It was the 1938 World Cup and France hosted it. The organisers, FIFA, realised what a financial disaster the competition would have been if the HOST nation had not qualified, so France had a "free ticket" to Round One! England had thought joining in inappropriate; mind you it was 1938!
Germany qualified in Group One, with all their matches played in 1937 against Estonia, Sweden and Finland. Sweden joined them. Note the year!
Group Two: Norway and Poland went through.
Romania also had a walk over in Group 3, when Egypt pulled out.
Group 4 Swizerland played one qualifying match against Portugal in Milan and won 2-1;
Group 5 included just Greece and Palestine, which knocked out Palestine over two matches and then Greece met Hungary in their next "group" and were thumped 11-1; Hungary's only qualifying tie!
Group 6, saw Czechoslovakia beat Bulgaria over theo games.
Group 7: Latvia beat Lithuania 9-3 over two matches in 1937 and then met Austria who knocked them out 2-1.
Group 8: The "Low Countries" Group!! Holland and Belgium went though, Luxembourg surprisingly did not.
It was nothing short of chaos but not surprising, considering the year and the rise of Nazi Germany!
OUT OF EUROPE: Brazil in Group Nine qualified with Cuba as NO other countries entered their group! so they had a walk over.
WAIT FOR IT! Group Ten: Dutch East Indies qualified when Japan (unsurprisingly) pulled out.
At the "Tournament" in France on June 5th 1938. Germany opened the tournament in the Parc de Princes, Paris against Switzerland and they drew 1-1. There was no Nazi salute from the Swiss at the opening game of the tournament. They also lost the "replay" 4-2 and went home to Hitler, humiliated.
and Brazil lined up for their First Round match against Poland. In goal, for Brazil, was Batatais (potatoes) who apparently, played with the agility of a sack of them. His real name was Algisto Lorenzato and he was quietly relieved to see his team 3-1 up at half time. Ernest Wilimowski, Poland's striker, scored twice in six second half minutes to draw his team level by the hour.
Then Brazil went ahead 4-3 with 19 mins to go, but Poland's Wilimowski completed his hat trick a minute before the end of time, to force extra time.
Before the first half of extra time was over, Leonidas scored twice and completed his hat trick having scored twice in normal time. Wilimowski's fourth came at 118 minutes, but too late to stop the Brazilians venturing into the quarter-finals 6-5. Brazil had two debutants and Poland's entire team was "new" to the World Cup.
Wilimowski's goal gave him a piece of history being the only player at the time to score 4 and lose. Meanwhile, Potatoes was dropped for the Brazil quarter-final and semis ties, though he did play in the Third Place Play Off, when he let in two but was on the winning side 4-2.
Italy won the tournament, beating Hungary 4-2 in Paris. On Benito Mussolini's orders, the Italian team took the pitch for their quarter-final match against France dressed in black shirts (they were supposed to be wearing white), a symbol of the Italian fascist paramilitary. They proceeded to give the fascist salute before kick-off. As can be easily imagined, the crowd in Paris wasn’t pleased!
AND AWAY FROM THER WORLD CUP: June 5th 1968 Yugoslavia beat England 1-0 in the Semi-Final of the European Championships in Italy with Alan Mullery becoming the first England player to be sent off.
June 5th 1999 After receiving two cautions for two foul tackles Paul Scholes was sent off in the 51st minute of England's Euro 2000 qualifier against Sweden at Wembley. It was the only time an England player was sent off in an international at the old Wembley Stadium.
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