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Soccer century England, FIFA gave shape to sport in early years
Posted: Thursday December 30, 1999 05:59 PM
LONDON (Reuters) -- England and the embryonic world governing body FIFA gave shape and form to soccer, destined to become the world's global game by the turn of the century. Proof that association football was part of the social fabric of England came in 1901 when a world record 110,820 people watched the English Cup final. On the reverse side of the ledger, in the following year 25 people died during the Scotland-England international in Glasgow, the game's first major disaster. The game soon captured the popular imagination in Europe and South America and in 1904 representatives from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands met in Paris to form FIFA. Although the game evolved in Europe, the first great international team of the century came from South America. Uruguay won the Olympic Games titles of 1924 and 1928 before hosting and winning the first World Cup in 1930. Only 13 teams took part in the competition, but soccer had taken another major step forward. Hugo Meisl's Austrian "Wunderteam" and Vittorio Pozzo's Italy were the dominant forces of the 1930s, with Italy winning the next two World Cups in 1934 and 1938. That competition, played in the shadow of World War Two, was the last World Cup for 12 years, and although Hungary and Brazil were to dominate the 1950s, it was Uruguay who won the first World Cup after the war. Their shock 2-1 win over Brazil on July 16, 1950 at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro was watched by a world record crowd of 203,500, an attendance unlikely ever to be bettered. Hungary dominates early 1950sHungary dominated the early 1950s and was defeated just once in 50 internationals between June 1950 and November 1955. It was the first team to beat England on home soil, a famous 6-3 rout at Wembley in 1953 inspired by Ference Puskas, followed by a 7-1 victory in Budapest six months later. Unfortunately, its only loss in this period was the 1954 World Cup final, which it lost 3-2 to West Germany after leading 2-0. The 1950s was a golden decade, the last years when the game still retained something of its early sporting innocence, a time when fair play was still widespread, a time before spiraling wages and commercialism took a grip unlikely now to be loosened. It was also the decade when Brazil won the World Cup for the first time, and the greatest player of all time made his presence known. Edson Arantes do Nascimento, henceforth known as Pele, introduced himself to the world in the 1958 World Cup finals as a 17-year-old and scored twice in the final as Brazil beat hosts Sweden 5-2. He would go on to score more than 1,200 goals in a 21-year professional career and also lead Brazil to victory in the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. Brazil's performances in 1970, including a 4-1 destruction of Italy in the final, confirmed a team containing Pele, Jairzinho, Carlos Alberto, Rivelino and Tostao as the greatest international side ever. While Brazil was the dominant international team of the time, no club side in the world could match Real Madrid, which won the first five European Cup finals from 1956, culminating in a 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 final. Two other teams could have laid claim to Real's title as Europe's greatest ever club side, but the fates decreed otherwise. Torino won five successive Italian titles in the 1940s before its all-conquering team was killed when its aircraft crashed on the Superga mountain above Turin in 1949. Manchester United's "Busby Babes" side also looked destined for long-term success after winning the English title in 1956 and 1957, but the team was destroyed with the deaths of eight players in the Munich air crash of 1958. It says much for the remarkable powers of Matt Busby, the legendary United manager, that within 10 years he built a new team who won the European Cup in 1968. At the heart of that side was the long-haired Northern Irish genius George Best, who more than anyone symbolized the fusion of soccer and the show business worlds of the 1960s. Best was soccer's first modern-day pin-up, the first modern superstar. Cruyff and Beckenbauer practice total footballIn the following decade, Johan Cryuff was at the heart of the total football philosophy of the Netherlands' side wthat lost the 1974 World Cup final to West Germany. Cryuff also inspired Ajax to three European Cups and took Barcelona to the Spanish title. He was matched by West Germany's Franz Beckenbauer, another pioneer of total football. Beckenbauer played a major role in West Germany's 1972 championship win, the successful 1974 World Cup campaign and captained Bayern Munich to three consecutive European Cups. While great players such as Cruyff and Beckenbauer and Argentina's flawed genius Diego Maradona captured the imagination of millions of fans with their deeds, one man off the pitch helped catch millions more fans for the sport itself. Joao Havelange, the autocratic head of FIFA for 24 years until stepping down in 1998, expanded the World Cup first from 16 to 24 teams then to 32 and added a host of minor competitions to FIFA's timetable. A visionary backed by big business, he helped soccer really become the global game. A price has been paid in terms of both deaths and destruction. Soccer has been blighted by hooliganism since the 1960s and drunken loutish fans, and some arrogant and insensitive policing have brought death to many countries where the game is played. The most infamous examples are the Heysel Stadium disaster of 1985 which claimed 39, mostly Italian, lives before the European Cup Final in Brussels, and the 1989 Hillsborough disaster when 96 Liverpool fans perished in overcrowded terracing at an FA Cup semifinal. But soccer has survived and ends the century more popular than ever before. The introduction of the Champions League, and the Bosman Ruling of 1995 which by and large ended almost all transfer restrictions have revolutionized the sport. The sport Pele dubbed "the beautiful game" continues to entrance, with Asia poised to stage its first World Cup in Japan and South Korea in 2002 and the emergence of Africa as a world force.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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