World Cup Winning Teams | World Cup Stats - Games Played

How It All Began

The seeds which marked the beginning of this great event were planted by the president of the World Football Federation, in 1926. There would be no such thing as a world cup history if it were not for Jules Rimet, who first took the presidency in 1921. The positive message infused by Rimet is summarized by his famous words "Soccer could reinforce the ideals of a permanent and real peace", as he pushed to organize an international event that would make no discrimination on the grounds of professional or amateur status. As his words were spoken the plans for a world tournament involving all of the federations was being planned for the coming 3 to 4 years. Along with the help of 5 other officials, Rimet organized the event for 1930. Via congressional meetings of the World Football Federation the semantics for the tournament were laid out and finalized.

On May 26th, 1928 the World Cup was born. History was changed forever as five European countries plus a chosen host of Uruguay planned to hold the first tournament on May 18th, 1929 at the congress of Barcelona. Uruguay was chosen as host based on their outstanding Olympic record, and as Rimet was encouraging a regime of international peace, utilizing the reputation the Olympic games already held was simply intelligent leveraging.

The actualization of the event did not transpire until the year later, when on July 13th, 1930 the first game of the first world cup kicked off in Pocitos Stadium, and France beat Mexico 4 to 1. This truly marked the beginning of a long and wonderful world cup history.

The first world cup was the only event to not involve the modern qualifying rounds. The only European teams involved were France, Belgium, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Other European teams either wished to remain in purely Amateur events, or argued that the expected trip time was far too long. Other than Uruguay six additional south American teams participated, including Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Peru.

Winners of the 1st World Cup - Uruguay - 1930

Two teams remained to complete the final 13 for 1930, Mexico and the United States. The U.S. was utilizing a heavily Scottish roster for the event.

In the end it was Uruguay battling Argentina for the cup. Victory and the first world cup went to Uruguay as they beat the Argentineans 4 to 2.

To see which country has maintained the best record over the course of the last six decades view our world cup rankings page.