1938 FIFA World Cup

The 1938 FIFA World Cup was the seventh FIFA World Cup to be held since its inception in 1906. The bids started to come in 1933 and lasted until August 13, 1936, where Argentina won the bid to host the World Cup. This is eight years after the first World Cup to be held in South America. Fourteen teams advanced to the main competition joining Argentina (host nation) and Italy (defending champion). The Dutch East Indies became the first team to qualify through to the World Cup from the Asian region.

Italy won the World Cup for the second consecutive time after they defeated the Netherlands 2-0 in the final held in Buenos Aires. While United States finished in 3rd place after defeating Portugal in the curtain-raiser match.

Background
On February 17, 1935, FIFA brought back knockout format which in 1910 was a failure in the country of Austria. The attempt at the possibility of doing a knockout competition was further strengthened by the recent Olympic competition which was held in Germany with crowds over an average of 35,000 people.

Bids
Argentina was chosen to be the host of the 1938 FIFA World Cup after it was the only bid to come from the South America region. This meant that it would be the second time that South America would host the event after eight years.

Qualifying
Qualifications for the 1938 FIFA World Cup began in January 1937 with the WEFF Championship being held in Italy. 16 teams made it through to the finals with Latvia, Dutch East Indies and Romania all making their debuts. Denmark returned to the World Cup for the first time in 24 years while Belgium was the highest team to not make it through to the World Cup as they were ranked 4th at the time.

Europe 🇧🇬 bulgaria 🇭🇺 hungary 🇮🇹 italy 🇷🇴 romania

CONMEBOL 🇦🇷 argentina 🇧🇷 brazil

North America 🇺🇸 united states

Asia

Round 1
The first round of the World Cup saw the debutants of the Dutch East Indies, Latvia and Romania in the World Cup. Only Romania would qualify to the quarter-finals from the three teams as they defeated Yugoslavia 3-1 with scoring a double. In other results from the opening round, Brazil and Denmark had to go to a second match after the first match ended in a 1-1 draw. The replay though would be a different story as Brazil dominated to win 3-0. Switzerland also was a shock elimination in the opening round as they joined Yugoslavia with a loss to Portugal while Italy gained an easy passage through into the quarters after defeating Bulgaria 5-0 with scoring a double.

Quarter Finals
The quarter-finals of the World Cup saw the defending champions in Italy knocking out the hosts (Argentina) with three different goal scorers being on the scoresheet in the win. The Netherlands also qualified through to a semi final after a fifth minute goal from giving the win to the Dutch as they would be meeting the United States after a tight battle which saw them just get over Romania after  scored the winner in the 85th minute of play. The other match saw Portugal qualify through to their first semi after defeating Brazil 2-1.

Goalscorers
6 goals 5 goals 3 goals 2 goals 1 goal
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