Greatest World Cup matches: Brazil-Uruguay (1950)

The World Cup of 1950 in Brazil was the only one ever that was played without a final. Instead, all four teams in the final round (Brazil, Uruguay, Spain and Sweden) played in a final group, where the winner would become world champion. In spite of this, the group went into what was practically a final when Brazil faced Uruguay in Maracana in the last group match on the largest football stadium in the world, the mighty Maracaná in Rio de Janeiro, that had been built specially for this tournament.
Before this final match Uruguay had tied Spain 2-2, and barely defeated Sweden by 3-2. In the meantime, the Brazilians had been awesome: Spain had been defeated by 6-1 and Sweden had been trashed by 7-1 in a match where the later top-scorer of the tournament, Ademir, scored four goals.
In front of 200,000 spectators in Marcaná against their tiny neighbors of Uruguay, Brazil needed only a tie to proclaim themselves as world champions for the first time ever, and nobody really doubted that it would happen: more than 500,000 shirts with the inscription “Brazil campeón 1950” had already been sold; gold watches and limousines reserved for the Brazilian players, parties prepared, the newspapers had already prepared their celebratory front-pages, and the Brazilian national bank had even printed a commemorative coin with the triumph. The security went beyond Brazil, as the president of FIFA, Jules Rimet, had prepared a speech in Portuguese to congratulate the victors.
At the same time, the Brazilians had been so superior before the match that even the leaders of the Uruguayan Football Federation urged their players to play to limit the loss, and that they had done what they could by reaching the final.
This greatly angered the great captain of the Uruguayan side, Obdulio Varela, who urged his companions to do their best and ignore the Uruguayan leaders, whom he refused to talk to after the match that led to a very unlikely result: Uruguay won, and became world champion for the second time.
The game had otherwise started as had been anticipated for the Brazilians: they pressed massively, but were nevertheless unable to score against the Uruguayan and Peñarol goalkeeper Roque Maspoli. Still, Uruguay was barely able to attack, and 0-0 at halftime still made Brazil world champion.
Early in the second half all of Brazil exploded in the expected celebration as Friaca brought Brazil ahead. The legend tells that the Uruguayan captain Obdulio Varela picked up the ball, and spent many minutes protesting an unexistant off-side. He later recalled that he had done it on purpose, as they needed to cool down the match against the Brazilian “football machine”. “If not they would overrun us”, he added.
From that moment the Uruguayans started attacking: they had nothing to lose in the inferno of Maracaná.
In the 66th minute the outstanding tehcnical player Alcides Ghiggia, who a years later captained AS Roma in Italy, received the ball on the right hand side and spectacularly got around a defender to make a perfect pass to the Peñarol and later AC Milan striker Juan Alberto Schiaffino, who got in front of the defender to make the equalizer for Uruguay.
The stadium was dead quiet, in spite of the fact that Brazil still had all the odds with them. Obdulio Varela nevertheless recalled “…I saw our rivals who were pale and insecure and I told my comrades that these guys can never win, that we had passed our nerves over to them. The rest was easy.”
Eleven minutes before the end of the match Alcides Ghiggia again outplayed a defender and made a shot at the nearest corner which went in and brought Uruguay ahead 2-1. The Brazilian goalkeeper Moacir Barbosa looked somewhat duped, and was blamed for the goal for many years after. In fact, he was largely despised in all of Brazil, and in an interview in 2000 he bitterly said "The maximum punishment in Brazil is 30 years imprisonment, but I have been paying, for something I am not even responsible for, by now for 50 years.”
Brazil tried to attack during the last ten minutes of the match, but without belief against the Uruguayans who had done what nobody believed to be possible.
As the game ended silence descended upon the Maracaná. People cried, and many suicides were reported in Brazil on the following days. The ceremony to hand over the trophy didn’t take place, and instead Jules Rimet handed Obdulio Varela the trophy amid the chaos of the pitch.
The Uruguayan players didn’t leave the stadium for four hours, afraid of what could happen to them. However, many of the players of the team later recalled that there was no reason for this: when they went out into the streets of Rio de Janeiro the following day, they said that they were only met with congratulatory remarks by Brazilians, who nevertheless didn’t show the same grace towards their own players, who had to live the rest of their lives with this defeat.
This was Brazil’s most painful defeat ever. To this day, Brazil, the mightiest footballing nation of all time, is still the only world champion that has never won the title on its own soil.For Uruguay, this is their greatest victory ever.

Match Stats:

• 16th July, 1950, Estadio Maracana, Rio de Janeiro
• Attendance: 200,000
• Referee: George Reader (England)

Uruguay-Brazil 2-1
Goals: 0-1 Friaca (47), 1-1 Schiaffino (66), 2-1 Ghiggia (79)

Teams:
Uruguay: Maspoli, M. Gonzalez, Tejera, Gambetta, Varela, Andrade, Ghiggia, Perez, Miguez, Schiaffino, Moran
Brazil: Barbosa, Augusto, Juvanal, Bauer, Danilo, Bigode, Friaca, Zizinho, Ademir, Jair, Chico

Greatest World Cup matches: USA-England (1950)

England, the home of football, had refused to participate in the first World Cups of the 1930s due to disagreements on their qualification as part of the British championship (where they competed against Scotland, Wales and Ireland) as well as some arrogance that England was the “King of football” anyway.
So there were big expectations as England went to their first World Cup with a team that was undoubtedly one of the best of the world at the time, and entered the tournament as one of the favourites to take the title. Their team counted many stars of the top English clubs, as well as the notable Stanley Matthews, who was considered the best player in the world at the time.
England started the tournament by defeating Chile 2-0, and confident ahead of the game against the US, the team selector (who was oddly not the same as the coach, Arthur Winterbottom), Arthur Drewry, decided not to select Stanley Matthews for the match in Belo Horizonte. Still, the English team was awesome, with players such as such as Roy Bentley, Stanley Mortensen, Billy Wright, Alf Ramsey and Tom Finney.
The US was a completely unknown side, composed wholly of amateurs and part-time players, three of them who didn’t even have US citizenship (the US rules at the times allowed this). The game of soccer had no interest in the US, and only one US journalist was present at Belo Horizonte for a match whose result everyone took for granted. Harry Keogh, a surviving players from the US 1950 side has said how they were just expecting to fight to limit their defeat: "We would have been happy with a 2-0 loss. In our wildest dreams we didn't think we'd ever win. We just thought, `Well do the best we can and hope for a good result'."
This was in line with the first match that the US had played against Spain, who although not as strong as England, had many difficulties in defeating the US side by 3-1, being held at 0-1 until ten minutes before the end of the match.
Still, aboslutely nobody thought that the US stood a chance as the two teams ran on the pitch in Belo Horizonte, where 10,000 Brazilians were there mainly to see the English stars, who had taken a day off before the match.
England started like they had to by attacking the US mercilessly. Within half and hour minutes they many clear shots on goal, with two of them hitting the post and one the crossbar, but unable to convert against the outstanding US goalkeeper, Frank Borghi, an ex-baseball player who had excellent reflexes and strong arms, but avoided kicking the ball.
The Americans were nevertheless fighting hard, but unable to get on the offense, when suddenly in the 38th minute of the match, the US spectacularly scored on one of their first chances: Walter Bahr made a long cross from the right into the far post in the English area. The English goalkeeper Bert Williams jumped for the ball, but Joe Gaetjens came across and deflected the ball into the English goal to give the US a surprising lead.
The Brazilian spectators, supporting the American underedogs, exploded in support of the Americans, who seemed to have renewed strength and faith in their abilities as they entered the second half. They even managed to create a few more chances on counter-attacks as the English attacked more.
In the last ten minutes of the match England had a great chance as Stanley Mortensen was brought down by Charlie Colombo at the edge of the penalty area. On the following free-kick Frank Borghi made a spectacular save on a header by Jimmy Mullen who was sure the ball would be going in.
As the game ended, the Brazilian spectactors ran unto the pitch to carry the vioctorious Americans as the English watched incredulously on at their defeat. Some English newspapers who received the result by telegraph believed that the result of 0-1 was a typing error, and instead publicized the result of 10-1 for England, which before the match would perhaps not have been unbelievable.
A humbled English side subsequently lost their last match to Spain, and were out of their first World Cup.
The heroes of the US travelled home to their normal jobs to a country that in 1950 barely noticed the prowess. In later years, as the sport has grown in the US, many of the players have been homaged, and even a book, “The Game of their Lives”, by Geoffrey Douglas, was also made into a film in 2005. There have been many upsets in World Cup history, but this is surely the biggest. Its immensity may not be properly understood by many today, but is similar to the Andorra defeating Spain in a World Cup match. It is a one in a million event, and it happened in 1950.

Matchs Stats:

• 29th June, 1950, Estádio Independência, Belo Horizonte
• Attendance: 10,000
• Referee: Datilo (Italy)

USA-England 1-0
Goals: Gaetjaens (38)

Teams:
USA: Borghi; Keough, Maca, Bahr, McIlvenny, Wallace, Colombo, Pariani, Gaetjaens, J. Souza, E. Souza

England: Williams; Ramsey, Aston, Wright, Hughes, Dickinson, Finney, Mullen, Mannion, Bentley, Mortensen