve sidled up on each flank of El Clasico. Good throughout the tournament, but there was a moment, one singular moment, which reigns in the memories of all: that goal, from there.” (World Cup Blog)

“It should come as no great surprise to any seasoned FIFA watchers that the entire history of the organisation has been about its politicking, and still less that this has frequently extended itself into the hosting of its showpiece tournament, the World Cup. When we go back as far as to look at the formation of the organisation, we see one that was at its very formation unilateralist and was riven from its very early days with divisions between nations from different parts of the world. So, how did FIFA and the World Cup come to be, and how was it that an organisation that was largely based in Europe came to hold the first major tournament under its own complete control in a country of just three million people in South America?” (twohundredpercent)

Carlos Alberto
“Here are the stories of men who scored in a World Cup final.” (ESPN)

Roberto Baggio
“The dreaded penalty shootout. After 120 minutes of exhausting play finishing in a draw, 10 players are chosen to step up to the penalty spot and try to beat the goalkeeper from 12 yards. It sounds simple, but it isn’t. Each player is under immense pressure. The world is watching him kick the ball. The weight of a nation is on his shoulders. And because of this, sometimes the best players miss penalty kicks. It’s all about staying calm under pressure.” (World Cup Blog)

“We hear a lot about the decline and fall of western civilization these days, but moral outrage at the behaviour of footballers is nothing new and, indeed, players at the World Cup finals this summer will have to go a long way to outdo the most serious incidents of player-on-player violence in the history of the tournament, many of which considerably predate the coming of colour television, to say the least. In this respect, the group match between Chile and Italy at the 1962 World Cup finals probably remains the most infamous example of a World Cup match that became something else. It wasn’t the first – three players, for example, were sent off during a quarter-final match between Hungary and Brazil at the 1954 tournament in Switzerland – but, even now, it sets the high water mark for outright violence on the pitch during what is supposed to be football’s showpiece tournament.” (twohundredpercent)

“That goal? Surely not. Many forget that Maradona didn’t take one off after his dazzling heroics and choice words from the English in ‘86. In between the quarterfinal of legend against England and final against West Germany, there was a semifinal against Belgium. Sure, Belgium has scraped through twice by the very skin of their teeth and Maradona’s Argentina was Maradona’s Argentina, but one doesn’t make a World Cup semifinal entirely undeserved. (We know, England.)” (World Cup Blog)

“This week’s Video Of The Week takes us back forty years to one of the greatest matches in the history of the competition – the semi-final match between Brazil and Uruguay from Guadalajara in 1970. In some respects, this was the match that started to cement reputation of this Brazil team as the greatest of all time. They had blown hot and cold in their previous matches, outstanding against Peru and Czechoslovakia but less than inspired against England and Romania, but set up against their South American rivals with a place in the final at the Azteca Stadium against Italy at stake, the watching audience finally got to see the very, very best of the Brazilians, and against top class opposition. There was a crowd of over 50,000 at the Estadio Jalisco to watch it and your commentary team are ITV’s Gerald Sinstadt and Bobby Moore. As the match is from YouTube, it is divided into ten minute sections, as ever.” (twohundredpercent)

1970: The definitive World Cup…
“Which is your World Cup? One of my pet theories is that we all have a mundial that, as it unfolds, feels less like a football tournament than a rite of passage, introducing us to idols, emotions and intrigue we will remember for the rest of our lives. Mine was 1970. I was nine then.” (FourFourTwo)

“The Cold War spread insiduously into every aspect of life between the end of the second world war and the end of the 1980s, and sport was no exception to this rule, whether it was the Soviets and Americans boycotting each others’ Olympic Games or Bobby Fischer facing off against Boris Spassky at chess in Rekjavik in 1972. Football was no exception to this rule, and perhaps the definitive meeting of captialism and communism on the football pitch came at the 1974 World Cup finals, when West Germany played East Germany in the group stage of the competition.” (twohundredpercent)

“In the build-up to the FA Cup Final today between Portsmouth and Chelsea, I thought it’d be interesting to enter the time machine and to go back to 1992 to watch the first ten minutes of the television broadcast of Portsmouth versus Liverpool in the FA Cup Semi-Final from Arsenal’s Highbury Stadium.” (EPL Talk)

Ferenc Puskas
“From the mighty Magyars to Maradona’s Argentina side of 1990, here are half a dozen great teams that failed to go all the way” (Guardian)

“The upcoming World Cup will the first to take place in the entire continent of Africa but there are several countries that have already held the tournament more that once, such as Italy, France and Germany. The first team to earn the honour of hosting the World Cup finals twice, however, was Mexico and the story of how this came to pass is as much a story of the politics of FIFA as it is of the qualities of Mexico when it comes to hosting the finals of the tournament. The truth of the matter is that the hosts of the 1986 World Cup finals should have been Colombia.” (twohundredpercent)

“In case you’ve missed the series of articles, Soccernet has been delving into the history of the World Cup with some great lists it calls First XI. Take a look.” (ESPN)

“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)

Scientist – Wins the World Cup (1982)
“Before I start typing this, and before you start reading, I should ‘fess up that I’m an England fan. Hopefully I’m not too biased and can write a post about the World Cup history of England in an objective manner. Even when discussing the events of 1966 and 1986. But I thought it was only fair to warn you before we get started. The England football team is the joint oldest in the world, with he first international match being between England and Scotland in 1870. So England should have loads of World Cups, right? Unfortunately, England didn’t play at their first World Cup until 1950 Why? Mostly arrogance. England left FIFA in 1928 (two years before the first World Cup) and didn’t rejoin until 1948. So the Three Lions managed to miss the first three World Cup tournaments, which means we pick up the story in 1950.” (World Cup Blog – Part I, 1950 – 1970)), (World Cup Blog – Part II, 1982 – 2006)

“English bands have been as important in my life as football has been. Ever since a friend of mine introduced me to The Clash some 15 years ago, the plethora of bands to emerge from the UK that have affected my intellect and overall well being have been staggering. Minus godfathers like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, which, seemingly, everyone grew up with, bands like the Clash, the Smiths, the Jam, Joy Division, the Stone Roses, Radiohead, Oasis, Elbow and the Arctic Monkeys, to name just a few, are bands that are immensely important to me on a personal level.” (EPL Talk)

Zinedine Zidane
“For better or worse (probably worse) the one thing most people know about Zinedine Zidane is that he headbutted Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final. But when we asked for your favourite World Cup moments it was Zidane’s other World Cup final appearance that got the most mentions, and what Zizou did with his head in 1998.” (World Cup Blog)

“The Battle of Santiago is the name given to a particularly unsavoury and infamous football match during the 1962 World Cup Finals. It was a game played between hosts Chile and Italy on June 2, 1962 in Santiago. The referee was Ken Aston who later went on to invent yellow and red cards.” (Wikipedia), (YouTube)

“World Cups aren’t just about who lifts the trophy at the end. They’re also about the incredible moments that are shared by a global audience. In this series of feature posts, we focus in on such moments so football fans everywhere can relive (or maybe even learn about) the events of World Cups past.” (World Cup Blog)

“There are some World Cup legends that made an impact in many different tournaments. Some only needed one to elevate themselves to a similar status and Bulgaria’s Hristo Stoichkov is one of them. Stoichkov is now viewed in the same breath as Georgi Asparuhov in his homeland and few have come close to emulating his achievements since – with Manchester United’s Dimitar Berbatov the closest of the current breed so far.” (ESPN)

“Following on from last week’s First XI goalkeepers, we have our selection of the top World Cup defenders. While Europeans – and particularly Italians – dominate the list, it’s worth remembering the contribution of South Americans to the art of defence, with the likes of Chile’s Elias Figueroa and Uruguayan Jose Santamaria missing out on the list but having made their mark on the world stage.” (ESPN)

“This week’s ‘Video Of The Week’ is ‘Hooligan’, a 1985 documentary made by Thames Television about a problem which, at the time, seemed to more or less intractably woven into the very fabric of English football. The film focusses upon the ICF, the West Ham United hooligan firm, but also offers a brief history of the problem within the game as well as a look at how the problem affected the English national team (although the makers chose to use footage of the notorious match between England and Belgium in Turin at the 1980 European Championship finals, although there is no doubt that there would have been more recent footage that they could have used in 1985), the growth of the problem abroad and some analysis of the psyche of the football hooligan, including an interview with John Williams, latterly of the Department of Sociology at Leicester University.” (twohundredpercent)

“A. A good time to score – Surprisingly, not at any time during the game. Usually just before half-time or just after half-time. Sometimes scoring a goal can be a bad thing most notably when a team scores too early – like the Dutch in the 1974 World Cup Final.” (Left Back In the Changing Room)