World Cup History

The first World Cup was held in 1930 after FIFA President Jules Rimet saw the opportunity for a global tournament following the success of the football tournaments with the Olympic Games. Uruguay was chosen to host the first World Cup but its far flung destination meant that most European Nations declined to send a team with just France, Belgium, Romania and Yugoslavia turning up for the event.

The first ever World Cup goal was scored by Lucien Laurent of France during their 4-1 win over Mexico. The tournament was eventually won by the hosts Uruguay who defeated Argentina 4-2 in the first ever World Cup final in Montevideo.

Brazil World Cup Win Over the next few years the tournament struggled to get off the ground due to teams unwillingness to takes part and of course World War II lead to an interruption of the competition. One of the most famous World Cups in history is the 1958 tournament which was held in Sweden and saw the debut of a 17 year old boy named Pele.

Brazil dominated the event with Pele bursting onto the world scene with some great displays. He would score the winner in the quarter-final, a hat-trick in the semi-final and another two goals in the final against Sweden, to propel himself into stardom. Pele would go onto become a World Cup legend and play for Brazil in four World Cups and winning the trophy three more times.

The 1986 Tournament in Mexico would become famous for one man and one man only and that was the mercurial Diego Armando Maradona who would lead Argentina to World Cup glory. Maradona became infamous during the 1986 quarter-final against England when he scored the 'hand of god' goal where he literally punched the ball into the net and to the worlds amazement the referee allowed the goal to stand. Just moments later Maradona then weaved his way from inside his own half to score one of the greatest goals ever scored.

These two events summed up Maradona perfectly and they would go onto to lift the trophy, defeating West Germany in the Final.

More recently in 2006 it was Italy who once again took the trophy after defeating France on penalties in the Final. The game is famous for Zinedine Zidane getting sent off for an outrageous head butt on Italian centre-half Marco Materazzi. Zidane, who was perhaps the best player of his generation was playing his last ever game of football before retiring to add to the drama in what was a relatively poor match.