The Azzurri included players such as Alfredo Foni, Pietro Rava and Ugo Locatelli, who would all play in their World Cup victory in Paris two years later.

That they eventually prevailed was due to two incidents: the first when their bespectacled forward Frossi scored, the second when Weingartner, the German referee, was literally restrained from sending off Archille Piccini after fouling two Americans.

The same day at the Poststadion, Berlin before a crowd that included Goebbels, Göring, Hess and Hitler, Germany were knocked out 2–0 by Norway.

Germany lost 2–0 and Hitler, who had never seen a football match before, and had originally planned to watch the rowing, left early in a huff.

[7][8] As a sign of protest against these actions, which the Peruvians deemed as insulting and discriminatory, the complete Olympic delegations of Peru and Colombia left Germany.

[8] In Peru, angry crowds protested against the decisions of the Olympic Committee by tearing down an Olympic flag, throwing stones at the German consulate, refusing to load German vessels in the docks of Callao, and listening to inflammatory speeches, which included President Oscar Benavides Larrea's mention of "the crafty Berlin decision.

"[8] To this day, it is not known with certainty what exactly happened at Germany, but it is popularly believed that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi authorities might have had some involvement in this situation.

[10] In the last of the quarter-finals Poland, assisted by their forward, Hubert Gad, played out a nine-goal party to defeat the British side; at one time they were 5–1 to the better.