ON THIS DAY

England won their first match at the 1966 World Cup finals, goals from Bobby Charlton and Roger Hunt giving them a 2-0 victory over Mexico at Wembley in their second group fixture.

July 16th 1950 is usually stated as the date of the 1950 World Cup final between Brazil and Uruguay but in reality there wasn’t a final in the 1950 World Cup! Uniquely there were no knock-out matches in those finals with the competition being decided in groups. The finals started with four preliminary groups with the winner of each group qualifying for the final group. England famously lost 1-0 to USA in their group with the group winners being Brazil, Uruguay, Spain and Sweden who progressed to the final group. The two South American sides were scheduled to play each other in their final group games and by the time that match came they were the only two countries who could top the group table and so win the World Cup. Brazil were the hot favourites – they were hosts, they had beaten Sweden 7-1 and Spain 6-1 while Uruuay had only managed a 3-2 win over Sweden and a draw against Spain. So Brazil only needed a draw against Uruguay to take the title – Brazil took a 1-0 lead but Uruguay won 2-1 to top the group and win the World Cup. The official FIFA attendance for that match was 173,850 but many more got into the Maracana Stadium without tickets with the actual attendance being reported as 199,854.