Overly defensive tactics of many teams led to the introduction of the back-pass rule in 1992 and three points for a win instead of two, both of which have encouraged attacking play, increasing spectator interest in the sport.

[6] The 1990 World Cup stands as one of the most watched events in television history, garnering an estimated 26.69 billion non-unique viewers over the course of the tournament.

[10] The Soviet state media responded by accusing FIFA of political corruption, and blamed the organization's American sponsors (chiefly Coca-Cola) for influencing the decision.

Of the twelve stadiums used, only four (San Siro, Luigi Ferraris, Comunale of Florence, and Renato Dall'Ara) had been used for the 1934 FIFA World Cup, while Trieste was the only host city from 1934 not to be selected for the 1990 tournament.

The ten existing venues all underwent extensive programmes of improvements in preparation for the tournament, forcing many of the club tenants of the stadia to move to temporary homes.

The Italian authorities' presence proved to be justified as there were several riots during the time England were playing their matches in Cagliari, leading to a number of injuries, arrests and even deportations.

Two goalkeepers – Argentina's Ángel Comizzo and England's Dave Beasant – entered their respective squads during the tournament to replace injured players (Nery Pumpido and David Seaman).

Consequently, one of the three qualified nations who were eliminated in the 1986 quarter-finals (Brazil, England or Spain), should not be seeded based on the secondary sporting criteria - looking at their 1982 FIFA World Cup results.

If only considering the results of the 1978 event, it could on the other hand have been counter argued, that Spain by their group stage performance and Netherlands by their silver medal accomplishment, should have been seeded rather than England and Belgium who both had failed to qualify.

However, after having received objections from Italian officials, FIFA opted to slightly change their special Pot 2 rule, during the last 24 hours ahead of the draw.

[32] The event also featured the official mascot of this World Cup, Ciao, a stick figure player with a football head and an Italian tricolor body that formed the word "ITALIA" when deconstructed and reconstructed.

Losing finalists Argentina were prime examples of this trend of cautious defensive play, choosing to do so because 3 of their best players were left off the squad due to injury.

[1] Largely as a result of this trend IFAB introduced the back-pass rule in time for the 1994 tournament to make it harder for teams to time-waste by repeatedly passing the ball back for their goalkeepers to pick up.

[1] They opened the tournament with a shock victory over reigning champions Argentina, before topping the group ahead of them, Romania and European Championship runners-up the Soviet Union.

Their success was fired by the goals of Roger Milla, a 38-year-old forward who came out of international retirement to join the national squad at the last moment after a personal request from Cameroonian President Paul Biya.

Typical of a World Cup staged in Europe, the matches all started at either 5:00 or 9:00 in the evening; this allowed for the games to avoid being played in the heat of an Italian summer, which would soar past 86F (30C) all over Italy.

Argentina lost their veteran goalkeeper, Nery Pumpido, to a broken leg during their victory over the USSR: his replacement, Sergio Goycochea, proved to be one of the stars of their tournament.

For the second World Cup in succession, however, England lost their captain Bryan Robson to an injury which put him out of the tournament, just over halfway through their second match.

England's victory over Egypt, thanks to a 58th-minute goal from Mark Wright, put them top of the group: in the other match, Gullit gave the Netherlands the lead against Ireland, but Niall Quinn scored a second-half equalizer and the two teams finished in second and third, still with identical records.

All times listed are local (UTC+2) Two of the ties—Brazil vs Argentina and Italy vs Uruguay—pitted former champion countries against each other and West Germany met the Netherlands in a rematch of the 1974 World Cup Final.

The all-South American game was won for Argentina by a goal from Claudio Caniggia with 10 minutes remaining after a run through the Brazilian defence by Diego Maradona and a strong performance from their goalkeeper Sergio Goycochea.

A Ronald Koeman penalty for the Netherlands in the 89th minute narrowed the score to 2–1 but the Germans saw the game out to gain some revenge for their exit to the Dutch in the previous European Championship.

Meanwhile, in Cameroon v. Colombia, Roger Milla was introduced as a second-half substitute with the game goalless, eventually breaking the deadlock midway in extra time.

England were the final qualifier against Belgium, as midfielder David Platt's swivelling volley broke the stalemate with the game moments away from a penalty shoot-out.

A second Argentine miss (by Pedro Troglio) looked to have eliminated them until goalkeeper Sergio Goycochea – playing because first choice Nery Pumpido broke his leg during the group stage – rescued his side by stopping the Yugoslavs' final two spotkicks.

'Toto' Schillaci scored yet again to put Italy ahead in the 17th minute, but Claudio Caniggia equalised midway through the second half, breaking Walter Zenga's clean sheet streak throughout the tournament.

Roberto Baggio opened the scoring after a mistake by England's goalkeeper Peter Shilton, in his final game before international retirement, presented a simple opportunity.

Argentina, weakened by suspension and injury, offered little attacking threat throughout a contest dominated by the West Germans, who struggled to create many clear goalscoring opportunities.

The only goal of the contest arrived in the 85th minute when Mexican referee Edgardo Codesal awarded a dubious penalty to West Germany, after a foul on Rudi Völler by Roberto Sensini leading to Argentinian protests.

[45] After the tournament, FIFA published a ranking of all teams that competed in the 1990 World Cup finals based on progress in the competition, overall results and quality of the opposition.