Greatest World Cup matches: Hungary-Uruguay (1954)

The 1954 World Cup in Switzerland is still the one where most goals have been scored per match. This was not only an expression of poor defenses, but also for the fact that there were some extraordinarily offensive teams participating in the tournament.
Two of these strong attacking teams were to face one another in the semifinal: Hungary and the defending world champions of Uruguay.
The South Americans had arrived to Switzerland with an experienced team that was, if anything, stronger than the side that had won in Marcaná four year ago. In the first round the Uruguayans had destroyed Scotland 7-0, defeated Czechoslovakia 2-0, and in the quarterfinal played an extraordinary game against the always-strong English, and won 4-2.
At this point, before the semi-final, Uruguay could in fact bring forth the fact that they had never lost a match in a World Cup!
Hungary was nevertheless not going to be an easy match. The Central Europeans were undefeated in nearly four years, and had even been the first team to defeat England at Wembley, 6-3 in 1953.
The team was indeed the envy of the entire world.
In their first three matches the Hungarians had scored a staggering 21 goals, winning 8-3 against West Germany, 9-0 against South Corea, and 4-2 against Brazil in a match that came to be known as the “Battle of Bern”, one of the most disgraceful matches in World Cup history.
To this day, Hungary remains the team that has had the highest goal-scoring average in a World Cup, and Sándor Koscis, the top-scorer of the tournament with 11 goals, the most prolific player per match with 2.2 goals!
The match between Uruguay and Hungary was to be an hommage to the game, with many at the time calling it the best match in history. It was undoubtfully the match that any football-fan would have preferred as the final. And this was even the case as two of the stars were unable to play the final: Hungary’s playmaker Ferenc Puskas and the Uruguayans legendary captain Obdulio Varela were both out due to injury.
The Hungarians started attacking feverishly, and seemed they would overrun the Uruguayans. After 13 minutes this bore fruit as Zoltán Czibor received a header from Sándor Kocsis in the area, and cooly placed the ball in the left-hand corner.
After 1-0 at half-time, in the first minute of the second half Hungary seemed to have sealed off the match when the three-time goalscorer from Wembley, Nándor Hidegkuti, scored on a spectacular diving header.
However, the Uruguayans had learned never to give up, and the legendary Juan Alberto Schiaffino on a confident side, that managed to put pressure on the Hungarians. Only fifteen minutes before the end Juan Hohberg got space in between two defenders on a pass by Schiaffino and scored.
Uruguay was now full of confidence while the Hungarian masters looked shaky. Four minutes before the end Juan Hohberg again sqeezed in between the two central defenders and scored the equalizer for Uruguay amid the desperate Hungarian defenders. According to legend, Hohberg passed out from the excitement and fatigue of the goal!
The match had completely changed, and had to go into extra time, and at first it seemed that the Uruguayans had everything going for them: Uruguay had been milimeters from going ahead when they in an extraordinary Hohberg-Schiaffino combination hit the post. However, the Hungarian magicians then started exerting more pressure, and Sándor Kocsis scored twice on headers, to give Hungary the 4-2 victory that brought them into the semi-final.
Uruguay’s players were graceful in their defeat to the best team in the world: the great half-back Jószef Bozsik, later recalled how he had almost cried of emotion when Schiaffino came to congratulate him at the end of the match: “It was the most beautiful, the most humane match of my life.”
Many commentators agreed, and at the time many people remembered this as the match of the century.

Match Stats:

• 30th June, 1954, La Pontaise, Lausanne, Switzerland
• Attendance: 37,000
• Referee: Benjamin Griffiths (Wales)

Hungary-Uruguay 4-2 (After Extra Time)
Goals:1-0 Czibor (13), 2-0 Hidegkuti (46), 2-1 Hohberg (75), 2-2 Hohberg (86), 3-2 Kocsis (111), 4-2 Kocsis (116)

Teams:
Hungary: Grosics; Lorant, Buzanski, Lantos, Bozsik, Zakarias, Kocsis, Czibor, Hidegkuti, Budai, Palotas
Uruguay: Maspoli; Santamaria, Martinez, Andrade, Hohberg, Schiaffino, Cruz, Carballo, Borges, Ambrois, Sauto

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