History of the FIFA World Cup

Since then, the World Cup has experienced successive expansions and format remodeling, with its current 48-team final tournament preceded by a two-year qualifying process involving over 200 teams worldwide.

There was an attempt made by FIFA to organize an international football tournament between nations outside of the Olympic framework in 1906 and this took place in Switzerland.

In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognize the Olympic tournament as a "world football championship for amateurs",[13] and took responsibility for organizing the event.

The 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the programme because the sport was not popular in the United States.

During World War II, FIFA struggled to keep itself afloat, and it had no financial or personnel resources with which to plan a peacetime tournament for when hostilities ended.

Uruguay were surprise victors over hosts Brazil with a final score of 2–1 (the game would later be known as Maracanazo), and became champions for the second time.

Wales was able to take advantage of a situation in the Africa/Asia zone, where the number of withdrawals would give Israel qualification without having played a single qualifying match.

Two years before the tournament, an earthquake struck, the largest ever recorded at 9.5 magnitude, prompting officials to rebuild due to major damage to infrastructure.

Italy were the eventual 4–3 winners, but were defeated 1–4 in the final by Brazil, who became the first nation to win three World Cups, and were awarded the Jules Rimet trophy permanently for their achievement.

The 1978 World Cup was held in Argentina, causing controversy as a military coup had taken place in the country two years earlier.

Also during the group stages, Hungary beat El Salvador 10–1, which has been the only occasion to this day that a team scored ten goals in a World Cup match.

[26] The group match between West Germany and Austria later resulted in a change of World Cup rules, after both teams visibly aimed to keep the qualification ensuring 1–0 scoreline over 80 minutes.

The semi-final between West Germany and France saw another controversy when German keeper Harald Schumacher's challenge took out Patrick Battiston, with the score at 1–1.

The final was won by Italy, making Italian captain Dino Zoff the oldest player to win the World Cup.

Italian striker Paolo Rossi, who was making his comeback after a match-fixing scandal and the ensuing ban, was the tournament top-scorer with six goals including a classic hat-trick against Brazil.

Mexico was unable to compete in the 1990 World Cup preliminary competition as a result of a two-year ban for age fraud at a youth championship, an incident known as Los Cachirules.

An unpleasant episode marred the South American qualifiers: during the match between Brazil and Chile, a firework landed close to the Chilean goalkeeper Roberto Rojas, who then feigned injury by cutting his own face with a razor blade he had hidden in his glove.

Japan narrowly missed a ticket to the World Cup after drawing with Iraq in the final match of the qualification round, remembered by fans as the "Agony of Doha".

Russia (taking the place of the Soviet Union which had disintegrated over 1990 and 1991) played their first World Cup competition as a new country, with Greece, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia as the other first-timers.

Oleg Salenko of Russia became the first player to score five goals in a single World Cup finals game in his country's 6–1 group stage win over Cameroon.

In the finals, the second round match between France and Paraguay witnessed the first golden goal in World Cup history, as Laurent Blanc scored to give the hosts a 1–0 victory.

Hosts France won the tournament by beating Brazil 3–0 in the final, with Brazilian star player Ronaldo being controversially capped for the match after having had a seizure hours before kickoff.

Togolese Souleymane Mamam became the youngest player ever to take to a World Cup preliminary game field at 13 years, 310 days in Lomé in May 2001.

The Turkish Hakan Sukur made history by scoring the earliest World Cup goal of all time against South Korea at only 11 seconds.

However, the final match-up was between Italy and France, in which French captain Zinedine Zidane was sent off in the last ten minutes of extra time for a headbutt to the chest of Italian central defender Marco Materazzi.

Though considered as one of the tournament favorites, the Spaniards won the cup despite scoring only eight goals in seven games and losing their opening match to Switzerland.

In a final which saw a record number of yellow cards distributed and what some considered violent play from the Dutch side, the ten-man Netherlands squad were defeated 1–0 in the 116th minute of extra time by an Andrés Iniesta goal.

Previous tournament runners-up Croatia won the bronze medal match, beating Morocco 2–1, whose fourth-place finish was the furthest of any African nation at the World Cup.

As of the 1986 World Cup, all final group games must be held simultaneously, a rule instituted by FIFA to minimize collusion amongst teams requiring a certain result to advance.

Paraguay advanced to the knockout phase as group runner-up and was defeated by host nation and eventual champion France in the round of 16.