Flying Down to Rio - Flight Eight

After the successful inaugural tournament 32 countries entered for the 1934 competition  held in Italy. The FIFA committee had chosen Italy over Sweden and no ballot of members was held. Uruguay the holders declined to take part as Italy was one of the countries that declined to take part four years earlier. Thus becoming the only country never to defend the trophy. The four home nations of Great Britain also declined to take part as they were not members FIFA at the time. Charles Sutcliffe, a FA committee is quoted as saying "The national associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have quite enough to do in their own International Championship (1) which seems to me a far better World Championship than the one to be staged in Rome".

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This tournament saw the first qualifying competition. The finals would be contested by 16 teams in a straight knockout format in eight cities. Although the top eight teams were seeded to avoid meeting in the first round. Even the hosts Italy were expected to qualify and were scheduled to meet Greece over two matches. Italy won the first game 4-0 and at that point Greece withdrew.

Mexico beat Cuba to qualify for the finals. The USA submitted their entry too late but were invited to Italy and a extra qualifying round was arranged with Mexico which the USA won. Thus Mexico who had qualified once and traveled to Italy were sent home without playing in the competition proper. USA would then lose in the first round 7-1 to Italy.

Only Argentina and Brazil entered from South America so both qualified automatically. Both nations would send weakened teams and they both lost in the first round. This being the only time all the quarter finalists have come from Europe. Argentina, who had no survivors from 1930 runners up in their squad, were unhappy as a number of key players had “defected“ to Italian football after the last competition.

The Czech team before extra time in the Final

Thus Luisito Monti, who had appeared in the Final four years earlier now played in the second Final for Italy. There were three other former Argentine players and a Brazilian included in the Italian squad. The Brazilian team took 11 days to arrive in Italy by ship, foolishly stopping to pick up the Spanish team on the way. Brazil then lost in the first round to fellow shipmates Spain.

Spain defend in numbers V Brazil.

Such was the desire of Italy's fascist leader Benito Mussolini to showcase his country's strengths, he even had an additional trophy commissioned, the Coppa Del Duce, which was much larger than the official trophy. Italy's Luigi Allemandi had been previously banned from the game for life for taking a bribe but was reinstated in time for the finals.

This tournament also saw the introduction of radio broadcasts to other countries.

The first round saw Egypt take part and lose to Hungary. It would be another 36 years before Africa was represented again. Strangely the next time Egypt qualified was 1990, when the tournament was again held in Italy. The first  round game Austria V France was the first game in the competition’s history to go to extra time. The first replay would arrive in the quarter final between Italy and Spain. With the semi only two days later. Those two games have been described as a ‘street battle.’ In the first game the Spanish goalie was injured and missed the replay while one of the Italians had his leg broken. In the second game three of the Spanish team had to leave the field injured. In the final Italy would win the trophy beating Czechoslovakia in extra time.

Meanwhile back in N17 - Tottenham had finished third in the League and reached the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Notes, 1 - British Home Championship,

Thanks - FIFA, BBC, ESPN, Planet World Cup, England on Line, The Times, The Guardian.
All Images - FIFA

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Keith Harrison, Nilgiris, TN
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