1934 FIFA World Cup

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The 1934 FIFA World Cup played its final in Rome's Stadium of the National Fascist Party. The name of the venue told you everything about what was at stake. Italy's government had assigned a budget of Lire 3.5 million to the competition. Benito Mussolini needed a spectacle, and football was the instrument he chose. Reigning champions Uruguay refused to come. The British Home Nations dismissed the tournament outright. And yet sixteen nations traveled to Italian cities that May and June for only the second World Cup ever held. The question that still shadows this tournament is plain: was Italy's championship won on the pitch, or arranged before a ball was kicked? In Rome, just three days before the opening round, the United States defeated Mexico in a single match to claim the last qualifying spot.

• 2. Who Stayed Home

  ›

  Charles Sutcliffe, a Football Association committee member, called the 1934 World Cup "a joke." He went further: "the national associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have quite enough to do in their own International Championship which seems to me a far better World Championship than the one to be staged in Rome." FIFA had offered England and Scotland direct entry without qualifying. Both declined. The Home Nations were in a period of self-imposed exile from their international governing body.

  Uruguay pointed to 1930 as its grievance. The Uruguayans had hosted the inaugural World Cup and watched several European nations decline the journey to South America. The boycott of Italy was a direct response to that refusal.

  Thirty-two nations entered qualifying, the first time any World Cup had required teams to earn their places. Europe claimed twelve of the available spots; three went to the Americas and one to Africa or Asia, including Turkey. Withdrawals by Chile and Peru handed Argentina and Brazil their qualifying berths without a match played. Italy, uniquely among World Cup hosts, was still required to qualify; that has not happened since. Nine of the twelve European qualifiers were appearing at a World Cup for the first time. Egypt, the final qualifier from outside Europe, would not return to a World Cup finals until Italy hosted the competition a second time, in 1990.

• 3. Mussolini's Stage

  ›

  On the 9th of October 1932, FIFA's executive committee chose Italy as host at a meeting in Stockholm. The committee had convened eight times before reaching that decision, and the Italian bid defeated one from Sweden. There was no ballot of the wider membership; the executive committee decided alone.

  Mussolini's name attached itself to multiple accusations throughout the tournament. He was said to have personally selected the referees for Italy's matches. The Italian government was accused of rearranging the event's logistics to serve fascist propaganda. These accusations were never conclusively resolved. Italy has always maintained that its title was earned.

  Even the match ball carried an Italian signature. The Federale 102, manufactured in Italy, was the official ball for every game. The physical landscape of the competition was Italian from the venues to the equipment used on the pitch.

  Whatever the truth behind the accusations, the crowds were real. Foreign attendance was higher than at any previous football tournament, with 7,000 supporters traveling from the Netherlands and 10,000 each from Austria and Switzerland.

• 4. The Knockout Road

  ›

  Italy opened the tournament against the United States and won 7-1. The New York Times correspondent wrote that only the goalkeeping of Julius Hjulian of Chicago had kept the score as low as it was. The group stage used at the 1930 World Cup had been abandoned. Every match was now a knockout, with extra time if needed and a replay the following day if still tied.

  Argentina arrived with internal problems that left their squad without a single member of the side that had reached the 1930 final. The amateur replacement was knocked out by Sweden in Bologna, where Sven Jonasson and Knut Kroon scored in a 3-2 Swedish victory. Spain removed Brazil 3-1.

  Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland were the eight quarter-finalists. For the only time in World Cup history, all four non-European teams had been eliminated after the opening round.

  Italy and Spain produced the tournament's most violent encounter. Their quarter-final drew 1-1 after extra time, the first replayed match in the competition's history. Spain's goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora was injured so severely in the first game that he could not appear in the replay. Italy's Mario Pizziolo had his leg broken; he never played for the national team again. Italy won the replay 1-0, with at least three Spanish players leaving the field hurt.

  Czechoslovakia reached the final by beating Germany 3-1 in the semi-finals, on the back of Oldrich Nejedly's five-goal campaign through the tournament.

• 5. The Final

  ›

  With 80 minutes played, Czechoslovakia held a 1-0 lead. Italy scored to level before the final whistle and added a second goal in extra time. The 2-1 result made Italy the second World Cup champions and the first from Europe.

  Abdulrahman Fawzi of Egypt scored twice across the tournament, part of a total of 70 goals spread across 45 scorers. Not one of the 70 was recorded as an own goal.

  Italy's national squad won the Olympic football tournament of 1936, hosted by Germany, and then retained the World Cup in France in 1938. Those subsequent victories gave Italy's defenders of the 1934 title their most durable argument.

  In 1986, FIFA published a retrospective report ranking every team in every World Cup held to that point. Italy topped the 1934 table, with Czechoslovakia second, and the 1986 report remains FIFA's last official word on those standings.