An A-Z of Nations in the World Cup Quiz

Answer: Peru

Group 2 of the 1978 World Cup proved to be one of the most controversial in history. With Brazil beating Peru, Argentina beating Poland, and a tempered 0-0 scoreline between Brazil and Argentina, goal difference was the most likely decider of who would go on to contest the final. Going into the third an dfinal round of matches in the group, everything was tense.

Although the last games were supposed to be played at the same time, Argentina's game with Peru was stalled until after Brazil's victory over Poland was completed. Argentina then knew they would have to beat Peru by at least 4 goals to reach the final. With many controversial thoughts surrounding the situation, Argentina won the game 6-0, before going on to beat the Netherlands in the final. Argentina won the World Cup in 1978 and 1986.

Answer: 1982

Known for his headband, beard and wonderful passing ability with the ball, Socrates led the Brazilian national team in Spain in 1982. Unfortunately for Brazil, they met a talented and determined Italy in the second round group decider (both teams had already beaten Argentina in the same group) and lost 3-2.

Italy went on to win the World Cup. Sadly, Socrates died in 2011 at the age of 57. Known as 'Dr. Soccer' (as he was a qualified doctor), Socrates enjoyed a club career with teams such as Corinthians, Botafogo, Flamengo and Santos in Brazil, as well as with Fiorentina in Italy. Brazil won the World Cup in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002.

Answer: They were unbeaten in the tournament.

Apart from the eventual winners Italy, Cameroon were the only unbeaten team in the 1982 World Cup finals. In their first appearance at a World Cup Finals, they drew all three group games and only missed out on qualification to the next round on the goals scored rule, to Italy (who also drew all three group games).

They drew 0-0 with both Poland and Peru in their first two games, before a 1-1 result with Italy in their final match. Mbida scored their only goal in the competition against the eventual winners.

Answer: 1998

Although many outside of Denmark may focus on the fantastic team of 1986 that won a first round group containing West Germany, the Danish bowed out in the last 16 stage against an impressive Spanish team. In 2002, they again won their first round group (eliminating defending champions France in the process) before a last 16 encounter led to a 3-0 defeat to England. In 2010, Denmark failed to make it past the group stage. In 1998, having finished second behind eventual winners France in the group stages, the Danes went on to beat Nigeria 4-1 before a narrow defeat by the Brazilians (3-2) in the quarter-finals.

Denmark won the European Championship in Sweden in 1992, having not qualified for the competition. Having finished behind Yugoslavia in the qualifying group, they took the Yugoslavian team's place in the competition as the Yugoslavian team was banned from participating only ten days before the competition commenced by FIFA, based on political and not sporting reasons.

Answer: George Cohen

Awarded an MBE in 2000, George Cohen played at the right back position for England in the 1966 World Cup. Perhaps fortunate to be in the position to play for the national team's first eleven (due to an injury to previous first choice, Jimmy Armfield, not long before the competition itself), Cohen excelled when given the opportunity and earned his place amongst the All Star selection with very solid displays throughout the competition.

He played with Fulham for his entire professional club career. Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst scored the goals in the final but missed out on the All-Star team selection to Portugal's Eusebio and West Germany's Uwe Seeler. Jack Charlton missed out in favor of Portugal's Vicente.

Answer: Lilian Thuram

Thuram played an incredible 142 times (which was a record for the national team when he retired) for the French national team and only scored two international goals; both in the semi-final against Croatia. Zidane scored two goals in the final against Brazil and Henry scored three goals in the competition (two against Saudi Arabia and one against South Africa in the group stage). Deschamps captained France in the competition.
France beat Brazil 3-0 in the 1998 World Cup Final.

Answer: Czech Republic and United States

Having lost 2-0 to Italy in their opening group game, Ghana beat a strong Czech Republic team 2-0, with goals from Gyan and Muntari, in their second match. With qualification uncertain going into their final game, The Black Stars narrowly edged out the United States with goals from Appiah and Draman.

They won the game 2-1, before exiting the tournament with a 3-0 loss to Brazil in round 2. Serbian, Ratomir Dujkovic, managed the team on their first World Cup outing. Four years later in South Africa (2010), Ghana narrowly missed out on a place in the semi-finals of the World Cup after a penalty shoot-out loss to Uruguay. Gyan missed a penalty late in extra-time that would have put the Black Stars through to the next round.

Answer: Sandor Kocsis

Hungary scored an amazing twenty seven goals in total in the competition. Kocsis scored eleven of them, including goals in every game, apart from the final itself against West Germany. The final finished 3-2 to West Germany in Berne (Switzerland). Kocsis scored seven of his goals in the first two games, three in a 9-0 victory over South Korea and four in an 8-3 win over West Germany. Puskas and Hidegkuti scored four goals each in the tournament. Czibor hit the back of the net three times.
Hungary were beaten 4-2 by Italy in the 1938 World Cup final in Paris.

Answer: Ireland won 1-0

Toto Schillaci scored the winning goal to end Ireland's World Cup hopes on their debut in 1990. Four years later, however, Ray Houghton looped a long range effort over Italian goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca to beat Italy 1-0 at the Giants Stadium in the United States. This was the only defeat in normal time that Italy suffered at the World Cup in 1994. They went on to lose to Brazil in the Final after a penalty shoot-out. The Irish were beaten 2-0 in the second round by the Netherlands.

Several links emerged since these matches between Irish and Italian football. Schillaci starred in commercials for Irish ale, 'Smithwicks' after the 1990 Finals. Giovanni Trapattoni and Marco Tardelli (both Italian) managed the Irish national team to the finals of the 2012 European Championships. Tardelli won the World Cup as a player with Italy in 1982. In fact, his celebration after scoring Italy's second goal in the final against is one of the most famous World Cup moments in history.

Answer: Russia

On 9th June 2002, Junichi Inamoto scored the only goal of the game as Japan beat Russia 1-0 in Yokohama. They would go on to win their group after another victory (2-0) against Tunisia five days later. They had previously drawn 2-2 with Belgium in the opening game of the group. Turkey eventually knocked the co-hosts out of the tournament after a 1-0 victory in a last sixteen tie.

Incidentally, Masashi Nakayama scored Japan's first goal at a World Cup finals tournament in a 2-1 defeat to Jamaica (1998 France).

They lost their other two group games in their debut year to Argentina and Croatia (both 1-0 defeats).

Answer: 1966

Of the four choices given, the North Koreans only participated in the 1966 World Cup in England and the 2010 world cup in South Africa. In the latter, they lost all three group games against strong opposition (Brazil, Portugal and the Ivory Coast). In 1966, however, it was a different story. Having opened their campaign with a 3-0 loss to the Soviet Union, one would be forgiven for thinking that the Koreans would be leaving the tournament by the end of the group stage. Pak Seung-Zin scored in the last few minutes of their second game against Chile to earn a 1-1 draw (Marcos had earlier given the Chileans the lead from the penalty spot) to keep their interest in the tournament alive. What followed in their final group game was one of the greatest shock results in World Cup history.

The Italians were amongst the favorites to win the competition outright. With massive support (partially for playing attractive football) from fans in Middlesborough, the Koreans beat the Italians 1-0 at Ayresome park on 19th July 1966. Pak Doo-Ik scored the only goal of the game to send the Italians out of the tournament. A documentary was made in 2002 called 'The Game of Their Lives' to commemorate this achievement. At the quarter-final stage, the Koreans were beaten 5-3 by Portugal (despite taking a 3-0 lead early in the game).

The South Koreans emulated their northern neighbors by beating Italy to reach the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup, before eventually finishing fourth.

Answer: Soviet Union v New Zealand in 1982

Yousef Muhammad Alghoul became the first Libyan to participate in a World Cup finals match when the Soviet Union defeated New Zealand 3-0 in Malaga, Spain in 1982.

Mexico v Belgium in 1970 (Chile) was refereed by Angel Norberto Coerezza of Argentina. Luis Pestarino, again of Argentina, officiated in the game between Sweden and Yugoslavia in 1974 (West Germany). The match of Austria and Spain in Argentina (1978) was overseen by the Hungarian, Karoly Palotai.

Sadly, the first Libyan to participate in World Cup finals match died in December, 2007, aged 61.

Answer: Quarter-finalist

Mexico reached the quarter-finals twice, in 1970 and in 1986. Coincidentally, they hosted both of these events. In 1970, they beat El Salvador and Belgium in the group stage (they also drew with the Soviet Union) before bowing out in the quarter-final to Italy. They lost the game 4-1. Mexico won the rights to stage the 1986 World Cup after original hosts, Colombia, declared themselves unable to do so for financial reasons. They beat Belgium and Iraq in the group stages (they also drew with Paraguay) before defeating Bulgaria 2-0 in the second round. They were only eliminated at the quarter-final stage by eventual runners-up, West Germany, via a penalty shoot-out, following a 0-0 draw aet.

Mexico won the Confederations Cup in 1999, beating Brazil 4-3 in the final.

Answer: Score a World Cup final goal without the opposition touching the ball.

The final began with the Dutch passing the ball along the back-line, and then forward along the left attacking positions before Johan Cruyff picked up the ball around the middle of the park and ran with it to the West German penalty area, beating several German players as he did so. Ulrich Hoeness fouled him in the box. Johan Neeskens scored from the penalty spot within two minutes of the start of the game. Amazingly, no German had touched the ball at this stage of the game. The Germans came back with two first half goals. Breitner and Muller (his last ever goal for the West German national team) scored the goals to win the World Cup for the host nation.

The Netherlands lost in the 1978 final to the hosts, Argentina, after extra-time. The final score was 3-1. In 2010, the Dutch completed an unlucky hat-trick of World CUp Final losses when Spain beat them 1-0 (again after extra-time) in South Africa.
The Netherlands won the 1988 European Championships.

Incidentally, Bodo Illgner of West Germany was the first goalkeeper to keep a clean sheet in a World Cup Final (1990 Italy).

Answer: Saudi Arabia

Oman hosted and claimed the title in the 2009 Gulf Cup of Nations. Having finished second in the two previous tournaments (in 2004 they lost to Qatar on penalties and in 2007 they lost to United Arab Emirates 1-0), Oman edged past Saudi Arabia after a penalty shoot-out in which they won 6-5. The game itself finished 0-0 in Muscat.
Oman famously defeated Australia 1-0 in a qualifier for the 2014 World Cup.

Answer: 1982

Poland won all three of their first round group games in 1974, with victories over Haiti, Italy and Argentina. In their second round group, they beat both Yugoslavia and Sweden, and by virtue of this, set up a crunch tie against West Germany, with a place in the final the prize. Gerd Muller scored the only goal of the game to confine Poland to the third place match. They went on to beat Brazil in that game, with a goal from Lato enough to decide the outcome of the game.

Poland repeated the third place finish in 1982. They won a group which included eventual winners Italy, Peru and Cameroon in the first round. In the second round group of Poland, the Soviet Union and Belgium, the Poles narrowly emerged ahead of the Soviet Union on goal difference. Having drawn with the Italians in their opening game of the competition, the two teams met again in the semi-final, with the Italians winning 2-0 (Rossi scored both goals). Poland clinched third place with a 3-2 victory over the French. Zbigniew Boniek scored four goals in the competition.

Answer: 2022

Qatar secured the right to play in the 2022 World Cup by virtue of being the host nation. They were awarded the right to host the competition in December 2010. Qatar reached the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup in both 2010 and 2011, and won the Gulf Cup of Nations in 1992 and 2004.

Brazil were awarded the rights to host the 2014 World Cup and Russia were awarded hosting rights for the 2018 version of the competition.

Answer: Valeriy Porkujan

Between them, Porkujan, Malofeyev, Chislenko and Banishevskiy scored all ten of the Soviet Union's goals at the 1966 World Cup finals. Some commentators believe that the Soviet Union may have indeed won the World Cup if Eduard Streltsov had not been jailed for controversial reasons eight years before. Nevertheless, the Soviets shone in the group stage with victories over Chile, Italy and North Korea, before beating Hungary 2-1 at the quarter-final stage. Porkujan scored a consolation goal with minutes to go in the semi-final, where they went down 2-1 to West Germany. In the third place match, they lost by the same scoreline to the Eusebio led Portuguese. Malofeyev scored the goal.

Overall, Porkujan scored four goals (two against Chile, one against Hungary and the goal against the West Germans), Malofeyev scored three (two against the North Korean team and one against the Portuguese), Chislenko scored twice (one each against Hungary and Italy) and Banishevskiy managed one goal in the opening victory over North Korea.

Answer: fourth

The 1950 World Cup was unique in the fact that it was the only World Cup that didn't have a final. Instead, there was a final group of four teams, with the winner of the group, Uruguay, claiming the Jules Rimet trophy.

In a World Cup surrounded by withdrawals, Spain found themselves in a group with Chile, England and the United States. In contrast, the winners Uruguay found themselves in a group with only Bolivia. With Basora, Igoa and Zarra in fine scoring form, the Spanish defeated the Americans 3-1, Chile 2-0 and the English were beaten 1-0. The Spanish now found themselves in the final group with hosts Brazil, Sweden and Uruguay. With a decent 2-2 draw against the Uruguayans, the Spanish put themselves in a position to compete for the trophy. Unfortunately, the results turned against them as the Brazilians put six goals past them (6-1) and the Swedish added three more in a 3-1 defeat to condemn the Spanish to a fourth place finish in Brazil.

Along with their World Cup success against the Netherlands in 2010 (1-0 after extra-time), the Spanish won the European Championship on home soil in 1964 and again in 2008 in Austria/Switzerland.

Answer: 7-0

Having been beaten 4-1 by West Germany in their opening game, the Turks knew they would have to beat the Koreans in order to stand a chance of qualifying for the second round. They did not disappoint. Burhan Sargun scored a hat-trick as Suat claimed two goals and Lefter and Erol each scored one each in a demolition of the South Korean national team. This was the Koreans first trip to the World Cup finals also.

Following this game, the Turks found themselves in a strange situation. They had to play the West Germans again in a play-off to reach the second round. The Germans, who went on to win the competition, won the game 7-2.

The Turks finished in third place, beating the South Koreans again, at the 2002 World Cup in Japan/South Korea.

Answer: They used a different ball in each half of the game due to a dispute.

A dispute over what ball to use threatened to overshadow the game itself before kick-off. FIFA actually had to intervene to come up with a solution. It was eventually decided that the first half would be played using a ball supplied by the Argentinians and the second half would be played using one provided by the Uruguayans. Incidentally, the score was 2-1 at half-time to Argentina after using the their own ball.

The next day after the game, some Argentinian supporters threw stones at the Uruguayan consulate in Buenos Aires. Officially, around 93,000 supporters watched the first ever World Cup final. For the record, there were no goals scored in the first ten minutes of the game.

Uruguay went on to capture their second World Cup title in Brazil in 1950.

Answer: England 1966

When they first participated, Venezuela were drawn in a qualifying group with Peru and Uruguay. The prize at stake was a place at the 1966 World Cup finals in England. Unfortunately, Venezuela lost all four games as Uruguay qualified for the finals. With improvements over the years, Venezuela recorded some excellent results in the tough qualifying group from South America, notably for the 2010 World Cup.

They drew with Brazil, and beat both Bolivia and Ecuador away from home in a campaign that ended with twenty points, but no ticket to South Africa.

Answer: 3

In fact, West Germany won both the first and last World Cups they participated in (under the title of 'West Germany'). In 1954, what is sometimes termed as 'The Miracle of Berne', West Germany came back from a two goal deficit (in the first eight minutes) to beat Hungary 3-2 in Switzerland. The Germans had previously lost 8-3 to the same opposition in the group stage of the competition.

The West Germans won the World Cup on home soil in 1974, again turning a losing score (1-0 behind to the Dutch) into a 2-1 victory. One of the highlights of the competition was East Germany's 1-0 victory over the their western neighbors in the first group stage of the competition.

The third and final success as West Germany came in Italy in 1990. Andreas Brehme scored the only goal (a penalty) in the final against Argentina. Interestingly, of West Germany's three World Cup successes, this was the only one in which they remained unbeaten throughout the tournament.

West Germany won the European Championship in 1972 and 1980.

Answer: Brazil

On 14th July 1930, Yugoslavia played their first World Cup finals match, in the very first World Cup in Uruguay. The opposition was Brazil. First half goals from Bek and Tirnanic were enough to earn them a 2-1 victory over the mighty Brazilians (Preguinho scored the Brazilian goal). They went on to beat Bolivia 4-0 in their second group match to send both South American teams out of the competition. Bek scored twice as Marjanovic and Vujadinovic added the others to complete the comprehensive victory. The Yugoslavians crashed out at the semi-final stage to eventual winners, Uruguay. They were the first European team to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup.

They emulated reaching the semi-finals in Chile in 1962, where a 1-0 defeat to the hosts in the third-place play-off saw them finish fourth. Drazan Jerkovic finished as the joint leading scorer in the competition with four goals. Yugoslavia were finalists twice in the European Champions, in 1960 and 1968, but were Olympic gold medal winners in 1960 in Rome.

Interestingly, all the matches in the 1930 World Cup took place in Montevideo.

Answer: He ran out of his defensive wall and kicked the ball upfield before Brazil had a chance to take a free kick.

Incredibly, much to the confusion of the Brazilian players preparing to take a free kick, on hearing the referee's whistle, Mwepu Ilunga rushed away from his defensive line of players and kicked the ball up the field of play. Although the incident looked bizarrely comical at the time, Ilunga has claimed since that he was trying to get sent off by the referee as a protest against the authorities of Zaire. They were reportedly withholding the earnings of the national team from the players. Zaire lost all three group games against Scotland, Yugoslavia and Brazil, conceding fourteen goals in the progress.

At tha time Zaire won the African Cup of Nations twice, once as Congo-Kinshasa in 1968 and then as Zaire only a few months before their World Cup finals appearance in 1974.