The History of the World Cup

Every four years the World comes to a standstill. This is the one time in life when your boss does not mind if you are late, your wife loves you because you are always home and you really do not care about those bills. Somewhere in the world twenty-two men in a stadium have the world under their spell. Everyone in the world is watching the FIFA World Cup.

We owe all this madness to two Frenchmen, Jules Rimet and Henri Delaunay who for years had fought the Olympic committee to organise one major championship for footballers. In 1930, Uruguay the two time reigning Olympic champions and celebrating the countries centenary hosted the first FIFA World Cup.

Uruguay made good the investment they had made in a new stadium and paying all the travel expenses for the teams that were involved by being the first world cup champions. The cup was to be held every four years after with Italy and France hosting the subsequent world cups.

Only World War two stopped the games for 12 years. When it resumed in 1950, the world came to find out about the dreaded Brazilians. However, it was not until 1958 when a young 17 year old Brazilian named Pele completely changed football history. His goal scored in the match against Sweden is still ranked as one of the best goals in football history.

The World Cup was mainly staged either in Europe or South America but the South Korea and Japan hosted it in 2002 to show that the football had matured to be the single most played sport in the world. With South Africa hosting the 2010 world cup, this axis has surely been broken.

We can not talk about the world cup without mentioning some of the best footballers who have ever graced its stage. It is the dream of everyone who has played football to raise the World Cup in victory. When the captain of a team raises the cup, his whole country and all their supporters feel they are the ones lifting it. Over the years the roster of footballers who have graced this stage are the who’s who in soccer hall of fame. From Pele, Maradona, Just Fontaine, Gerd Muller, Paolo Rossi, Garrincha, Zinedine Zidane just to name a few. It is a glorious event to behold

The history of the world cup has its own surprises. The nine member Cameroon team beating the world champions 1-0 in 1990, North Korea beating Italy 1-0 in 1966, Algeria beating West Germany 2-1 in 1982 are just a few. The world cup is made up of goals and one can not mention the best goals in the world cup without mentioning Diego Maradona’s goal against England in 1986 scored just minutes after he had scored probably the most infamous “hand of God goal”.

Controversies are not far in this game including the head butt by Zinedine Zidane in his final match. The championships have survived all the controversies, heartaches, disappointments, fights, joy and all human emotions to become the biggest spectacle in the world.

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