February 28 – World Cup 1930, RSVP

IF only it was still as easy as it was to qualify for major tournaments as it was in 1930, then England fans would have something to do this summer. Way back then there was none of two-year this qualification lark ending with lots of bad umbrella puns, as FIFA simply invited the football world along. Today in 1930 was the deadline day for the first ever World Cup, with eight teams getting their forms in on time.

Eighty years ago international football wasn’t the beast that it is today. The biggest international tournament was the Olympics, which FIFA recognised as a “world football championship for amateurs”, but when Los Angeles decided that they wouldn’t be featuring any soccer in the 1932 games plans were afoot to create a separate competition to establish the true world champions.

Uruguay beat out Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain to host Jules Rimet’s brainchild and the thought of two weeks at sea put off much of Europe from attending. England were still of the belief that no-one was as good at their national sport as they were so didn’t lower themselves to applying and rejected the invitation in November 1929.

The only nations that originally applied were Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, the USA and Mexico, leaving FIFA with a job on their hands recruiting some more teams from further afield to make the tournament more credible. Eventually FIFA and the Uruguayan government would offer to pay travel expenses for any European teams that would be willing to make the trip. This was enough to convince Yugoslavia, Romania, France and Belgium to pack their bags and the thirteen-team tournament was ready to begin. Egypt could’ve changed the course of football history by repeating their 4th-place Olympic from 1928, but they missed the boat. Rubbish.

Montevideo hosted all eighteen matches in three venues, with the final being contested between the same sides as the 1928 Olympic final, hosts Uruguay and Argentina. 93,000 were present in the Estadio Centenario on July 30th to see the Uruguayans come back from a 2-1 win half-time deficit and win 4-2. Meet the gang and watch some grainy footage below and head over here tomorrow for more tales of silverware.