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1950 FIFA World Cup

IV Campeonato Mundial de Futebol
1950 FIFA World Cup official logo
Tournament details
Host country	Brazil
Dates	24 June – 16 July
Teams	13 (from 3 confederations)
Venue(s)	6 (in 6 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Uruguay (2nd title)
Runner-up	Brazil
Third place	Sweden
Fourth place	Spain
Tournament statistics
Matches played	22
Goals scored	88 (4 per match)
Attendance	1,036,000 (47,091 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Ademir (8 goals)
← 1938 1954 →

The 1950 FIFA World Cup, held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July, was the fourth FIFA World Cup, and 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, who had won the inaugural competition in 1930, clinching the cup by beating the hosts Brazil 2–1 in the deciding match of the four-team final group (this was the only tournament not decided by a one-match final).

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. In the aftermath of the war, much of Europe lay in ruins. As a result, FIFA had some difficulties finding a country interested in hosting the event, since many governments believed that the world scenario did not favour a sportive celebration, and also (more importantly) that the resources that would have to be put into organizing the World Cup could not be diverted from other more urgent fronts. For some time, the World Cup was at risk of not being held for sheer lack of interest from the international community, until Brazil presented a bid at the 1946 FIFA Congress, offering to host the event on condition that the tournament take place in 1950 (it was originally planned to take place in 1949).^[1] 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

Participating countries after 3 of the 16 qualifying countries withdrew.

Having secured a host nation, FIFA would still dedicate some time to persuading countries to send their national teams to compete. Italy was of particular interest: the Italians were the long-standing defending champions (winners in 1938), but the country was reconstructing from the end of World War II, and at first there was little to no interest from the country in participating. The 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.^{[citation needed]}

With Italy and Austria, two successful pre-war teams had not been subject to international sanctions, while Japan, still under occupation, and occupied and partitioned Germany had not been permitted in time to compete or qualify. The French-occupied Saarland had been accepted by FIFA two weeks before the World Cup, several months before (West) Germany's DFB was reinstated, while Soviet-occupied East Germany had not even founded a football association yet.

The British nations were invited 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. Initially France agreed to play but they worked out that the venues for their two group matches were over 3,000 kilometres away from each other. The French told the Brazilians that they would stay at home unless the arrangements were changed. The Brazilian Federation refused and France withdrew. Therefore, even though 16 teams were originally going to participate, after the withdrawals only 13 teams were left to take part.

Summary

Originally, the tournament format would be that the 16 teams be divided into four first round groups (or "pools" as they were then called) 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. The draw took place in Rio de Janeiro, on 22 May 1950.^[2] In fact, the entire tournament was arranged in such a way that the four first round groups had no geographical basis. Hence, several teams were obliged to cover large distances to complete their program, although Brazil was allowed to play two of its three group matches in Rio de Janeiro while its other game was in (comparatively) nearby São Paulo.

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. However, it was not to be, as they went crashing out in a shock 1-0 defeat by the United States (when the score appeared in English newspapers, many thought it was a misprint) which, combined with their 1-0 defeat by Spain, led to England being eliminated.

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. On July 16, before a huge home crowd of 199,954 (some estimated as 205,000) in the Estádio do Maracanã, the host nation only had to draw against Uruguay and the trophy would be theirs. After such crushing victories over Spain and Sweden, it looked certain they would take the title, especially as the home nation went ahead in the second minute of the second half, thanks to a goal from Friaça. However, Uruguay equalised and then with just over 11 minutes left to play, went ahead 2-1 when Alcides Ghiggia squeaked a goal past Moacyr Barbosa, and Uruguay was crowned World Cup champions for a second time. This stunning defeat surprised Brazil and 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. Not counting the Maracanã matches, the average attendance was a still-impressive 37,500. However, the only venues that saw crowds comparable to or greater than those in recent World Cups were the Maracanã and São Paulo. Other venues saw considerably smaller crowds.

Venues

Six cities hosted the tournament:

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

Belo Horizonte

Curitiba

Porto Alegre

Recife

Rio de Janeiro

São Paulo

Squads

For a list of all squads that appeared in the final tournament, see 1950 FIFA World Cup squads.

Match officials

Europe Alois Beranek Arthur Edward Ellis George Reader Reginald Leafe Charles de La Salle Generoso Dattillo Giovanni Galeati Karel van der Meer José da Costa George Mitchell Jose Garcia Carrion Ramon Roma Azon Gunnar Dahlner Ivan Eklind

Jean Lutz Benjamin Griffiths Leo Lemesic Americas Alfredo Alvarez Alberto da Gama Malcher Mario Gardelli Mario Gonçalves Viana Sergio Bustamante Estevez Texada Cayetano de Nicola Mario Ruben Heyen Prudencio Garcia Esteban Marino

Results

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First round

Group 1

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts
Brazil	3	2	1	0	8	2	5
Yugoslavia	3	2	0	1	7	3	4
Switzerland	3	1	1	1	4	6	3
Mexico	3	0	0	3	2	10	0

24 June 1950 15:00 BRT	Brazil	4 – 0	Mexico	Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Attendance: ~81,000 Referee: George Reader (England)
	Ademir  30', 79'[3] Jair  65' Baltazar  71'	Report

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25 June 1950 18:00 BRT	Yugoslavia	3 – 0	Switzerland	Estadio Sete de Setembro, Belo Horizonte Attendance: ~8,000 Referee: Giovanni Galeati (Italy)
	Mitić  58'[4] Tomašević  78' Ognjanov  84'	Report

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28 June 1950 15:00 BRT	Brazil	2 – 2	Switzerland	Estádio do Pacaembu, São Paulo Attendance: ~42,000 Referee: Ramon Azon Roma (Spain)
	Alfredo  3' Baltazar  32'[5]	Report	Fatton  17', 88'

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28 June 1950 18:15 BRT	Mexico	1 – 4	Yugoslavia	Estádio dos Eucaliptos, Porto Alegre Attendance: ~11,000 Referee: Reginald Leafe (England)
	Ortíz  87' (pen.)	Report	Bobek  19' Ž. Čajkovski  23', 51'[6][7] Tomašević  81'

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1 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Brazil	2 – 0	Yugoslavia	Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Attendance: ~142,000 Referee: Benjamin Griffiths (Wales)
	Ademir  3' Zizinho  69'[8]	Report

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2 July 1950 15:40 BRT	Mexico	1 – 2	Switzerland	Estádio dos Eucaliptos, Porto Alegre Attendance: ~3,500 Referee: Ivan Eklind (Sweden)
	Casarín  75'	Report	Bader  10' Tamini  37'[9]

Group 2

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts
Spain	3	3	0	0	6	1	6
England	3	1	0	2	2	2	2
Chile	3	1	0	2	5	6	2
United States	3	1	0	2	4	8	2

25 June 1950 15:00 BRT	England	2 – 0	Chile	Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Attendance: ~30,000 Referee: Karel van der Meer (Netherlands)
	Mortensen  39' Mannion  51'	Report

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25 June 1950 15:00 BRT	Spain	3 – 1	United States	Estádio Durival de Britto, Curitiba Attendance: ~9,000 Referee: Mario Vianna (Brazil)
	Basora  75', 78' Zarra  85'	Report	Souza  17'

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29 June 1950 15:00 BRT	Spain	2 – 0	Chile	Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Attendance: ~20,000 Referee: Alberto Malcher (Brazil)
	Basora  17' Zarra  30'	Report

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29 June 1950 18:00 BRT	United States	1 – 0	England	Estádio Independência, Belo Horizonte Attendance: ~10,000 Referee: Generoso Datillo (Italy)
	Gaetjens  38'	Report

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2 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Spain	1 – 0	England	Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Attendance: ~74,000 Referee: Giovanni Galeati (Italy)
	Zarra  48'[10]	Report

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2 July 1950 18:00 BRT	Chile	5 – 2	United States	Estádio Ilha do Retiro, Recife Attendance: ~8,000 Referee: Mario Gardelli (Brazil)
	Robledo  16' Cremaschi  32', 61', 82' Prieto  54'	Report	Wallace  47' Maca  48' (pen.)

Group 3

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts
Sweden	2	1	1	0	5	4	3
Italy	2	1	0	1	4	3	2
Paraguay	2	0	1	1	2	4	1
India	withdrew

25 June 1950 15:00 BRT	Sweden	3 – 2	Italy	Estádio do Pacaembu, São Paulo Attendance: ~50,000 Referee: Jean Lutz (Switzerland)
	Jeppson  25', 68' Andersson  33'	Report	Carapellese  7' Muccinelli  75'

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29 June 1950 15:30 BRT	Sweden	2 – 2	Paraguay	Estádio Durival de Britto, Curitiba Attendance: ~8,000 Referee: Robert Mitchell (Scotland)
	Sundqvist  17' Palmér  25'	Report	López  34' López Fretes  74'

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2 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Italy	2 – 0	Paraguay	Estádio do Pacaembu, São Paulo Attendance: ~26,000 Referee: Arthur Ellis (England)
	Carapellese  12' Pandolfini  62'	Report

Group 4

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts
Uruguay	1	1	0	0	8	0	2
Bolivia	1	0	0	1	0	8	0
Scotland	withdrew
Turkey	withdrew

2 July 1950 18:00 BRT	Uruguay	8 – 0	Bolivia	Estádio Independência, Belo Horizonte Attendance: ~5,000 Referee: George Reader (England)
	Míguez  14', 40', 51' Schiaffino  17', 53' Vidal  18' Pérez  83' Ghiggia  87'	Report

Final round

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts
Uruguay	3	2	1	0	7	5	5
Brazil	3	2	0	1	14	4	4
Sweden	3	1	0	2	6	11	2
Spain	3	0	1	2	4	11	1

9 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Brazil	7 – 1	Sweden	Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Attendance: ~138,000 Referee: Arthur Ellis (England)
	Ademir  17', 37', 51', 59' Chico  39', 87' Maneca  85'	Report	Andersson  67' (pen.)

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9 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Uruguay	2 – 2	Spain	Estádio do Pacaembu, São Paulo Attendance: ~44,000 Referee: Benjamin Griffiths (Wales)
	Ghiggia  27' Varela  72'	Report	Basora  39', 41'

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13 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Brazil	6 – 1	Spain	Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Attendance: ~152,000 Referee: Reginald Leafe (England)
	Parra  15' (o.g.) Jair  21' Chico  29', 55' Ademir  57' Zizinho  74'	Report	Igoa  70'

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13 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Uruguay	3 – 2	Sweden	Estádio do Pacaembu, São Paulo Attendance: ~8,000 Referee: Giovanni Galeati (Italy)
	Ghiggia  39' Míguez  77', 84'	Report	Palmér  4' Sundqvist  41'

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16 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Sweden	3 – 1	Spain	Estádio do Pacaembu, São Paulo Attendance: ~11,000 Referee: Karel van der Meer (Netherlands)
	Sundqvist  15' Mellberg  34' Palmér  79'	Report	Zarra  82'

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Main article: Uruguay v Brazil (1950 FIFA World Cup)

16 July 1950 15:00 BRT	Uruguay	2 – 1	Brazil	Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Attendance: ~199,954 Referee: George Reader (England)
	Schiaffino  66' Ghiggia  79'	Report	Friaça  47'

Awards

1950 FIFA World Cup Winners
Uruguay Second title

Scorers

8 goals Ademir 5 goals Estanislao Basora Oscar Míguez 4 goals Chico Zarra Alcides Ghiggia 3 goals Karl-Erik Palmér Stig Sundqvist Juan Alberto Schiaffino 2 goals Baltazar Jair Zizinho Atilio Cremaschi Riccardo Carapellese Sune Andersson Hasse Jeppson Jacques Fatton Željko Čajkovski Kosta Tomašević

1 goal Alfredo Friaça Maneca Andrés Prieto George Robledo Fernando Riera Wilf Mannion Stan Mortensen Ermes Muccinelli Egisto Pandolfini Horacio Casarín Héctor Ortíz Atilio López César López Silvestre Igoa Bror Mellberg René Bader Jean Tamini Joe Gaetjens Joe Maca Gino Pariani Frank Wallace Julio Pérez Obdulio Varela Ernesto Vidal Stjepan Bobek Tihomir Ognjanov own goal Parra

Footnotes

1. ^ Planet World Cup - 1950
2. ^ History of the World Cup Final Draw
3. ^ RSSSF credits the goal in the 30th minute as occurring in the 31st minute.
4. ^ FIFA report credits this goal to Kosta Tomašević; RSSSF and Cris Freddi to Mitic.
5. ^ RSSSF credits this goal as occurring in the 43rd minute.
6. ^ FIFA credits the goal in the 23rd minute as occurring in the 22nd minute.
7. ^ FIFA credit the goal in the 51st minute as occurring in the 62nd minute.
8. ^ RSSSF credits this goal as occurring in the 89th minute.
9. ^ RSSSF credits this goal to Charles Antenen in the 44th minute.
10. ^ RSSSF credits this goal as coming in the 49th minute.

External links

• 1950 FIFA World Cup on FIFA.com
• Details at RSSSF; note that they often disagree with FIFA on goal scorers and times
• History of the World Cup-1950

1950 FIFA World Cup Stages Group 1 · Group 2 · Group 3 · Group 4 · Final round · Final

1950 FIFA World Cup finalists Champions Uruguay Runners-up Brazil Third place Sweden Fourth place Spain Eliminated in the first round Bolivia · Chile · England · Italy · Mexico · Paraguay · Switzerland · United States · Yugoslavia

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