JOIN USHosts: Brazil
Final: July 16, 1950, Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro
Uruguay: 2 bt Brazil: 1.
Attendance: 2,05,000
The 1950 finals have returned to the spotlight in recent years as a result of Brazil hosting this year’s finals for the first time since then.
As every student of the world game knows Uruguay’s win over Brazil was not strictly speaking the final but effectively the deciding game in the final pool, and a draw would have given Brazil the world title.
Their defeat, in the words of Pele and others remains the ghost in Brazil’s footballing past and only a victory this summer will help expunge the memory somewhat.
After World War Two (during which FIFA president Jules Rimet, the competition founder, reclaimed the trophy from Italy and kept it under his bed), the World Cup returned and Uruguay won it for a second time.
Before that, the United States beat England 1-0 in Belo Horizonte in one of the greatest upsets in the game’s history and Sweden’s amateurs beat an Italian side still ravaged by the Superga air disaster that wiped out champions Torino the previous year.
A mini-league format was used to determine the champions and Brazil, Sweden, Spain and Uruguay were the final contestants.
Brazil needed only a draw in their clash with Uruguay to clinch the trophy but lost 2-1 at Rio’s Maracana Stadium in front of an estimated crowd of 2,05,000, the largest to ever watch a match anywhere.
Friaca put the majority of the crowd into raptures when he gave Brazil a lead two minutes into the second half, but Juan Alberto Schiaffino equalised for Uruguay on 66 minutes and Alcides Ghiggia plunged Brazil into a state of national mourning when he scored Uruguay’s winner 10 minutes later.