[Arcane Astral Aeons]

thought i would have a little fun and remember past world cups
i`ll start with 1974(some posters on here may not have been born then)

held in West Germany
first world cup i actually had an interest in
although,unlike today...there was a lack of live games back then
The following teams and groups were as follows

Group 1
East Germany
West Germany
Chile
Australia

Group 2
Yugoslavia
Brazil
Scotland
Zaire

Group 3
Netherlands
Bulgaria
Sweden
Uruguay

Group 4
Poland
Argentina
Italy
Haiti

the home nations hopes were pinned on Scotland,in part down to Poland who had eliminated England in the qualifying rounds
and after a comfortable 2-0 over Zaire everything in the scottish garden was looking rosey little did they know the inability to put more than the 2 goals past their opponents would eventually prove their downfall.
after a 0-0 draw with Brazil and a 1-1 draw with Yugoslavia the Scots packed their bags and headed home, having not lost a game.
other notable scores that eliminated them was Yugoslavia`s demolition of Zaire winning 9-0

The Rest

Netherlands v Sweden has to get a mention not because of the boring 0-0 scoreline
this was the game that a certain Johann Cruyff decided to take football to a new level with THAT turn

Then there was the meeting between East And West Germany
not a lot happened until the 77th minute when Juergen Sparwasser scored the decisive goal for the East

Second Round
This was played in 2 groups of 4 teams
winners of each group contested the final
runners up 3.4 play off

West Germany duly reached the final after beating Yugoslavia 2-0 Sweden 4-2 and controversially Poland 1-0 controversial because as i remember the pitch was waterlogged ball hardly rolled 5 yards but the referee gave the game the go ahead(may be wrong on this)
Netherlands despatched Argentina 4-0,East Germany 2-0,and Brazil 2-0

The Final 7/7/1974

Netherlands kick off keep possesion for well over 90 seconds
Cruyff gets fouled in the box and before a german had touched the ball they are 1-0 down thanks to Johann Neeskens Penalty
the rest of the game wasnt exactly a spectacle
The Germans equalised through a Paul Breitner penalty
and before half time were in front through Gerd Muller

Game Finished West Germany 2-1 Netherlands

sorry if i waffled on

may do the 78 one tomorrow
if you did bother reading thanks

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

1974 was also the tournament when Zaire right-back Ilunga Mwepu famously broke from his team's defensive wall to kick the ball away before a Brazil free-kick. There was a lot of patronising guff from commentators and pundits about Africans not understanding the rules of the game, when the reality was that Zaire's dictator had threatened to exile the players and/or execute their families if the team lost the match by more than three goals, and Brazil were already 2-0 up. Mwepu was timewasting to save lives.

That said, he clearly had a sense of humour about the whole thing, and his appearance on FFL twenty years ago was classic.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

I've copied this thread over here to give others a chance to contribute.

For anyone with an hour to spare, all the goals of World Cup '74 are in the video below.

[themaclad]

1966 my first we won the end

[Lord Snooty]

I was 6 in 1966 but don't remember a thing about it being on at the time.
The first one I took an interest in was 1970. Collected all the Esso coins and everything. Got to stay up late to watch the matches. The crackly sound of the commentary sounded like it was from another world when you consider what it's like today.
When England lost against the Germans after being 2-0 up, it was the first time I realised how gut wrenching football can be. Bawled my eyes out.
That Brazilian team were my all time favourite foreign team. Pele, Jairzinho, Carlos Alberto et al. Played a brand of football that seemed like poetry in motion. Watching the final back, many years later, it looked so pedestrian. But at the time it was magic.

[spireitematt]

France 1998 was my first World Cup. I remember going to Somerfields as a kid collecting the stickers to put in the album and swapping them at school with mates (shiny for a shiny or 2 ordinary ones for a shiny). I also remember getting a red England shirt from Marks & Spencers which the official England badge and it had all the signatures of the players printed on the shirt, also had a football with all the countries flags who had qualified for the World Cup (good football as well and lasted for a long time until the bladder burst because it was that worn out). I also remember playing World Cup 98 on the N64.

2002 in Japan and South Korea was difficult as most matches were being played early in the mornings before school and remember they allowed us to watch some games before school started. Remember David Seaman getting injured against Brazil and also remember a game where Brazil were playing and a player struck the ball at Rivaldo and it hit him in the leg but he went down clutching his face and the player which struck the ball got sent off. Remember the final was Brazil vs Germany and it was played on a Sunday about dinnertime.

2006 in Germany, the World cup where I actually thought we would win. Remember we struggled against Trinidad and Tobago and managed to get through to the quarter-finals against Portugal, remember Ronaldo getting Rooney sent off and winking to the bench. Lost on penalties and 2 years earlier in Euro 2004 we went out to Portugal then in the quarter-finals on penalties!! Was a great final but think it will be most memorable because Zidane headbutted that Italian player and got himself sent off.

2010 in South Africa was an ok World Cup but England were rubbish. First game we played was USA and Gerrard scored early on only for Robert Green to let in that howler and can't believe we drew against Algeria and remember they had some sort of bird or hawk sat on the Algerian cross bar for most of the game. The Germany game was dreadful, showed how poor we were and Lampard's goal did cross the line!! Also the vuvuzelas were bloody annoying weren't they? The ball was crap as well when a freekick was taken it would just float in the air.

2014 in Brazil was an interesting World Cup but I think the standout game from that World Cup has got to be the 7-1 between Brazil vs Germany.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

I may have posted something like this on New606 four years ago, but I'll have a bash at setting it down again.

When I look back at World Cups, I tend to think of them mainly in two different eras. First came the Golden Age, which was everything up to and including Italia 90. In the Golden Age there was no internet and no satellite telly: BBC and ITV were the country's two major sources of entertainment for the masses, and for a solitary month they dedicated themselves to football in a way that was never repeated outside of major tournaments. There was no saturation point, no sense of being full to satiety with football, because it was such a rare treat. In the Golden Age there was a sense of mystique surrounding World Cups: foreign players in domestic leagues were still rarities, and as a general rule, if you went through the squads of every major nation at the tournament you'd find most of them played for clubs in their own country. Other European sides were partly a known quantity thanks to the qualifiers and the Euros, but when they drafted in someone from their second division as Italy did with Toto Schillaci in 1990, the only people who could tell you about him would be dedicated sports journos with their finger on the pulse (and even they were winging it half the time). For teams outside of Europe, the sticker books were all full of unfamiliar faces, and at best you might hear a whisper at school or at work about a player to watch out for. There was something magical about not being able to Google these mystery men from other continents and see YouTube clips of their every move; there was something magical about the fact that even the managers, coaches and players going up against them knew nothing about them, which often let them run riot to maximum effect; above all, there was something special about knowing that they'd be there on your telly for four long midsummer weeks - a fleeting butterfly fluttering to life on your screen - and then would disappear for four long, empty years thereafter.

If the Golden Age ended at Italia 90, then in theory the new one should have begun four years later, but to be honest I regard USA 94 as a bit of a halfway house, neither here nor there in World Cup history. It was a bang-average tournament sandwiched between two which gave us belting drama, and though satellite telly had crept in and Channel Four had started broadcasting Italian football, the culture hadn't completely changed yet.

The Global Age began at France 98, full of foreign players we now knew from the Premier League and others who were suddenly a lot easier to research. The mystique had begun to die, and the advent of mass internet by 2002 killed it completely; but to balance that out, online forums such as this one, coupled with social media (certainly in 2010 and 2014) have democratised the entire experience of watching the World Cup to the extent that you can see and hear what fans in every corner of the globe think and feel about the tournament at the click of a button. I had a great chat online four years ago with a Costa Rica fan, just after England's exit, and as much as I miss the simplicity of World Cups of my youth, we've still gained something good in the Global Age which would have been impossible twenty-five years ago.

Favourite tournaments? Italia 90 was shite football but amazing drama, and added new layers to football culture (Pavarotti, Nessun Dorma) which did us all good IMHO. France 98 maybe didn't have the same cultural impact, but there were some quality games and goals, and the sagas of Beckham and Ronaldo went down in history.

[St Charles Owl]

1978 Argentina was the first one I remember, don’t remember a ton about it aside fro ticker-tape streaming from the stands and Mario Kempes!!!!