A year earlier, on the 16th January 1957, at the start of the World Cup qualifying period, the Irish had played Portugal in Lisbon and managed a draw 1-1. They then lost to Italy in Rome 1-0 in April and beat Portugal 3-0 in May in Belfast. So Northern Ireland topped the group with 5 points and went to Sweden, while Italy, runners up, failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup for the first time. Portugal also stayed at home. Uruguay, one of the favourites, also failed to qualify in South America, losing out to Paraguay in their group.
However the whole thing could have been very different for the Irish! It was FOG that changed history. The original match against Italy was due to be played on December 4th 1957, but with fog hanging around in Europe the referee assigned to the match by FIFA was Hungarian Istvan Zolt, who was fog bound and couldn't fly to Belfast. The petty Italians objected to a last minute stand in referee. With the crowd queuing to get in the ground and the players ready to get stuck in, FIFA allowed the two teams to play BUT insisted that it was only to be a "friendly". An unhappy crowd of 53,000, expecting a massive World Cup contest, had to be content with watching a lively 2-2 draw, with the Italians taking their wrath out on the Irish with some ferocious tackling, producing "The Battle of Belfast".
Northern Ireland did go to Sweden in the summer for the finals and so did England who beat the Republic of Ireland and Denmark in their qualifying group.
Scotland beat Spain and Switzerland qualified too.
Wales, with the great John Charles in the team, came third in their group behind Czechoslovakia, having drawn three games, played off again against Hungary, winning 2-1. This entitled them to play another two legged SPECIAL "qualifier" against Israel, winning 4-0 on aggregate. The tie came about after Sudan withdrew from the qualifying competition, making Israel the Asia-African winners (is Israel in either continent?). One way and another FIFA insisted that Israel play off against Wales.....no wonder they are grumpy.
All four British home nations therefore qualified for the first time.
16 nations qualified to go to Sweden and they were placed in 4 groups of 4.
England failed to move on to the quarter-finals from their group. They drew with the Soviet Union 2-2 (Derek Kevan and Tom Finney pen. scored) in their first game in the Nya Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg (one I have been to over the years with the Gothia Cup).
England managed a creditable 0-0 draw with Brazil (eventual World Cup winners) in the Ullevi, once again and then drew with Austria 2-2 (Johnny Haynes and Kevan scored) whom they had to beat to ensure direct qualification. England went to a play off but lost 0-1 to the Soviets at the Ullevi again.
Brazil of course, didn't mess around and they took their place in the quarter-finals, after beating the Soviets 2-0, with Pele given his debut at 16 years old . Colleagues Garrincha, Didi, Vava (who scored 2 goals), were the core of the eventual World Cup winning team.
Wales managed three draws with Mexico, Hungary and Sweden and then had to play off with Hungary again, winning 2-1.
Guess what? Scotland came last in their group with one point.
In the quarter-finals, Wales lost to Brazil 0-1 (Pele scored).
Northern Ireland lost 0-4 to France who had Juste Fontaine, one of their great players at centre-forward, scoring twice in the game and gathering 13 goals in total during the finals.
Brazil beat hosts Sweden in the final 5-2, Pele scoring 2, Vava 2 and Zagalo.
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