The 1930 World Cup: Birth of a Global Tradition

On July thirtieth, nineteen thirty, in Montevido, Uruguay, in front of sixty eight thousand fans, the very first FIVA World Cup was held featuring Uruguay and Argentina, where Uruguay was able to defeat Argentina four to two to take the very first FIVA World champion. But it was a long road to get to this point, and here's a story behind the very first FIFA World Cup. Today on Daily Sports History, Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. And today's trivia question to listen out for is why was there only thirteen teams to compete in the very first World Cup when there was supposed to be fourteen. Now, in a previous episode, which was in the show Notes, we went all over how FIFA started back in nineteen o four, which started in Europe. So the question is how did the very first World Cup come to be played in a small South American country of Uruguay. Well, to start with, they need to decide why they wanted to have the World Cup to begin with, as they had up until that point helped the summer Olympics hold their football competition on behalf of the IOC. But the problem was there was a growth of professional soccer or football being played all over the world. In the moment you became a professional, you were no longer eligible for the Summer Olympics. So FIFA thought they would hold their own tournament outside of the Olympics to be able to include any athlete to play for their country, no matter the status of amateurism or professionalism. And at the seventeenth FIFA Congress held an Amsterdam, they officially accepted to hold their own World Cup that would not be in confines of Olympic rules, and they would not compete with the Olympics, as they would hold it two years after after the nineteen twenty eight Olympics and hold it every four years as to not compete. And so they sent out to all their participating countries and they gave them a deadline of February twenty eighth, nineteen thirty to accept being part of their first World Cup. And they wanted to have at least sixteen teams for a knockout style tournament, and they would actually have a second division if there was enough teams. But they were not able to get to sixteen and the main reason for that was due to it being held in Uruguay. And why did Uruguay get the very first World Cup? And the reason was because they were celebrating their first constitution and they had recently started to build a giant stadium that could hold the event in the Estado Centenario, which would be able to hold almost seventy thousand fans. But this decision actually was a reason and why most countries didn't decide to participate, and it's not because they didn't like Uruguay. It was financial cost as they were currently going through the Great Depression that had affected not only America but the entire world. So many countries thought that the long trip from Europe or Asia would cost too much and take too much time from the players to be traveling back and forth to compete during this time. They were able to get interests from the Americas both North and South America teams, but few interests from the European teams, and by that February deadline, there were zero European teams that accepted the offer, but as a show of support, the Uruguayan Football Association sent a letter saying they would help pay for travel expenses to be able to compete at the first World Cup, and this was enough to get four European countries to be able to agree to come to the First World Cup in Belgium, France, Romania and uk Islavia, which brought their total of commitments up to sixteen, which on top of those European countries included Mexico, the United States, Argentina, Bavaria, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay Europe. Now there was two Asian countries that agreed to show up in Japan and Siam, who later withdrew their acceptance as they didn't think they could make the trip. And then one Africa country accepted accepted the invitation in Egypt, although when it came time for the event, they missed their boat and were unable to make it to further start of the competition. So we ended up with only thirteen teams out of the fourteen that agreed to show up. And to just give you an idea of how hard travel was back then, these teams actually did end up traveling together. The Romanians boarded the S s conte Verde first in Italy on June nineteen twenty one, and they went to go pick up the French and the Yugoslavians at the French port and they get and then they all went to go pick up the Belgians from Spain, and they also had all the referees for the tournament and the trophy for the tournament on board, and while they made their way to South America, they also picked up the Brazilians and after all of this, on July fourth, nineteen thirty, they finally made it to Uruguay on almost two week trip just to make it to a soccer competition, which meant they would take them almost two weeks to completely return back home, So just a month taken away from their lives to compete in the soccer tournament, which is pretty incredible when you think about today, as it only takes you maybe a day to travel anywhere in the world to compete in these international competitions. Then on July thirteenth, they started the actual World Cup and they did something very similar to what we have today in the World Cup, where they had pool play, where teams are broken up into different groups and all those teams play a round robin, which means you play everyone in that group and whoever has the most wins and the most points goes on to the knockout stage. And it's very similar to what we have today. And this was on a smaller scale, but still very exciting and fun. And they had four groups. Group one had Argentina, Chile, France, and Mexico, which had Argentina winning and going to the knockout stage. Group two had Brazil, Bulvaria and Yugoslavia, where Yugoslavia was the winner and qualified for the knockout stage. Group three featured Uruguay, Peru, and Romania, and Uruguay the home country won out and made it to the knockout stage, and the final group was Belgium, Paraguay in the United States and the United States was able to win this group and head to the knockout stage. And the knockout stage featured a couple of blowouts where the United States took on Argentina in a drain wrenched battle where Argentina came out on top six to one, and the other match was Yugoslavia versus Uruguay, and Uruguay, with the local crowd by its side, was able to dominate and win six to one as well, setting up Argentina and Uruguay an All South America World Cup and on July thirtieth, nineteen thirty, in front of almost seventy thousand fans, played at the stadium that won them the right to host the games, the Studio Centro in Montevido. Uruguay started a tradition that is still going to this day, and at this time many countries had their own style of ball and the ball was not as uniform as it is today, as every soccer ball back then was made by hand and there was little differences depending on where your country you were from and how you were used to these balls, and so each team was fighting to use their ball for the World Cup final, and FIFA made a compromise saying that Argentina get to use their local ball in the first half and Uruguay could use theirs in the second half. As the game started, it was a hard fought battle between both teams and it wasn't until twelve minutes when Pablo Dorando put Uruguay on top, but just eight minutes later Argentina wing Carlos Pelese was able to match it, making the score one to one, and after a hard fought first half, Argentina had the lead two to one, but coming out in the second half, Uruguay went out aggressively and in the twelfth minute of the second half Pedro Silla was able to tie it up two to two. Then in the sixty eighth minute, Santos Arate gave them the lead and they would not look back and with just a minute left in the game, Hector Castro sealed the game in the victory for Uruguay with the final score of four to two, making Uruguay the very first World Cup champion. And this World Cup was a great success as they continued and in nineteen thirty four they had thirty six countries apply for entry and had have qualifications to get that number down to sixteen, and Uruguay showed its power as a national team and in nineteen fifty they would again win the World Cup, but Argentina would have to wait a little while as it wasn't un till nineteen seventy eight when they won their first World Cup, but they also won it in nineteen eighty six and in twenty twenty two, and Uruguay wasn't the only country to win the World Cup while also hosting, as in nineteen thirty four, Italy hosted the World Cup and won, and the host is also won when England hosted in nineteen sixty six, in West Germany in nineteen seventy four, as well as Argentina in nineteen seventy eight. And this one tournament has led to the growth of soccer all over the world and is one of the most popular sporting events ever to be held. And in nineteen ninety one they branched out and started to hold the Women's World Cup, which has grown in popularity as well, showing that soccer is still alive and strong. And I want to thank you for jumping back in the past with us to learn all about this great, crazy start to this tournament. And if you liked it, I want to hear about it. Please connect with us on our social media's. We're on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, mastadon threads wherever you like to socialize, we are there. You can follow us at Daily Sports History or even leave us a message or a voicemail on our website, Daily Sportshistory dot com and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History. And did you catch the answer to today's trivia question? Why were there only thirteen teams that competed in the very first World Cup when they were supposed to be fourteen. What's because the only African country, Egypt, missed their boat