1954 FIFA World Cup

The 1954 FIFA World Cup was the tenth FIFA World Cup, was held in Chile between June 12 and July 12. After the brief extension to 20 teams, the competition dropped back down to a sixteen format.

In the final it would be Hungary who would take out the trophy after they defeated fellow first-time finalists in Romania 5-1 at Santiago.

Background
After the partial success of the 1950 FIFA World Cup where the draw was twenty teams, there was suggestions that the 20 team format will stay in the next World Cup. But the host Federation (Federación de Football de Chile) declared that they won't be having the sixteen team competition as they didn't want to see blowouts in their competition and damage the model of the Cup. During the 1952 Summer Olympics, it was declared that the competition would drop back to a sixteen team format to follow the 1934 format.

Bids
Only two nations bid for the World Cup with Chile and Argentina putting their hand up to host the 1954 edition after the FIFA rotation was put that into play. But when the Argentines withdrew from bidding it was decided that Chile would win the rights for the World Cup on April 21, 1948.

Qualifying
Qualifying for the 1954 World Cup started in 1952 with North America holding the first qualifying matches. The fourteen spots were separated into ten spots for Europe, one spot for North America, two spots for South America and one spot going to Asia.

UEFA

🇦🇹 austria 🇫🇷 france 🇬🇧 united kingdom 🇭🇺 hungary 🇷🇴 romania 🇪🇸 spain 🇸🇪 sweden

🇹🇷 turkey

North America

🇲🇽 mexico

CONMEBOL

Asia

🇰🇷 south korea

Group A
Group A was what some would call the group of death with Sweden, Hungary, Uruguay and Spain in the group. In a close group, it would be the likes of Hungary with the goal scorer of who score three of the five goals to have Hungary end top of the group with Sweden just finishing ahead of Spain by only a single goal when Spain had to come from two down after  score the two goals for Uruguay.


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Group B
Group B would see Yugoslavia take out the group victory after they did win all three of their matches in Group B. would aid in the team as he scores three goals throughout the group stage. Joining Yugoslavia would be Austria with aiding them with three for himself with all them coming off in the group match against Portugal where it was a 5-0 demolition for Austria and putting Portugal last in the group.


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Group C
In Group C, the only nation to not score a goal for the whole tournament was in this group with Korea not getting any goals while the goalkeeper let in thirteen goals in the three matches to put Korea on the bottom. During these thirteen, two hat-tricks were scored in the games against the Soviet Union (who was on debut) and France with only the former one getting through to the knock-out stage. The other nation to get through was Romania who surprised everyone by finishing top of the group.


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Group D
Group D had the host nation in Chile and a debutant in Turkey. The other two teams being Great Britain and Mexico to fill the group. For the British team they would dominate the group as they defeated all of their opponents by at least a goal with scoring four in the group victory. Coming in second was Mexico after they defeated the two opponents that they required to take out the second place while Chile and Turkey would only score a point against each other with Chile rooted to the bottom because of scoring fewer goals than Turkey.


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Quarter Finals
The quarter finals would see two brand new teams in the top 4 for the first time with Hungary and Romania both making it through to the semi-finals after they dispatched the Soviet Union and the defending champions in Sweden. The other two qualifiers had difficult quarter finals but for Yugoslavia and Austria they would make a return to the semi-final for the first time since 1926.

Semi Finals
With all the semi-finalists never making it through to the final, we would see a newcomer lift the World Cup trophy and the semi-finals. In the semi-finals themselves, Romania and Hungary would make it through to the final after dispatching their opponents while not letting in any goals on the opposite end. The first semi-final would see scoring a double to bring down Yugoslavia from making another final.

The second semi saw a much tougher affair with Romania needing to go to the 84th minute to than scoring two quick goals in the time to record a memorable victory which to this day is something that the team wouldn't forget.

Third Place Playoff
In the curtain raiser to the Final it was Yugoslavia who would take out third place with a three-nil victory over Austria in the match with scoring two goals in the victory.

Final
The final would see history being created with being in the first player in World Cup history to score a World Cup hat-trick in the final which would be proven to be helpful as Hungary would go on and lift the title after they defeated Romania to record their first (and to date only) World Cup trophy. For Romania, they had fallen short once again after the 1952 Summer Olympics result where they lost to the Soviet Union in the final.

Goalscorers
8 goals
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5 goals
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4 goals
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3 goals
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2 goals
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1 goal
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Own goal
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