1930 World Cup Uruguay

The first Football World Cup was held in 1930 and hosted by the Olympic champions, Uruguay.  Uruguay also became the first champions, defeating Argentina in the final.

It was the only World Cup without qualification with teams competing by  invitation.  Because of the distance and travel costs few European teams chose to participate.  Jules Rimet, FIFA's president, had to intervene, and persuaded Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to participate.

The thirteen teams that took part were drawn into four groups, with the first match of the first ever World Cup resulting in France beating Mexico 4-1 with Lucient Laurent scoring the first ever goal.  Bert Patenaude of the USA scored the first World Cup hat-trick in a 3-0 victory over Paraguay.

The four group winners - Argentina, Yugoslavia, Uruguay, and USA - then took part in the semi-finals which both saw 6-1 scores.  There was no third place match,  the only time in World Cup history there hasn't been one.

The first ever World Cup Final was played on July 30th at the Centenario Stadium in Montevideo.  The match build-up was overshadowed by a controversy over who should provide the ball with FIFA deciding in the end that the Argentine team would provide the ball for the first half and the Uruguayans would provide their own for the second.  The result was 4-2 to Uruguay who were then World Cup Winners as well as Olympic Champions

Top Scorers:

8 goals - Guillermo Stábile (Argentina)

5 goals - José Pédro Cea (Uruguay)

4 goals - Bert Patenaude (USA)

3 goals - Juan Pelegrino Anselmo (Uruguay)
              Ivan Beck (Yugoslavia)
              Carlos Desiderio Peucelle (Argentina)
              João Coelho Neto (Brazil)

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