History of World Cup 1986

Winners: Argentina

Teams: 24
Teams in qualifiers: 121
Notable absentees Netherlands
Surprises Canada, Iraq

Golden Boot Gary Lineker (England) - 6
Stats A total of 132 goals were scored (2.54 per match); Argentina (14) scored the most
Format Six groups of four, with the top two teams in each group advancing to a knockout round of 16, plus four best third-place finishers

Number of matches 52

Innovations
• The group-style second round was scrapped and replaced with a straight knockout tournament

Controversies
• Colombia were the original choice as hosts but economic chaos meant they in effect had to withdraw. Hopes of an open system for finding a replacement were all but ended when FIFA president João Havelange headed straight from the 1982 final to Mexico
• The sometimes brilliant, sometimes disgraceful Diego Maradona's handball to score against England stirred passions on both sides of the Atlantic. Afterwards, he smiled and said it was "a bit with the head of Maradona and another bit with the hand of God"

Trivia
• Iraq qualified without playing a home match because of the Iran-Iraq war
• A total of 308 qualifying matches were played and 801 goals scored
• Bulgaria and Uruguay qualified for the second round without winning a group match
• Portugal's players went on strike, refusing to train between their first and the second games, and were knocked out after a loss to Morocco in the final group match
• Iraq defender Samir Shaker Mahmoud was banned for a year by FIFA after spitting at the referee during his team's 2-1 loss to Belgium
• Paraguay's Cayetano Ré became the first coach to be sent off after repeatedly encroaching onto the pitch during the first-round game against Belgium
• Uruguay's José Batista was sent off after 56 seconds of the group match against Scotland

A return to Mexico after just 16 years looks a romantic choice at first glance. In fact, the return to Central America came as a result of original hosts Colombia's inability to meet the economic demands of staging "the greatest show on earth". Mexico was itself a country in crisis after a earthquake had wreaked havoc and killed 25,000 people in 1985, but the country rallied to stage the tournament once again.

The tournament was to centre on one squat little man, Diego Armando Maradona, who was on a mission to bury the ghost of 1982 and a troubled spell at Barcelona.

From the first game, Maradona was the mainstay of an Argentina side that was otherwise functional and efficient but lacking in flair. Maradona provided magic in spades and matched it with a will to win. Scoring an excellent equaliser against off-colour holders Italy, he played a part in every Argentine goal in the first round.

The first round's darlings were the Danes, featuring the talents of Michael Laudup and Preben Elkjær-Larsen. A 6-1 defeat of Uruguay saw odds on the Scandinavians winning the trophy tumble. The bookies soon breathed easier, though, as the Danes bizarrely capitulated 5-1 to Spain in the second round, with Emilio 'The Vulture' Butrageno scoring four.

Other first-round form teams to fail at the second-round stage were Soviet Union, in a dramatic 4-3 loss to Belgium, and Morocco, who topped England's group before taking West Germany to the wire - it was not until three minutes from the end that the Germans got their winner in Monterrey.

Italy, a pale shadow of the 1982 side, were dispatched with ease by the French. France, who had won the 1984 European Championships in some style, were again many romantics' choice for the championship, though an over-reliance on Michel Platini's goal power from midfield would later prove problematic.

Brazil, themselves a shadow of their 1982 team but 4-0 conquerors of Poland, met the French in a titanic encounter in Guadalajara.

The game ended 1-1 and was absolutely jam-packed with incident. A challenge by Brazil goalkeeper Carlos on Bruno Bellone brought back painful memories of the Battiston-Schumacher incident four years earlier. At the other end, with his first kick of the game, substitute Zico missed a penalty to win the game in normal time, so it was penalties again for the French. This time, their nerve held despite Platini inexplicably blazing his spot-kick over the bar. Keeper Joel Bats was the hero as he saved first Socrates' casual effort and then Júlio César's strike.

Luis Fernández stroked home the decider and the French rejoiced. The time seemed right for revenge over the Germans, who had ousted the hosts in their own shoot-out.

Argentina's challenge was meanwhile gathering pace. A functional win over Uruguay took them on to face England in the quarter-finals. Bobby Robson's side, for whom Gary Lineker had hit a rich vein of scoring form, had beaten South American opposition in the second round in Paraguay, but Argentina looked a far tougher proposition.

And so they would prove. Maradona's first goal, for which there is no dispute that he had handled, was followed by an amazing 75-yard dribble past the entire England defence and goalkeeper Peter Shilton. It is surely the best goal ever seen on the World Cup stage. England, though, rallied after the introduction of John Barnes, who provided a goal for Lineker. The pair almost repeated the trick but Lineker failed to direct his header goalwards.

Yet, despite the illegitimacy of Maradona's first goal, there was little doubt about the best team winning.

Just to show that his second goal hadn't been a fluke, Maradona twice repeated a similar trick in the semi-final against Belgium, surprise members of the last four after a shoot-out win over Spain. The Belgians just couldn't hold the irrepressible Argentina skipper as he led his team into their second final in three World Cups.

There they faced West Germany, ever the party-poopers. France, broken by their toils in the quarter-final, failed to get their revenge. Goalkeeper Bats soiled his heroic status by fumbling an Andreas Brehme free-kick early on and, in the last minute, when France were pushing hard for an equalizer, Rudi Völler scored a breakaway goal.

The final saw Maradona being marked hard by Lothar Matthäus and reduced to a peripheral role for much of the game, which was a poor spectacle until its later stages. Centre-back José Luis Brown had headed in Jorge Burruchaga's free-kick and, when Real Madrid's Jorge Valdano stroked the ball past Schumacher, all looked lost for the Germans.

But on came substitute strikers Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Dieter Hoeness, brother of 1974 hero Uli. Rummenigge, who had suffered another injury-hit finals, bundled home a Völler flick before Völler himself headed in Thomas Berthold's flick with eight minutes to play. Argentina looked shaken but surely this had to be Maradona's tournament?

The little man certainly believed so. Two minutes later, he ended a weaving run with a delicate through-ball to Jorge Burruchaga. The youngster did the rest and Argentina soon claimed their second World Cup. Maradona had realised his dream and, though Argentina were far from a one-man team, no single player has ever had such an influence on the destiny of a World Cup.

History of World Cup 1970

Winners: Brazil
Teams: 16
Teams in qualifiers: 75
Number of matches: 32

Notable absentees Argentina, France, Portugal, Spain

Surprises Morocco, the first African qualifiers since World War II

Golden Boot: Gerd Muller (Germany) - 10

Stats
A total of 95 goals were scored (2.97 per match), including five penalties and one own goal; Brazil (19) scored the most; 54 individual players scored, while Pelé and Uwe Seeler scored in their fourth World Cup tournament

Format
Four groups of four in the qualifying stage, with the top two from each group into the quarter-finals

Innovations
• This was the first World Cup hosted in North America, and the first held outside South America and Europe
• It was the first to be televised in colour
• Substitutes were allowed for the first time (two per team)
• Red and yellow cards were introduced, although no player was sent off during the tournament
• Fair Play Award introduced
• Teams level on points at the end of the group stage were separated by goal difference (replacing play-offs and goal average).

Controversies
• Before the event, England's captain, Bobby Moore, was arrested and held in Colombia on charges of theft. He was released on the eve of the competition after England had travelled on without him
• To fit in with European viewing schedules, some matches kicked off at noon. This was unpopular with many players and managers because of the intense heat in Mexico at that time of day
• On the eve of the England-Brazil match, Brazilian fans gathered outside the England hotel and chanted and sang all night in a deliberate bid to disrupt the team's sleep.

Trivia
• Zambia and Sudan both won 4-2 at home in their qualifying play-off matches. Sudan went through because of a quickly-scrapped rule that the team scoring more goals in the second match would win. However, they finished bottom of their final qualification group and did not reach the finals
• Rioting marred qualifying matches between El Salvador and neighbours Honduras, and in July 1969 war broke out between the two in what historians dubbed "The War of Soccer"
• Brazilian Mário Zagallo became the first man to win the tournament as a player (1958) and coach.
• Pelé became the first man to play in three World Cup-winning teams
• During the post-final celebrations, the lid of the trophy went missing. Brazilian reserve Davio retrieved it from a young spectator at the stadium exit.

Overview
As with 1966, images of this tournament remain at the forefront of the football fan's memory. This was the first tournament to be televised in colour and the football played was similarly vivid. It is remembered as Brazil's finest and defining hour.

Following the woes of 1966, after which Pelé had said he would never play in a World Cup again, the Brazilians took this event very seriously indeed. Coach Joao Saldanha wanted his team to play a flowing brand of football but this was to be coupled with a hard-edged physical approach, brought about by months spent in a spartan training camp. Although Saldanha would be supplanted by Mário Zagallo just prior to the tournament, the team continued to play in Saldanha's chosen image and won the trophy in the manner he desired.

Pelé was tempted out of exile and was joined by thrilling wingers Jairzinho and Rivelino, balding playmaker Gérson, the nascent talent of midfielder Clodoaldo and skipper Carlos Alberto, a superb exponent of the art of the attacking full-back. Centre-forward Tostao was there, too, his career saved by an eye operation. Together they formed the World Cup's most thrilling attacking force.

The tournament's location was the subject of much consternation from the European teams, who worried about the 50 degree heat and the breathing problems associated with high altitude. Nevertheless, the West Germans, English and Italians were involved in some of the best matches.

In the group stage, England faced the Brazilians in Guadalajara in a game many envisaged as a dress rehearsal for the eventual final. Jairzinho grabbed the goal that won it for Brazil but the game is best remembered for Gordon Banks' save from Pelé's bullet-header - and a late miss by Jeff Astle. Despite that defeat, England joined Brazil in the knock-out stages.

But, in a re-staging of the 1966 final, the Germans got their revenge over England, when, with Alf Ramsey's side leading 2-0 and having taken off Bobby Charlton and Martin Peters to rest them for the next round, stand-in keeper Peter Bonetti fumbled a long-range shot from Franz Beckenbauer and then allowed Uwe Seeler to back-head the equaliser. England wilted in the heat of Leon and Ramsey's team, run ragged by a far fitter German side, succumbed in extra-time when Gerd Müller, scorer of ten goals in Mexico, scored a typically predatory winner.

Brazil, meanwhile, rolled over the unsung Peruvians, led by the mercurial Teófilo Cubillas, and now faced old enemy Uruguay in the semis. An early goal from Uruguay's Luis Cubilla saw the Brazilians rocked but a pep talk from Pelé and a fantastic strike from Clodoaldo brought them level. The samba football soon returned and Jairzinho and Rivelino's late strikes planted them in the final.

Germany, exhausted by their efforts in Leon, now faced Italy, then fully in the bloom of the catenaccio era. But when Karl Schellinger cancelled out a Roberto Boninsegna goal in the very last minute, luck looked to be with the Germans. However, Beckenbauer injured his shoulder and, though he played on with one arm in a sling, the Italians won out. The score changed no less than five times in extra-time before Gianni Rivera, the golden boy of Italian football, scored a 112th-minute winner.

The superhuman efforts in the last four perhaps did for Italy as Brazil overpowered them in the final. Pelé pulled the strings for the South Americans as first he leapt, in the proverbial fashion of a salmon, to head in a Rivelino cross on 19 minutes. Italy got back in the game when Boninsegna seized on a mistake from Clodoaldo to beat keeper and sometime clown Felix, and the crowd, almost all of them cheering for the Brazilians, began to worry. But up stepped chain-smoking midfielder Gérson to clatter in a goal from the edge of the penalty area.

Twenty minutes from the end, Pelé headed a Gérson cross back for Jairzinho to bundle in and complete his record of having scored in every game. But the coup de grâce was added in the very last minute as Brazil took the ball the length of the field to score the fourth. Clodoaldo, rejuvenated after his early mistake, beat a couple of players and the ball reached Pelé. He, as ever, used his vision to play in Carlos Alberto, whose low drive drilled past Albertosi into the Italian goal. As a sign off for a great side, it has never been surpassed, just as the Brazilian team of 1970 is unlikely to ever be surpassed.

For their three wins in 12 years, the Jules Rimet Trophy that Carlos Alberto lifted was to remain in Brazil permanently. Or, at least, until it was stolen in 1983 from the Brazilian Confederation HQ in 1983.

History of World Cup 1958

Winners: Brazil

Teams: 16

Teams in qualifiers: 45
Notable absentees Italy, Uruguay
Surprises Wales, Northern Ireland
Golden Boot Just Fontaine (France) - 13
Stats A total of 126 goals were scored (3.60 per match); France (23) scored the most
Format Four groups of four, with the top two progressing to the quarter-finals

Number of matches 35

Innovations
• If teams tied for second and third in the group stages, there would be a replay
• A record of 12 cities hosted matches

Controversies
• Israel qualified because teams refused to play them, but FIFA intervened and insisted they play at least once in order to progress to the finals. Wales, non-qualified runners-up in their UEFA group, were chosen and won 2-0 home and away to qualify instead
• Turkey withdrew from qualifying after refusing to be included in the Asian group
• Only 2,823 spectators watched the play-off game between Hungary and Wales. People boycotted the match to show sympathy with Imre Nagy, the Prime Minister of Hungary at the time of the Russian invasion in 1956, who had been executed the previous day. The official attendance, which FIFA still endorses, was 20,000
• The semi-final between Sweden and West Germany was almost abandoned because the president of the German football association threatened to withdraw his team unless the Swedes stopped refusing to seat some of the German fans. The organisers relented

Trivia
• Brazil's Pelé was 17 when he played in the final, the youngest person to do so
• Just Fontaine, who scored 13 goals for France, remains the record holder for one tournament
• The Northern Irish FA told their squad that it was against Irish law to play two of their first-round matches on a Sunday. After player protests, the FA relented
• Hungary only retained three players from their 1954 final squad, many of the others choosing to flee the country after the Russian invasion of 1956
• This was the only occasion all four UK 'home nations' qualified together
• Argentina, who finished bottom of their group, were pelted with rubbish on their return home to Buenos Aires

If 1954 saw the final hurrah of Hungary, one of football's greatest ever teams, 1958 was the beginning of another team's dominance of the World Cup. Brazil and the World Cup are inextricably linked and it was in Sweden that the bond was formed.

The presence of international television cameras for the first time made this tournament a watershed and, in a 17-year-old Brazilian, the game had its first and probably greatest star. Pelé was not in the Brazilian side at the beginning of the tournament but, by its conclusion, football had its first international pin-up.

Another facet of this tournament was the appearance of all four home nations as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all qualified and, of the four, it was the two smaller nations who most impressed. The Irish were managed by Peter Doherty, who had a superb lieutenant on the field in Danny Blanchflower. Together, Doherty and Blanchflower gave the world the free-kick wall as their team reached the quarter-final stage before falling to the French. The Welsh, led by the amazing talents of John Charles, reached the same stage only to lose out to Brazil and, more pertinently, Pelé.

Scotland's campaign was as disastrous as that four years previously while England, considerably weakened by the loss of Tommy Taylor and Roger Byrne in the Munich air disaster and with the still traumatised Bobby Charlton a non-playing member of the squad, lost out in a play-off to the Soviet Union.

An English presence in the tournament was retained by George Raynor, the Yorkshire-born coach of Sweden. He led a team featuring Nils Liedholm and Gunnar Gren, both veterans of their country's victory in the 1948 Olympics but now stars of the lucrative Italian league.

Brazil, playing a revolutionary 4-2-4 system, already had a mercurial midfield talent in Didi, a line-leading, goalscoring centre-forward in Vavá and two legendary half-backs in Djalma and Nilton Santos. But with the addition in later games of Pelé and Garrincha, an amazing winger with dribbling skills comparable to Stanley Matthews, they were undoubtedly the team to beat.

In the group stage, they were prolific in front of goal and, although England held them to a goalless draw, they were heavily fancied to thrash Wales in the last eight. But the Welsh, sadly lacking the injured John Charles, made them fight all the way. Pelé, starting only his second game, and, at 17 years old, the youngest player to grace the finals tournament, scored a deflected goal past superb keeper Jack Kelsey. Pelé himself would describe it as the most important goal he would ever score.

The semi-finals saw them face France, who for once had put up a performance befitting their status as tournament founders. Just Fontaine was their record-breaking striker, scoring 13 goals in the tournament, even if four of the goals came in the third-place game.

His bullets were supplied by Raymond Kopa, an inside-forward who plied his trade for Real Madrid and who, until Michel Platini, was regarded as France's greatest-ever player. But with Pelé now into his stride, the French had no answer as the young star scored a hat-trick in an easy 5-2 win.

So the final would be a battle of South American style and the best that the far more athletic European game had to offer. Before the game, George Raynor predicted that if the Brazilians were to go a goal behind then they would "panic all over the show".

His prediction was to be tested, and it failed. Liedholm put the Swedes a goal up after four minutes but, five minutes later, Vavá headed in a Garrincha cross. The trick was repeated on the half-hour. And, after half-time, Pelé grabbed the match by the scruff of the neck. The goal that truly created the Pelé legend came on 55 minutes. A lofted ball was chested down, hooked over a defender and projected into the bottom left corner by an unerring volley. The trophy's destination was confirmed after right-winger Zagallo followed up his own corner to make it four after 68 minutes. Simonsson grabbed a consolation before Pelé headed in a Zagallo cross.

The Jules Rimet Trophy was Brazil's. Records had been smashed in the tournament - Fontaine's goal haul, Pelé's youth and a team from the Americas winning on foreign soil. And in Pelé, who shed tears of joy as the Brazilians carried the trophy and national flag around the pitch, world football had found its biggest star.