For the fifth World Cup Finals, the tournament
returned to Europe; to Switzerland, the home of FIFA, UEFA and the Olympic Committee.
Argentina again declined to participate, although Uruguay did
appear to defend their trophy and try to get permanent ownership of it by winning the
finals for a record third time.
The fifth World Cup tournament produced a record number of goals,
including a (7:5) encounter between Austria and Switzerland in Lausanne.
The Hungarians -- Olympic gold medalists and unbeaten for four years
(amassing 27 wins and 4 draws from their 31 games) -- took the tournament by storm and
added to the goal glut with considerable first round victories against Korea (9:0) and
West Germany (8:3).
Ferenc Puskas, Jozsef Boszik and Sandor Kocsis were a feared trio and
looked set to help Hungary to a World Cup victory, after eliminating Brazil (4:2) and
Uruguay (4:2 aet) in the knockout stages.
In the Final in Bern, Hungary were confidently two goals up then
stunned the watching fans by losing (2:3); to the team they'd already beaten (8:3) in the
group stage, West Germany.
The 16 teams were arranged into four groups of 4 teams each, with
the first two teams moving on to the quarter-finals.
As the teams only played two games each, a couple of play-offs were
needed to seperate the second and third placed teams in two of the groups, even though the
teams had already played each other. In both cases, the same team won again and the third
placed team, on goal difference, then managed to advance to the knockout stage.
