World Cup History: Italy 1934

Written by flyfra on 12 December 2009 | 2 comments | in: World Cup

Italia Campione Mondiali 1934

1934 World Cup in Italy: on May 27, 1934 starts, in Rome, the second edition of the soccer World Cup. The organization of the second World cup In 1932, in Stockolm, the FIFA chooses Italy as the host country of the popular event, while Sweden and France gave up for the high uncertainty of the economic impact of a such big event. On the other hand, the fascist regime saw in the event a good way to promote the country and to show to the world the fascist ideals and power. Careless of the economic troubles, the event has been organized without a limit to the budget: infrastructures were improved and the new sports facilities built were as good as the english ones. Mussolini, as known, provided incentives to the sports, especially football. The teams who joined the World Cup At the opposite of the previous World Cup in Uruguay, several nations joined this event. For this reason qualifying were necessary in order to choose the 16 teams of the final phase. The World Cup in Italy in 1934 were the only ones were the host country joined the qualifying round. Italy played the qualifying matches versus Greece in a match dominated by the “Azzurri” for 4-0. The 16 nations who joined the World Cup were:

  • Italy
  • Czechoslovakia
  • Spain
  • Austria
  • Hungary
  • Belgium
  • France
  • Germany
  • Romania
  • Netherland
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Argentina
  • Brazil
  • USA
  • Egypt

How you can see, several important teams didn’t accept to join the tournament for several reasons: England snubs the world cup (as in 1930), Uruguay, the World Champion, renounces to defend the title because several European teams didn’t join their World Cup 4 years before. For the first time instead, there is an African team who plays: the Egypt. The Italy coached by Pozzo The Italian team was coached by Vittorio Pozzo, considered the best coach who has ever trained the Italian team, for his strategic capabilieties, his knowledge of the opponents game and the psychological analysis of the players to choose for the line-up. He Coached italy for 20 years, from 1929 to 1948. Italy won the last 16 round 7-1 versus United States and qualifies for the quarter-finals together with Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Czechoslovakia. In the quarter-finals the team faces the Spain. In that team played the goalkeeper Zamora, one of the best ever, and they won against Brazil in the last 16 for 3-1. The match was played on May 31st and finished at the overtime 1-1. The goal were scored by Ferrari and Regueiro. In 1934 there weren’t penalties, hence the team played another game the day after. Italy scored with Giuseppe Meazza at the minute 12 and gains the semi-finals. It is courios what happened in the night between the two matches: it seems that a group of italian supporters, went with the trumpets to the hotel where the spanish team was based. They annoyed the spanish team during the night, probably affecting the team’s performance. Another great match was the one between Austria and Hungary, two of the favorite teams. The match finished 2-1 in favor of Austria. Hence Italy and Austria reached the semifinals, where Italy won 1-0 (Guaita). However there were doubts about favouritism for Italy. In fact the Austria Coach, Hugo Meisl, declared: “I’m afraid of Ital, but I’m more afraid of the referee” The final and the victory Against any prediction, Italy played the final versus Czechoslovakia. The other finalist dominated the semifinals against Germany for 3-1. Czechoslovakia was a very good team, with several champions: Planicka, Svoboda, Neyedly (top scorer) and Puc. Vittorio Pozzo lined-up the same team who played versus Austria: Combi, Monzeglio, Allemandi, Ferraris IV, Monti, Bertolini, Guaita, Meazza, Schiavio, Ferrari, Orsi. The final took place on June 10, 1934 in Rome, at the “Partito Nazionale Fascista” Stadium, with 50.000 spectators. Two of them were Benito Mussolini and Jules Rimet. The first 90 minutes finished 1-1 (Puc and Orsi scored). During the overtime the Italian team scored the goal of the victory, thanks to Schiavio (that was also injured), and won the title. A key role in this triumph were the great players as Monti, Guaita, Orsi and Giuseppe Meazza. Especially the last one is considered one of the greatest player of all time. The total earning of the World Cup was of more than 1.5 million Liras. The players of the Italian team got 10.000 liras each as reward for the victory. The History of the FIFA World Cup

Related articles

  • No Related Post

2 Comments

  1. flyfra ha detto:

    You’re right David. It is well known that the 1934 World Cup were not so regular. thank you for your contribution and I hope the discussion will continue.

  2. david ha detto:

    Well, to be honest with history, you could have also mentioned that in the matches against Spain:

    - Italy’s goals (in both matches) were illegal and yet conceded.
    - Referee denied 3 legal goals to Spain.
    - 7 best spanish players were injured by the ‘brutal’ (term used by international, and not only spanish, media reports of the match) italians attitude.
    - The referee was kick out from FIFA and from its national federation after that.
    - The referee confessed years later that Mussolini men had warned him to do whatever necessary to have Italy winning over Spain which, by the way, had an amazing national team (maybe the best ever). Should Spain had won, he would have never left the country, as they said.
    - Italy included 4 argentinians in their squad despite they did not meet the requirements at all. FIFA did not want a trouble with Mussolini and accepted even when it was against his own rules.

    I hope you don’t mind this further explanation. I’m sure you also like football and want it to be fair. Anyway, I gently invite you look for information about the match if you don’t believe what I say.

    Ciao,
    David

Leave a comment

Create your avatar! Go get one on gravatar.com and use it wherever you want!

Back to top