The World Cup of Withdrawals Trivia Quiz

Answer: Before the outbreak of WW II, Brazil had been the only candidate to host the 1942 World Cup

Actually, both Brazil and Nazi Germany had entered a bid to host the World Cup in 1942. However, since the previous two World Cups had been in Europe, and because FIFA was unlikely to allow the World Cup to become a yet another ideologically exploited spectacle like the 1934 and 1938 World Cups or the 1936 Olympic Games, it is generally agreed that Brazil would have won the vote anyway. For obvious reasons, Germany was not available as host nation in 1950.
As for the other interesting bits of trivia: Italy still holds the record for longest World Champion reign, with 16 years. They won the title in 1934, prolongued it in 1938 and kept it throughout the war years when no competition was held. Barring another world war, they are unlikely to lose that record. No-one has even come close to winning the title four times in a row (Brazil 1958 & 1962 is the only team besides Italy managing to win two consecutive titles).
England and the other British FAs (Football Associations) withdrew from FIFA in 1928, two years before the first World Cup. A dispute over the payment of amateur players meant that they missed the first three editions. Their comeback, together with Italy defending the title, was a big boost for the credibility of the World Cup. One of the least-known members of FIFA was Saarland, a french-occupied part of Germany which was a member from 1950 until 1956. Their Football Association was admitted to FIFA two weeks before the start of the World Cup. The (West-)German FA was only reinstated as a member two months after the World Cup while the Russian Zone (East Germany) didn't have an FA for another two years.

Answer: Scotland

Even before the World Cup 1950 was a fact, the British Nations had planned their traditional British Home Championship, in 1950. Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England participated in this tournament. In their wisdom, FIFA decided to use this tournament as qualification group 1, and because of the strength of British football, the first two of the tournament would automatically qualify. Scotland came in second after a narrow 0-1 loss against England at Hampden Park, but they already stated beforehand that they would only go if they became British Champions. Since England was champion, Scotland withdrew. Their spot was then offered to France.

The Republic of Ireland of course is not a British Nation. They played four qualification matches in group 5 with Sweden and Finland. They lost twice against Sweden, won one and drew one against Finland. Only Sweden qualified from this group.

Answer: Portugal

You might wonder what Portugal is doing in the list. In the preliminary round, Turkey demolished Syria 7-0 in their home game. Syria didn't bother with the return match and withdrew. Turkey's next opponent was Austria, which had been one of the best nations just before the war. Austria withdrew, so Turkey had a walkover and qualified. And then they also withdrew. Earlier Portugal had been eliminated by Spain, losing one game and drawing the other.

They were offered Turkey's place, but they declined too. FIFA then decided to leave that spot open.

The World Cup was now one team short.

Answer: They didn't qualify, were invited later on, accepted, and withdrew again

Group 3 was one of the few groups where teams were actually battling for qualification. In the preliminary round, Yugoslavia dispatched Israel comfortably with an 11-2 aggregate over two games. Then France and Yugoslavia twice played to a 1-1 draw in their home and away games.

The deciding game on neutral ground (Florence, Italy) ended 3-2 after extra time in Yugoslavia's favour. After this elimination, France was offered Scotland's place, and initially accepted the offer. When they realised that the large distances in Brazil meant travelling more than 3000 kms between venues, they withdrew again.

The World Cup was now two teams short (no one qualified from Group 2 as they all withdrew: Austria, Turkey and Syria).

Answer: They weren't allowed to play barefoot

Burma withdrew, so India had a walkover. Next they had to play either Indonesia or The Philippines, but both teams withdrew before even playing each other. India qualified without playing a game, but then withdrew, because FIFA didn't allow them to play barefoot.

As much as it sounds like an April Fool's joke, all sources, including the official FIFA site, declare that India refused to come to Brazil because they didn't agree with the FIFA regulation requiring all teams to use appropriate footwear.

This time, FIFA didn't even bother to invite another nation to take India's place. The World Cup was now three teams short (the qualifiers from Group 2 and Group 3 had withdrawn).

Answer: 0

A total of eight South American nations originally signed up for the event. As hosts, Brazil was automatically qualified. Chile and Bolivia qualified without playing when favourite Argentina withdrew. Uruguay and Paraguay had walkovers too when Peru and Ecuador withdrew. At least South America sent enough teams.

Answer: None

What a relief this must have been for FIFA. The US, Mexico and Cuba were scheduled to play for two tickets to Brazil, and they actually did. To simplify things, instead of playing home and away games, they agreed to play all six games as a small tournament in Mexico City in September 1949. Mexico comfortably won that tournament (4 wins, 17-2 goals). Having drawn the first game 1-1, the United States grabbed the second qualification spot after beating Cuba 5-2 in the second. Still, because of the many withdrawals from beyond the Atlantic, the World Cup finals tournament was three teams short, which led to a rather bizarre group distribution. Two groups had the normal four teams, one group had only three teams, and one group had only two teams.

Answer: The US had beaten England just before the World Cup

England had sent a kind of exhibition team to America just before the World Cup . This was not the main England team, but it did include their biggest star Stanley Matthews. After ending their tour of Canada, it played against the USA in New York. The USA didn't beat England, they lost 0-1.

In 1950 England's papers still weren't very abundant and only a very small part of the paper could be devoted to sports. The big news of the day was that for the first time, the West-Indies had beaten England at cricket.

The news of the 1-0 loss against the US was so incredible, that some newspapers thought it was a typo and either chose to ignore it as insignificant, or reported a 10-1 win by England. As for the USA, except for the city of St. Louis, no-one seems to have been very interested. Eight players were born there and the only newspaper reporting was the St. Louis Post Dispatch, whose reporter Dent McSkimming happened to be on vacation in Brazil, and was the only American reporter present at the game.

The movie "The Game of Their Lives" tells the story of this match.

Answer: It wasn't actually the final

The World Cup 1950 is unique in many ways, one of them is that it is the only one without a final. Probably because Brazil wanted to increase their chances of winning, the last four teams didn't play semifinals and finals, but a round robin. The idea was that Brazil might lose a point by accident, but playing before a home crowd all the time, the win couldn't escape them in the end. They were very sure of their eventual win, medals were printed, a victory song composed. Brazil had every reason to be confident, Sweden and Spain were very good teams, but they were demolished by the host nation 7-1 and 6-1 respectively. Uruguay on the other hand barely beat Sweden 3-2 and only managed a 2-2 draw against Spain.

Although it was a round robin group, the last two games felt like a third place match between Spain and Sweden, and a final between Uruguay and Brazil. Very often these matches are referred to as such but they weren't.

A draw would have been enough for Spain to clinch third place, and for Brazil to win the title.

In theory, Spain could even have won second place. As for the spectators: with an estimated 200,000+ people inside Maracana stadium (official attendance was 199,854), this game set a record for best watched football game of all-time.

Answer: 4

Uruguay was World Champion, and they only played 4 games to get there. Had everything gone to plan they would have played 12 games: 6 in the qualifying rounds, 3 in the group stages and 3 in the final round. As it turned out, they didn't play any qualifyers, only one game in the group stages (a 8-0 drubbing of Bolivia) and then three in the final group against Spain, Sweden and Brazil. For comparison, when Italy won the Cup in 2006, they needed a total of 17 games.