World Cup and Interesting Facts about this Sports Tournament
Through 21 times of organization, World Cup has brought football fans all over the world a lot of unforgettable memories and experiences. World Cup is considered as the biggest sports event on the planet,has attracted more than half of the world’s population each season.
World Cup history through many years
The idea of gathering the best national football teams in a world championship match was originated in the 1920s. This was initiated by a group of French football managers led by Jules Rimet.
The FIFA Congress organized in Amsterdam did approve resolution of regularly implementing the World Football Championship in 1928. During this period, professional football had large scale, but the Olympics’ matches only allowed amateur players to participate. Therefore, it did not meet the requirement of football experts.
The first World Cup season was taken place in 1930 – Truc tiep bong da
FIFA World Cup takes place every four years, except for the two canceled seasons 1942 and 1946 due to the effects of World War II. Official name of this competition was changed several times. Originally, it was called World Cup, Couple du monde, then “Jules Rimet Trophy” (formal FiFA president) and the FIFA World Cup. The first tournament was officially held in Uruguay in 1930 with 13 teams, and the first gold trophy called Jules Rimet Trophy belonged to the host.
In the 1950s, World Cup quickly reaffirmed its position and was recognized as the biggest sports event of the world. This competition has been mainly organized in Europe and American. In 2002, people saw a breakthrough when South Korea and Japan were chosen to host the 2002 World Cup. By 2010, it was the first time FIFA brought the tournament to Africa. Specifically, South Africa was honored to host.
World Cup was canceled twice because of the World War II
According to the competition format, there would be total of 32 best teams joining the finals round since 1998. Recently, FIFA Federation has accepted to increase number of teams to 48 since the 2026 World Cup.
Trophy
From 1930 to 1970, the world champion had been awarded the “gold trophy” which was called “art item” in official documents of FIFA. This trophy is a small statue of Nike, the Goddess of victory. According to FIFA order, the statue was completed in 1928 by a goldsmith in Paris named Abel Lafleur. It was cast in real goal, weighed 1.8 kg and worth $10,000.
Before the 1970 World Cup, FIFA kept the Golden Trophy in accordance with the regulations, then gave the national football federation of the country having the world’s champion. After that, this country had to return it to FIFA before the final match of the next World Cup season.
Gold trophy has been awarded for the World Cup champion
In 1970, after three times of being champions, Brazil National Football Team was awarded the “Golden Goddess” permanently. After that, FIFA ordered a new trophy, which was known as a shootout trophy. The winner would be awarded miniature trophy sample as a souvenir and held the official trophy during the time between two world football championships.
The new trophy was cast in real goal by Italian artist Silvio Gazzaniga with 26.5 cm in height and 6.175 kg in tall, worth $20,000. For more information, it was made by the goldsmith Stabilimento Artistico Bertoni in Milano city. The trophy featured 2 young men with 4 highly raised arms to hold the terrestrial globe.
Mascots
From 1966 World Cup, mascots began to appear at the biggest football tournament of the world. These are funny characters that clearly represent typical culture of the host countries. Follow are some examples of World Cup mascots in different seasons:
Mascot of the 1966 World Cup was Willie lion, a typical British symbol. This lion wore a shirt having the image of United Kingdom and Northern Ireland flag with the words “World Cup”. British won the world championship in 1966 while Brazil became the first current champion to be eliminated in the group stage.
The Willie lion was the mascot of the World Cup 1966
In 1970 World Cup, the mascot was a boy wearing uniform of Mexico National Football team and a sombrero with the words “Mexico 70”. The boy’s intimate name is “Juan”, a common name in Spanish. As mentioned above, Brazil won the 1970 World Cup for the third time and was allowed to keep the trophy permanently.
Tip and Tap were the official mascots of 1974 World Cup. The two boys were wearing outfit similar to West German national team uniform with the words WM (means World Cup) and number 74. West Germany won this World Cup season even though the Netherlands was the most favorite team at that time.
1994 World Cup was the 15th world football championship held from June 17th to July 17th. This season’s mascot was a Striker dog with an outfit of red, blue and green colors and the words “USA 94”.
The United Stated used Striker dog as the mascot of 1994 World Cup
Official mascot of the 2014 World Cup was an animal of the Tatu species which were commonly found in Northeast Brazil. Fuleco is a compound word of “Futebol” (football) and “Ecologia” (ecology). Flueco was chosen by more than 1.7 million of football fans to express the message of environmental and ecological issues.
Most recently, the wolf Zabivaka was the mascot of the 2018 World Cup held in Russia. The wolf designed by student Ekaterina Bocharova was described as “charming, confident and social”. 53% of Russian citizens voted to choose Zabivaka as the mascot for the first World Cup held on the birch land.
Interesting facts about the World Cup
The most successful team in World Cup
Brazil National Football team is the most successful team in the world football championship with 5 times of winning and 2 silver medals. Brazil is the only country that has participated in all World Cup seasons and the first country to win five times in this tournament (1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002).
Brazil was the first football team winning 5 times in World Cup
However, the last time Brazil won the World Cup was 17 years ago. In 2014, although the competition was taken place in Brazil, Neymar and his team had to stop at the semifinals after 1-7 loss to German team.
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The Premier League dominated the number of players attending the World Cup
Since winning the 1966 World Cup, England National Football team entered the quarterfinals once. However, that could not prevent their players from being called into national team to attend the World Cup. Although Leroy Sane, Marcos and David Luiz were eliminated, the Premier League has still offered more players than any other tournaments.
The gold trophy was stolen
The 1966 trophy was missing and was found 7 days before the final by a puppy. This trophy was taken away by a stranger while it was on display at the City Center in Westminster (England). “Nike Victory Goddess” had wandered for 6 months on the streets of England. Luckily, it was found by Pickles, just a 4-month-old little dog who was on a walk with his owner.