JULY 13th THE FIRST WORLD CUP

July 13th 1930 was the date of the first World Cup matches, hosted in Montevideo, Uruguay. It was the dream of Henri Delaunay (secretary of the French FA, who gave up refereeing after swallowing his whistle and being hit in the face by the ball, breaking two teeth)!!!! Henri started his career as an administrator in 1905, when he became president of Étoile des Deux Lacs, then secretary-general of the Comité français interfédéral (CFI), the ancestor of the French Football Federation. I'll leave you to do the translation.

As a member of FIFA, Henri sat on its board as deputy from 1924 until 1928. Along with Jules Rimet, he was an early architect of the FIFA World Cup and they were also responsible for the idea of the European Champions Cup, as early as the 1920s, although this did not materialise until 1960, wars being one reason for the slow uptake of the competition.

He was General Secretary of UEFA from its foundation on 15 June 1954 until his death. When he died in 1955, he was succeeded as head of UEFA by his son Pierre Delaunay.

and Jules Rimet, BELOW (another member of the French FA), both of whom formed the FIFA committee.

I did make reference to this momentous occasion before and you might find some of the idiosyncasies in this past blog amusing. Worth reading if you need cheering up.

http://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/keep-your-draws-on.html

FIFA chose Uruguay for the first ever World Cup finals despite offerings from Sweden, Italy, Holland and Spain. The entire competition was played in one city, Montevideo, using three stadia, hosting 13 national teams. Eight teams came from South America, the USA was there, the rest were European but not England where the FA deemed the World Cup not to be part of their international plan!

The nations were put into 4 groups, one of 4 teams and 3 groups of 3. Needless to say the hosts were in a small group! Argentina, Chile, Mexico and France were unfortunate and played in a group of 4.

Qualifying ties were played in three stadia- Penarol's Estadio Pocitos,  Nacional's Grand Parque Central and the brand new Estadio Centenario. The competition was alive at last and France appropriately kicked it off against Mexico, winning 4-1 at the humble Pocitos Stadium.

July 13th, of course is the eve of Bastille Day, the organisers were French, what could go wrong?

Alex Thepot the French goalkeeper was kicked in the mouth and had to leave the field.  To make up for that, inside left (actually in those days, a Number 10), Lucien Laurent of France, scored the first ever World Cup goal after 19 minutes, witnessed by a 1,000 crowd. 

The French captain on the day, Alex Villaplane, was to meet an unpleasant death, later, in 1944, when he was executed by firing squad for collaborating with the Germans (in the war). 

Mexicans, Manuel and Felipe Rosas were the first brothers to play in the World Cup.

Isn't it usual for the host country to kick off the tournament? Well, this is Uruguay and the stadium in Montevideo, The Estadio Centenario, built to celebrate 100 years of independence from Brazil, was not ready.

On the 13th July, the first day of competition, France beat Mexico 4-1 and the USA beat Belgium 3-0. In the USA side were six players from Scotland (mainly), some of whom had seen better days. The French were quick to nickname them the "Shot-putters" but the Scots surprised their critics with a comfortable win against a moderate Belgian team. They then beat Paraguay 3-0 and lost to Argentina 6-1 in the semi-finals which 80,000 watched at the Centenary Stadium.

Some of the matches were poorly attended; Romania v Peru, for example, only attracting 300 people, at Pocitos, the opening match in Group 3. In a tense and stormy match, Desu of Romania scored after 50 seconds from 30 yards. Inevitably, the Peruvian captain, Placido Galindo, was the first player to be sent off in a World Cup match, in front of 300, the smallest crowd in World Cup history.

At the same ground, the day before (13th July), the first World Cup goal was scored by Frenchman Lucien Laurent, against Mexico after 19 minutes. It was his only World Cup goal of that tournament, scored in front of 1,000 people. In this tournament, only three players played league football outside their home country; times have changed.

Hosts Uruguay were watched by over 190,000 during their semi-final (v Yugoslavia 6-1) and final (v Argentina 4-2) matches.
Apologies for the quality of the film but it is 1930.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ZkR-US3e8

Uruguay were also Olympic champions in 1924 and 1928 and their star, Pedro Cea was the first person to score a goal in both the Olympic (1924) and World Cup (1930) finals.