This illustration shows a soccer match between England and Scotland in the 1870s The goal left had no net and consisted of two poles with a rope running along the top M
1 FROM POLITICS TO PELÉ THE ROAD TO THE WORLD CUP soccer soccer or football as it's known to most of the world was far from an international craze when Scotland and England faced off for the world's first international match in 1872 While club play matches between organized local teams had grown wildly popular in Britain soccer had little foothold outside the British Isles And so the world wasn't exactly paying attention as 11 English players took to the pitch to take on 11 Scottish opponents England brought an all star team handpicked from club teams Scotland meanwhile fielded a team composed entirely of players from a single club Glasgow's Queen's Park A crowd of 4 000 fans turned out at Hamilton Crescent a muddy rain soaked cricket field in Glasgow most of them to cheer on their fellow Scots It was a gritty defensive battle between the blue shirted Scots and the white clad English The English were bigger stronger and more talented However the Scots were used to playing with one another and their smaller size made them faster than the English even on the sloppy mud that covered the field
Scotland pushed the action in the first half while the English were on the attack for much of the second half Scotland recorded a pair of near misses But that's as close as either side came to scoring And so the first international soccer match ended in a scoreless tie It may not have seemed like much at the time but the 0 0 deadlock marked the beginning of a new era in soccer The sport had stepped onto the world stage and soccer would never be the same FIFA AND THE FIRST WORLD CUP By 1900 soccer was well on its way to world domination As the sport spread through Europe and into the Americas professional associations leagues popped up all around the globe The sport was included as part of the 1900 Olympic Games with Great Britain beating France in the final match However the Olympic teams were composed only of amateur players Professionals weren't allowed Since the Olympics didn't include some of the best players in the world these games didn't really address the question of soccer superiority Yet the event did raise public interest in a true international competition Two years later Argentina routed Uruguay 6 0 in the first international match ever held outside the British Isles Even though the game was spreading Europe remained the center of the soccer world By 1904 Europe's many associations needed a common governing body to oversee international competition That year several European nations formed the Fédération Internationale de Football Association FIFA FIFA's grip on the game grew quickly It oversaw the soccer competition at the 1908 Olympics It expanded to South Africa in 1909 and Argentina in 1912 FIFA was fast becoming the dominant governing force in the ever expanding international game The seeds of the World Cup were sown in 1908 when Turin Italy hosted the Torneo Internazionale Stampa Sportiva Unlike the Olympic Games this tournament included top professionals from around the globe The event featured 8 THE WORLD CUP
Great Britain in white with black shorts beat Denmark 2 0 for the gold medal at the 1908 Olympics in London England an international group of association teams rather than national teams composed of a country's top players which fans would later see in World Cup tournaments But the matches in Turin gathered the world's best players together in a series of nation vs nation clashes Soccer took a back seat in Europe as World War I 1914 1918 raged through the continent and the game was slow to recover there As Europe endured war and its aftermath the balance of soccer power began to shift to South America Uruguay won gold at both the 1924 and 1928 Olympics Its hopes at a third straight title were dashed however when soccer wasn't even included at the 1932 games in Los Angeles California The sport was dropped in part because FIFA wanted to use pro players while the Olympic committee did not and also because the sport's popularity in the United States the host country for the 1932 games lagged far behind much of the rest of the world FROM POLITICS TO PELÉ THE ROAD TO THE WORLD CUP 2
