1910 FIFA World Cup

The 1910 FIFA World Cup was the second FIFA World Cup. It took place in Austria from the 10 to 27 April.

Fifteen teams entered the second World Cup as the tournament became a knockout competition instead of the group stage that it was in the previous World Cup. With Uruguay absent because of the civil war, England would take their first title and became the second World Cup champions after defeating Belgium 2-1 in the final.

Background
After the success of the first edition which was played in 1906, talks started about hosting a second edition which was going to be held in Uruguay despite the protests of the European countries who would had to travel thousand of kilometers to compete at the World Cup. But in late 1907, the civil war took place in Uruguay which derailed the thoughts of a World Cup and wouldn't be until 1930 where a FIFA World Cup tournament would be held in South America.

This meant that a replacement had to be found and Austria put their hand up to host the tournament with the new format that took place at the 1908 Summer Olympics where six teams competed in a knockout format. This small success, paved the way for a knockout format for the first time to replace the previous format that occurred at the previous World Cup.