Of the history of the world football cup - Annotated Bibliography Example

? s The History of World Cup Football “The Football World Cup- an Introduction”. bbc.co.uk. Web. 2Apr. 2011. This BBC article discusses the origins of the football world cup, and gives a short history. The football world cup has it origins in the Olympic Football competition, which was held from 1900 to 1928. Great Britain won the tournament thrice, while Uruguay won it twice. Denmark, Belgium and Canada bagged one Olympic gold each. However, when FIFA was formed on 21 May 1904 it planned to conduct a tournament of its own. When the 1932 Olympics were awarded to USA in 1927, the IOC and FIFA had a major disagreement. Since football was not so popular in the US, no sound plans were made for conducting a successful football tournament. This lead to FIFA initiating the tournament in 1930. Lake, William. “The History of the FIFA World Cup”. factoidz.com. Web 2 Apr. 2011. The author, a sports writer, provides a brief but comprehensive history of the football World Cup. The first world cup was held in Uruguay in 1930. Since it was a turbulent period in international politics, many countries which initially planned to participate could not do so. Austria, for example was set to play the world cup, but it was annexed into Germany. The first trophy was called the Jules Rimet Cup. It was awarded to Brazil after they won the competition three times (the trophy was stolen in 1983 and has never been found since). Since 1930 the world cup has been held 19 times. Italy has won the competition four times, Germany thrice and Argentina twice. Brazil have won it a record 5 times. Spain, France, England and Uruguay have all won the world cup once. Bagchi, Rob. “Holland’s World Cup history is a tale of greatness without glory”. The Guardian (2010). Web. 2 Apr. 2011. Bagchi charts the history of the Dutch team’s performance in the world cup. He asserts that even though Holland has not won a single world cup, but they have produced some of the finest footballers in history. The author says that Dutch players have intelligence, exceptional technique and formidable dispositions. Over the years they have produced some of the most breathtaking and entertaining displays of the FIFA world cup. Rob Bagchi is a sports subeditor for the “Guardian”. The 1974 Holland team is often cited as their best. Johan Cruyff, their star player, was one of the greatest in the history of football. He put into practice “Total Football”, which back then was a novel philosophy of playing football. This style is still practiced by some teams (notably, FC Barcelona). In 1978 the same core of players that impressed the world in 1974, put on a great show once again. That year they also showed the ability to threaten their opponents with some dangerous long shots, and this skill won them a lot of success. The 1978 team beat an excellent Austrian side by the decisive margin of 5-1, owing mainly to superb performances from their star wingers Rob Rensenbrink and Johnny Rep. The author believes that performance was one of the finest he has ever seen at a world cup. Clearly, the absence of Johan Cruyff from their side in Argentina contributed to their failure to win the cup. In 1988 they again failed to win in Italy. The author believes that had they used the services of the 37-year-old Arnold Muhren, the graceful, talented midfielder, their team would have performed a lot better. Similarly in 1994 (in the US) they would have performed a lot better (and might have come back from 2-0 down against Brazil) if their star player Ruud Gullit was part of the squad. It is worth noting that Brazil’s second goal was clearly the result of an offside, which the linesman failed to spot. However, the author feels, the most unfortunate incident in Holland’s world cup history was their elimination in the 1998 world cup in France. They had strikers like Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Kluvert. In midfield they had the likes of Edgar Davids, Ronald de Boer, Phillip Cocu and Wim Jonk. Ronald’s penalty miss proved to be the decisive moment for Holland; and once again they failed to lift the trophy. Katwala, Sunder. “England vs. Germany: A rivalry of two halves”. The Observer (2001). Web. 3 Apr. 2011. Katwala has analyzed what he calls the greatest rivalry in the history of football. He believes that England and Germany have dominated each other for roughly the same length of time. Katwala is an editor of the The Observer. Additional research for this article was done by Greg Wilcox, Tim Dean, Faisal Khan and Steven Swinford. The rivalry goes all the way back to 1930s, and has its roots in the fact that England and Germany fought each other in the two World Wars. In all the matches played between these two teams before England won the World Cup in 1966, England had won seven and drawn one of eight games. Ever since, England has won just three of the fifteen games against Germany. The author believes that the English-German rivalry reached its pinnacle in the World Cups of 1966 and 1970. The 1966 encounter at Wembley between these two sides was dramatic and controversial. Germany scored a goal to level at 2-2, but England scored a disputed third goal. Geoff Hurst, who scored a hat-trick in that match, then added a fourth one in the very last moments of the match. The Quarter Final of the 1970 world cup was played in Leon between Germany and England. England got a 2-0 lead early on, but Germany made a historic comeback and defeated England 3-2. The author says that the shock of that defeat could still be felt in England five days later. The match was intense, a lot of fouls were committed, and the English fans felt the game was of extremely low quality. However, none of this bothered the Germans, who were delighted by a sweet and glorious revenge. The two sides clashed again in the second round of the 1982 world cup. The game was mostly dull and sterile. The only moment of brilliance came from Rummenigge who hit the post from 30 yards in the final moments. The match resulted in a draw. The twon teams played again in the Semi Final of the 1990 world cup, and then once again in the 1996 world cup. Each time, England lost on penalties. In 1990 England put up a wonderful performance but still lost. Germany went on to win the world cup after defeating Argentina in the Final. However, Franz Beckenbauer declared that the match against England was the “real final”. Read More