1974 FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup 1974 was the 10th FIFA World Cup, held in West Germany between June 13th and July 7th. The tournament marked the first time the latest trophy, the FIFA World Cup Trophy, designed by Italian sculptor Silvio Gazzaniga, was awarded. For the third time in 1970 Brazil retained the previous crown, the Jules Rimet Crown, which was formally awarded to the Brazilians. This was the first of three World Cups to carry 2 rounds of group stage. The host nation won the title, in the final at the Munich Olympiastadion, beating the Netherlands 2–1. The victory was the second for West Germany that had won in 1954. Canada, West Germany, Haiti and Zaire made their first appearances at the final stage, with East Germany appearing not after Germany was unified in 1990. FIFA named West Germany as host nation on 6 July 1966 in London, England. At the same time, it was awarded the hosting rights for the 1978 and 1982 tournaments. West Germany agreed to an agreement with Spain to assist West Germany in the 1974 tournament and West Germany would allow Spain to participate unopposedly in the 1982 World Cup in exchange for that. Like England, France, 1966 champions, hosts and quarter-finalists from the 1970 Mexico, Spain, Portugal third-place finishers from 1966, Peru, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania four-place finalists from 1970 have not qualified any of the most successful soccer nations. After the Chilean coup d'état in 1973, the USSR was also suspended, despite refusing to travel against Chile for the second leg of their playoff. The Netherlands and Poland had qualified for the very first time since 1938. Scotland was back in the final after being absent 16 years earlier. Since missing the tournament in 1970, Argentina and Chile both returned and Yugoslavia returned since skipping all the tournaments in 1966 and 1970. A modern tournament format introduced here. While the competition started again with the seventeen nations split into four groups of four nations, the eight progressing teams struggled to reach a knockout stage as they did in the previous five World Cups but instead played in a second group round. In the second stage the winners of the two groups then played each other in the final, with the respective runners-up from each group competing in the third place play-off. That was one of two times that this system was deployed; in 1982, a semi-final stage was introduced for the second group stage before the World Cup revived the 1986 knockout stage and is now used until the present day. The tournament was held mostly in bad conditions, so that the stadium had little covered areas. Few Western European nations participated, only the Netherlands, West Germany and Sweden took part in the Group Stage. Cultural circumstances hindered fans from neighbouring Eastern Communist states like east Germany. The first round, or first stage of the competition, saw the 16 teams split into four team groups of four. A six-game round-robin was conducted by division, where each team played one match against each of the other teams within the same division. Teams got two points for a victory, one point for a draw and zero for a defeat. For the second round, the teams in each group that finished first and second advanced, while the two bottom teams in each group were excluded from the play. That was the only condition for the defending European champions to lift the World Cup, until Spain defeated the Netherlands in South Africa's 2010 FIFA World Cup final. Although France still held both cups in different order, at the same time winning the World Cup in 1998 followed by Euro 2000. It is the final of four FIFA World Cup tournaments to date with no extra matches in time. The examples are the 1930-, 1950- and 1962 Tournaments.