1950 FIFA World Cup

• 1. Introduction

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  The 1950 FIFA World Cup's decisive match was played at the Estádio do Maracanã on the 16th of July. The official attendance was 199,954. Brazil needed only a draw against Uruguay to win the trophy. What happened next entered football history as the Maracanazo. Brazil lost. Moacyr Barbosa, the Brazilian goalkeeper, spent the rest of his life defined by that defeat. In 2000, shortly before his death, he described what it had meant. "The maximum punishment in Brazil is 30 years' imprisonment," he said, "but I have been paying, for something I am not even responsible for, by now, for 50 years."

  The 1950 World Cup was only the fourth edition of the competition, and the first in twelve years. The 1942 and 1946 editions had both been cancelled by World War II. When the tournament finally returned, it did so incomplete. Only thirteen nations competed. Dozens of countries had withdrawn or refused. How FIFA convinced Brazil to host the competition at all is one thread. Why so many nations stayed away is another. What gave Uruguay the ability to deliver football's most famous shock is the third.

• 2. Rebuilding the Tournament

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  By 1946, the World Cup had been absent for eight years. The previous edition had been staged in 1938. Much of Europe now lay in ruins. National governments across the continent faced the urgent work of reconstruction. When FIFA sought a host for a revived competition, the response was close to silence. Few countries were willing to devote scarce resources to a sporting tournament.

  At the 1946 FIFA Congress, the Brazilian Football Confederation offered to stage the event on one condition. The tournament had to take place in 1950, not the 1949 date that FIFA had originally proposed. Brazil and Germany had been the leading candidates to host the cancelled 1942 edition. The two preceding tournaments, held in 1934 and 1938, had both taken place in Europe. Football historians broadly agree that the 1942 edition would have been awarded to South America. Brazil's proposal closely echoed that earlier unplayed bid, and FIFA accepted it quickly.

  To present itself as a modern nation, Brazil invested the equivalent of 290 million US dollars in new stadium construction. The Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, purpose-built for the competition, cost around 275 million of that alone. It was designed with a capacity of 200,000. The smallest venue, the Ilha do Retiro in far-away Recife, held just 20,000. The Pacaembu in São Paulo, the second-largest, seated 60,000. Getting teams to fill those seats would prove nearly as difficult as constructing the venues themselves.

• 3. The Absent Nations

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  Italy had won the World Cup in both 1934 and 1938, making them the reigning two-time champions. The Superga air disaster, one year before the tournament, had killed most of Italy's first-team players. FIFA eventually persuaded the Italians to participate. Unwilling to fly, the squad made the crossing to South America by boat.

  The Home Nations had rejoined FIFA four years before the tournament, ending seventeen years of self-imposed exile. Their qualifying route was the 1949-50 British Home Championship, with the top two finishers offered places in Brazil. England finished first and Scotland second. George Graham, chairman of the Scottish Football Association, had publicly declared that Scotland would travel to Brazil only as winners of the Home Championship. The Scottish captain George Young, encouraged by England captain Billy Wright, pleaded with the association to reconsider. Graham refused. Scotland withdrew.

  Turkey was invited to fill the gap but withdrew, citing the cost of travelling to South America. France accepted an invitation, then pulled out over concerns about the distances its team would face between group venues. France's withdrawal, combined with Belgium's exit before qualifying and Romania's elimination, had an unexpected consequence for Brazil. Brazil became the only nation to have competed at every World Cup since the inaugural competition in 1930. Portugal and the Republic of Ireland declined invitations as well. Argentina withdrew from qualifying in a dispute with the Brazilian Football Confederation. Ecuador and Peru also withdrew after the qualifying draw.

  In Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Burma all withdrew, leaving India to qualify by default. India's federation then decided against travelling. The All India Football Federation cited travel costs, limited preparation time, and difficulties selecting the squad. FIFA had agreed to cover most of the travel expenses. Indian captain Sailen Manna later denied that a FIFA rule banning barefoot play had played any part in the decision. Sports journalist Jaydeep Basu argued the real reason was that the federation lacked confidence in its own players.

  Yugoslavia, which had distanced itself from the Soviet Union in 1948, was the only Eastern European nation to take part. Most countries behind the Iron Curtain, including 1934 finalists Czechoslovakia and 1938 finalists Hungary, chose to stay away. England would be making its first appearance at a World Cup.

• 4. A Format Without a Final

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  The Brazilian organisers proposed a playing format that would guarantee thirty games instead of the sixteen produced by a straight knockout structure. The Brazilians argued that sixteen games could not justify the cost of the stadiums they had built. Their proposal replaced the traditional one-off final with a four-team round-robin group stage. Whichever team finished at the top of that group would be named champion. The new structure also guaranteed each competing team a minimum of three matches, giving European nations more reason to travel. FIFA initially resisted, preferring the familiar knockout format. Brazil's organisers responded by threatening to withdraw as host unless the new format was adopted. FIFA agreed.

  In each match, teams received two points for a win and one point for a draw. The winner of each of the four first-round groups would advance to the final four-team round-robin. The 1950 tournament remains the only World Cup not decided by a one-match final.

  Brazil was allowed to play two of its three first-round group matches in Rio de Janeiro, with the third in the nearby city of São Paulo. Every other team played under a different arrangement. The entire first-round draw had no geographic basis. Teams from the same region were not kept together, which meant many sides had to travel considerable distances between fixtures.

  Once the first round concluded, four nations would meet in the deciding group. The results along the way had already begun producing some of the competition's biggest surprises.

• 5. Group Stage Shocks

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  A combined Great Britain team had recently beaten the rest of Europe 6-1 in an exhibition match. England went to Brazil as one of the tournament favourites. Their results in Brazil told a different story. England lost 1-0 to the United States and then 1-0 to Spain, and went home without reaching the final round.

  Italy exited at the same stage. A 3-2 defeat by Sweden in their opening match set the tone. Italy became the first defending World Cup champion in history to be eliminated in the first round.

  A lighter moment came in Group 1, when Switzerland and Mexico met for their final group match. Both teams had arrived in Brazil carrying only their red kits. The Brazilian Football Confederation tossed a coin to decide who would have to change. It was only the second time in World Cup history that a team had faced this situation. The first had been in 1934, when Austria and Germany both arrived with white kits and Austria borrowed blue shirts from the Italian club Napoli. In 1950, Mexico won the toss but waived the right as a friendly gesture, allowing Switzerland to wear their own red shirts. Mexico borrowed strips from a local club, Esporte Clube Cruzeiro of Porto Alegre. The borrowed shirts had vertical blue and white stripes.

  Brazil qualified for the four-team final round and opened it with two emphatic victories. They beat Sweden 7-1 and Spain 6-1. Across the full tournament, Brazil scored 23 goals and conceded just four. Their striker Ademir finished as the competition's top scorer, with nine goals.

  The eight matches held at the Maracanã, including five featuring the host nation, pushed the average attendance to nearly 61,000 per game. That record stood until the 1994 World Cup.

• 6. The Maracanazo

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  The Copa Río Branco, played in Brazil just two months before the World Cup, had given both sides a recent measure of each other. Three matches were contested in that series. Uruguay won one 4-3; Brazil took the other two, 2-1 and 1-0. The gap in quality between the sides was not enormous. Unlike Sweden and Spain, Uruguay had experience competing in large South American stadiums.

  Friaça put Brazil ahead in the second minute of the second half. Victory, and the trophy, seemed assured. Uruguay equalised, and then, with just over eleven minutes left to play, Alcides Ghiggia scored from a narrow angle. Uruguay won 2-1.

  Ghiggia scored in every match of the tournament. That made him only the second player in World Cup history to achieve the feat. The first was György Sárosi of Hungary, who scored in all his appearances at the 1934 and 1938 tournaments.

  The 1950 tournament also introduced a new official name for the trophy. It was the first World Cup to call the prize the Jules Rimet Cup, marking the 25th anniversary of Jules Rimet's presidency of FIFA.

  The last surviving player from the 1950 FIFA World Cup, Mexico's Antonio Carbajal, died in 2023.