Football is not only a sport, it has turned out to become one of the greatest philosophies that has moved mankind. The FIFA World Cup is a phenomenon that happens every four years, bringing the world together to celebrate the majesty of the ‘beautiful game’.
Arguably, the FIFA World Cup is rivaled only to the Olympics and has a following of over a few billion people. After four years, this wonderful spectacle is currently underway in Brazil – definitely, the most successful nation at the finals since its inception with five wins under their belt and the stage is set for an extremely memorable World Cup.
Like every sporting event, we have records and interesting facts that adds character to the tournament, and the current football fiesta in Brazil is on course to breaking quite a few records.
Throughout its course of 84 years, 77 nations took part in the FIFA World Cup final rounds at least once, 12 had the rare opportunity of appearing in the grand final but only 8 countries had won the ultimate prize. Brazil leads with 5 titles, followed by Italy with 4 and Germany with 3. Argentina and Uruguay have earned two titles while England, France and Spain carry one each. Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Hungary and Netherlands has appeared in finals but had failed to reach the pinnacle.
Mexico is the first country to host the World Cup twice (1970, 1986). Later Italy (1934,1990), France (1938,1998), Germany (1974,2006) and Brazil (1950,2014) also joined as two-time hosts. Estadio Azteca in Mexico City is the only stadium to have staged two finals. Out of the winners, only Brazil and Spain had failed to win on home soil while others have won at least once as the host nation. All five titles of Brazil were away wins.
Team Records
Brazil has appeared in all 20 tournaments. The ‘Selecao’ also along with Germany has taken part in 7 finals while Germany carries most number of top four finishes (12). Italy (1934, 1938) and Brazil (1958, 1962) are the only nations to win consecutive titles. West Germany (1982-1990) and Brazil (1994-2002) had participated in 3 consecutive finals. Netherlands have played the most number of finals without a single title (3), while Mexico has the most World Cup appearances without a title (14). Scotland holds the significance of failing to go through to the second round a record 8 times. France has featured the largest variation on improvement and decline. After failing to qualify for the 1990 and 1994 World Cups, they went on to become the champions in 1998 but later was knocked out from the group stage in 2002. Italy holds the longest gap between successive titles (44 years, 1938-1982) while Argentina has a 48-year gap between successive finals (1930-1978).
The recently concluded encounter between Germany and Portugal was Germany’s 100th World Cup game, the first team to do so. Indonesia, who played in the 1938 edition as the first Asian nation carries the record for the fewest World Cup games played. As the format was based on knockouts, they were beaten on their first game and have never qualified for a World Cup since then.
Brazil has most wins (68), Mexico has most losses (24) while Italy has contributed to most draws (21). Sweden and Brazil has the most World Cup meetings between the two sides (7).
Considering the fact that a match decided by a penalty shootout is a draw for both sides, Brazil has the most number of unbeaten tournaments (7) and England has faced the most eliminations without losing a single game (1982,1990,2006). Switzerland did not concede any goals in the 2006 edition. In fact they are the only team, not to concede a single goal in a tournament. The Swiss were knocked out by Ukraine after a penalty shootout following a 0-0 draw. The 2006 edition also saw the most number of unbeaten teams (5). Switzerland, Argentina, England and France all were subsequently knocked out on penalties despite remaining unbeaten while Italy went on to win it. The 1954 the World Cup had no teams that were unbeaten. Italy and England share 3 penalty shootout losses while Germany carries a 100% record, winning 4 out of 4.
Games between Hungary and South Korea in 1954 (9-0), Yugoslavia and Zaire in 1974 (9-0) and Hungary & El Salvador in 1982 (10-1) remain highest margins of victories. The encounter between Austria and Switzerland in 1954 produced 12 goals, highest in a single game as it ended 7-5. Recent events featured Brazil scoring its record 213th World Cup goal against Croatia while Germany conceding 119th goal against Ghana. Hungary scored 27 goals in the 1954 tournament, a record that still stands. The eventual winners of 1954, West Germany became the highest scored (25) as well as highest conceded (14) team to become champions. In the same tournament South Korea conceded 16; the most number of goals conceded by a team in a single edition. Spain in 2010 became the champions with the fewest goals scored (5).
Player Records
The legendary Pele has the most titles (3) by any player. He was a part of winning teams in 1958, 1962 and 1970. The Brazilian skipper in 2002 Cafu is the only footballer to play in three consecutive World Cup finals. Mexican goalkeeper Antonio Carbajal (1950-1966), Lothar Matthaus (1982-1998) and Gianluigi Buffon (1998-2014) share the record for appearing in five World Cups. Matthaus has played most number of World Cup games (25) which includes his role as the leader in West Germany’s triumph in 1990. However, the veteran Italian defender Paolo Maldini has 2217 minutes of playing time during his World Cup career. Argentine icon Diego Maradona has most appearances as a captain. The winning captain in Mexico ’86, has played 16 games while leading his team. Mexican skipper Rafael Marquez owns the record for the most number of tournaments as captain (2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014).
No captain has won two World Cup titles; in fact there are only four captains who have led their teams in two finals. Diego Maradona (1986 & 1990), Lothar Matthuas (1986 & 1990) and Dunga (1994 & 1998) led Argentina, West Germany and Brazil in two finals, winning one. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge of West Germany is the only captain to lose two World Cup finals (1982 & 1986).
Although Pele is the youngest goal scorer (17y 239d), the youngest to appear in a World Cup game was Norman Whiteside of Northern Ireland (17y 41d). He made his debut against Yugoslavia in 1982. Cameroonian footballer Roger Milla, at 42 years & 39 days turned up against Russia in 1994. He also ended up scoring a goal, becoming the oldest player and oldest goal scorer in World Cup history. Peter Shilton in 1990 wore the captain’s arm band for England at 40 years & 292 days, the oldest to do so while the Italian goalkeeper Dino Zoff became the oldest World Cup winning captain in 1982 (40y 133d).
Brazilian striker Ronaldo and Miroslav Klose are equaled for the most career goals in the World Cup which stands at 15. They are followed by Gerd Muller with 14 goals. Just Fontaine of France scored 13 goals in 1958, most goals in a single tournament. However in 1994, Russian forward Oleg Salenko became the highest goal scorer in a single game when he netted 5 against Cameroon.
There are only 4 players who have scored two hat-tricks in their World Cup careers, Sandor Kocsis, Just Fontaine, Gerd Muller and Gabriel Batistuta. Both hat-tricks of Kocsis (1954), Just Fontaine (1958) and Gerd Muller (1970) came in the same tournament while Gabriel Batistuta is the only player to score hat-tricks in consecutive world cups (1994, 1998).
The only ‘Olympic Goal’ (referred to a goal scored directly from a corner kick) in the World Cup occurred in 1962 when Marcos Coll of Colombia beat legendary USSR goalkeeper Lev Yashin. The fastest goal was scored by Hakan Sukur of Turkey, 10.89 seconds from kick off against South Korea in 2002.
Discipline
The 1970 World Cup saw the debut of language-neutral coloured cards. The fastest sending off in a World Cup game happened in 1986 when Jose Batista was sent off, just 56 seconds into the game between Uruguay and Scotland. Cafu carries most career cautions (6) while Rigobert Song of Cameroon and Zinedine Zidane shares most number of career sending offs in the World Cup (2).
Dubbed as ‘Battle of Nuremberg’, the round of 16 clash between Portugal and Netherlands in 2006 produced a record number of cards as 16 yellow and 4 red cards came out of the pocket of referee Valentin Ivanov. The 2006 tournament also produced 345 yellow cards and 28 red cards, the highest number for any tournament.
Coaching Records
Five coaches have reached the final on two occasions. Helmut Schon (1966 & 1974), Carlos Billardo (1986 & 1990), Franz Beckenbauer (1986 & 1990), Mario Zagallo (1970 & 1998) had guided their teams for two finals, winning one. Vittorio Pozzo is the only coach to win two titles where he mentored the Italians to victory in both 1934 and 1938.
Coach of West Germany, Helmut Schon carries a record of 25 games as a coach while winning 16. Brazilian manager Carlos Alberto Parreira holds the record of appearing in most number of tournaments as a coach (6). Along with Bora Milutinovic, they carry the distinction of managing five different nations at the world cup. Carlos Alberto guided Kuwait (1982), UAE (1990), Brazil (1994 & 2006), Saudi Arabia (1998) and South Africa (2010). However Milutinovic unlike Carlos Alberto, had a consecutive run from 1986 to 2002 guiding Mexico (1986), Costa Rica (1990), USA (1994), Nigeria (1998) and China (2002) and is also the first coach to take four different teams beyond the first round, earning him the nickname ‘Miracle Worker’.
Mario Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer are the only footballers to win the World Cup both as a player and a coach. Zagallo who was a part of the winning teams of Brazil in 1958 and 1962, directed the star studded Brazilian team to victory in 1970. Beckenbauer who won it as the West German captain in 1974, won it as the coach in 1990 becoming the only person to obtain the prize both as a captain and a coach. All title winning teams have been managed by locals. No foreign manager has guided a team to World Cup success.
Attendance Records
When Brazil hosted the World Cup in 1950, the game between Uruguay and Brazil became the title decider as there was no official final according to the tournament format. The deciding encounter was played at the newly built Maracana and according to the records it was witnessed by 199,854 spectators, the largest attended football game in history. However the highest attended final was between Argentina and West Germany in 1986 at Estadio Azteca, played amidst a crowd of 114,600. The lowest attended game was between Romania and Peru in 1930 when mere 300 appeared. The highest average attendance per match occurred when USA hosted in 1994 which had an average attendance of nearly 69,000 per game. The tournament with the lowest average attendance was the 1934 edition with 23,000 spectators per game.
Having already produced thrilling contests, the ongoing football fiesta in Brazil would certainly eclipse the existing records, creating new ones.
Note – all records are up to 21/6/2014.
