1950 FIFA World Cup

The 1950 FIFA World Cup, held in Brazil from June 24 to July 16 , was the fourth staging of the World Cup. It was the first staged in 12 years due to World War II. Brazil was chosen as the host country by FIFA in July 1946. It was also the first tournament that the trophy itself would be referred to as the Jules Rimet Cup, to mark the 25th anniversary of Rimet ‘s presidency of FIFA. It was won by Uruguay.

Background

Because of World War II , the World Cup had not been staged since 1938; the planned World Cups of 1942 and 1946 were both cancelled. After the war, FIFA were keen to resurrect the competition as soon as possible, and they began making plans for a World Cup tournament to take place.

Brazil presented a bid at the 1946 FIFA Congress, offering to host the event on condition that the tournament take place in 1950. Brazil and Germany had been the leading bidders to host the cancelled 1942 World Cup; since both the 1934 and 1938 tournaments had been held in Europe, football historians generally agree that the 1942 event would most likely have been awarded to a South American host country. Brazil’s new bid was very similar to the mooted 1942 bid and was quickly accepted.

Qualification

Having secured a host nation, FIFA would still dedicate some time to persuading countries to send their national teams to compete. Italians were finally persuaded to attend, although rumours have had it that FIFA had to cover all travelling expenses in order for Italy’s national team to be able to come to Brazil and play.

The British nations were able to take part, having rejoined FIFA four years earlier, after 17 years of self-imposed exile. It was decided to use the 1949-1950 British Home Championship as a qualifying group, with whoever finished first and second qualifying. England finished first and Scotland second, but the Scots withdrew as they were not British Champions.

Two other teams, Turkey and India, also withdrew after qualifying, with India refusing to go because FIFA would not allow the team to play barefoot. France and Portugal were invited as replacements but declined. Therefore, even though 16 teams were originally going to participate, after the withdrawals only 13 teams were left to take part.

Summary

The tournament format would be that the 16 teams be divided into four first round groups of four teams, with the group winners advancing to a final group stage, playing in round-robin format to determine the winner.

However, because only 13 teams competed, this left two first round groups with four teams, another with three teams, and the last group with only two teams.

A combined Great Britain team had recently beaten the rest of Europe 6-1 in an exhibition match and England went into the competition as one of the favourites.

The final group stage involved the teams who won their groups: Brazil, Spain, Sweden, and 1930 FIFA World Cup champions Uruguay, who were making their first World Cup appearance since winning the inaugural tournament. The World Cup winner would be the team that managed to finish on top of this group. The final group’s six matches were shared between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Brazil played all its final group matches at the Estádio do Maracanã in Rio while the games that didn’t involve the host nation were played in São Paulo. Brazil won their first two matches with a 7-1 thrashing of Sweden and 6-1 rout of Spain. Before the decisive match, Brazil was sitting on top of the final group and had one game left to play against Uruguay, in second and only a point behind.

Uruguay was crowned World Cup winners for a second time. This stunning defeat of Brazil is referred to as the Maracanazo .

The average attendance of nearly 61,000 per game, aided greatly by eight matches (including five featuring hosts Brazil) held in the newly-built Maracanã, set a record that would not be broken until 1994 .

Venues

Six cities hosted the tournament:

• Belo Horizonte , Estadio Sete de Setembro
• Curitiba , Estádio Durival de Britto
• Porto Alegre , Estádio dos Eucaliptos
• Recife , Estádio Ilha do Retiro
• Rio de Janeiro , Estádio do Maracanã
• São Paulo , Estádio do Pacaembu