BALL GAMES: A brief and colourful 96-year history of the World Cup

With the 23rd Fifa World Cup only days away, we briefly recount the story of every edition of the world’s most popular sporting event.

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1930 in Uruguay (as a reward for being the reigning Olympic champions from 1928). The hosts won the first-ever World Cup final 4-2 over neighbours Argentina. The massive new 90,000-seater Estadio Centenario in Montevideo wasn’t finished in time for the first week of the tournament. Everyone affiliated to Fifa was invited and 13 teams showed up – nine from the Americas and only four from Europe (France, Yugoslavia, Belgium and Romania). Egypt accepted but missed their boat from Marseille to South America after a storm delayed them.

1934 in Italy. The hosts beat Czechoslovakia 2-1 after extra-time in the final. Thirty-two nations entered the competition with 16 qualifying. Reigning champions Uruguay boycotted because only four European teams had accepted their invitation to the first tournament. The event was distorted into political propaganda by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini with the final being played at Rome’s Stadium of the National Fascist Party.

1938 in France. Italy defended their title by beating Hungary 4-2 in the final. The main Latin American teams boycotted because they felt the tournament should have gone back to South America. Another major absentee was the brilliant Austrian Wunderteam, who qualified as one of the favourites but the Nazi annexation of Austria (the Anschluss) before the finals meant their players were reluctantly merged into the German side, who ultimately performed poorly.

World War 2. With the World Cup suspended because of the war, the Italian vice-president of Fifa, Dr Ottorino Barassi, hid the trophy in a shoe-box under his bed to keep it safe.

1950 in Brazil. The tournament did not have a final. The winner was decided by a four-team, second-round mini league, but it so happened that the last game between Brazil and Uruguay in the newly built Maracanã Stadium was the decisive fixture, in which Uruguay beat the hosts 2-1 and they have been dining out on that result ever since. Defending champions Italy were massively weakened by the loss of the entire champion Torino club team in a plane crash a year earlier. The English turned up for the first time, having previously considered the event as beneath them, and infamously lost 1-0 to US.

1954 in Switzerland. West Germany was responsible for the biggest shock in a final (and the most unpopular) when they beat Hungary 3-2. Ferenc Puskás’ Marvellous Magyars had tran