201. Did You Know?: The greatest World Cup goal of all time? Forget Maradonna. Step forward Mr Carlos Alberto. The final goal in Brazil's 4-1 demolition of Italy in the 1970 World Cup final had everything. 
It combined sublime individual skill all over the park with almost telepathic complex teamwork in a move that has come to symbolise the sheer joy of Brazilian football and that quite unique collection of players. Originating with the centre-forward, Tostão, finding himself in the left-back position and robbing Antonio Juliano, the ball then passed through all bar two of Brazil's outfield players on its way to a breathtaking climax thirty seconds later. As Carlos Alberto puts it, midfielder Clodoaldo 'started the carnival', receiving a - for once, not particularly accurate - pass from Gérson and, for no reason other than he felt like it, dribbling and bodyswerving his way past four Italian challenges inside his own half, before passing to Rivelino, who lobbed a perfectly weighted ball down the left-wing to Jairzinho. Close to Italy's penalty area and tightly marked by Giacinto Facchetti, Jairzinho passed inside to Pelé, who was standing outside the box. Pelé, knowing that help was arriving paused whilst the Italian defenders stood their ground before stroking the ball into what appeared to be empty space to his right. Then, seemingly from nowhere, Carlos Alberto arrived like a train rushing through a station and smashed a thunderbolt of a right-foot shot into the far corner of the net. Magnifico. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how they do that.
202. Did You Know?: When England played Scotland at Hampden Park in the 1972 Home International Championship, the Italian referee Sergio Gonella had to call the two captains, Bob Moore and Billy McNeill, together and order them to tell their players to calm down after awarding forty-six free-kicks in the first thirty minutes.
An Alan Ball goal in the twenty-eighth minute gave England victory in this hate-filled Centenary match of football's oldest rivals. Peter Storey and Norman Hunter were at the heart of the trouble with their fierce tackling, and this brought out the competitive spirit in the likes of Billy Bremner, Bob Moncur, Lou Macari, Willie Donachie and Denis Law. For long spells players seemed more intent on kicking lumps out of each other rather than kicking the ball. Scottish FA President Hugh Nelson described the game as 'a disgrace,' and made no secret of the fact that he thought England had started it with their 'retaliate-first' approach. Veteran onlookers could not recall a more vicious encounter between the old enemies.
203. Did You Know?:
The most matches played by the same two countries in finals is the seven occasions that Brazil have met Sweden. They played each other in 1938, 1950, 1958 (in the final, see right), 1978, 1990 and twice in 1994.
204. Did You Know?: On 14 November 1934 Italy played England at Highbury in what was billed as 'a friendly.' It was, actually, anything but. Italy were the reigning World Champions although it would be more true to say they were the winners of a recent competition called the World Cup. England had remained on the sidelines because of disagreements regarding the status and treatment of amateurs and professionals. And, because they were a bunch of snotty little Englanders who thought Johnny Foreigner was, frankly, an uppity non-entity. They were wrapped in their own little world of denial, assuming that they would win an world competiton easily and therefore seeing no point in actually competing in one. The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish teams followed suit like three good lap-dogs. After all, they already had their own annual contest with the English - the Home Internaitonal Championship. That was as good as World Cup to all of Britain's football men. In England the match against Italy was treated, nevertheless, as a decider for who really was The Best Team In All The World, Bar None. In Italy, possibly even greater importance was attached to the match - Mussolini is reputed to have promised an Alfa Romeo and mucho de Lira as a win bonus for the players.
The FA Selection Committee chose seven players from the current First Division champions, Arsenal. Eddie Hapgood, was appointed captain for the first time. Of the four-non Arsenal players, Stoke's young winger Stanley Matthews was winning his third cap. The others were Everton's Cliff Britton, Derby's Jack Barker and Manchester City's Eric Brook. The Italian team were coached and selected by Vittorio Pozzo, a tactical genius who promoted solid defence from which to launch incisive, swift counter attacks. They had hosted and won the World Cup in a dour final against Czechoslovakia five months earlier where Luis Monti had become the first player to win a World Cup final medal for two different countries, as he'd played for losing finalists Argentina in the 1930 tournament. The Italian team was largely the one that had lifted the Jules Rimet Trophy, featuring two other South American-born oriundi, Raymundo Orsi and Enrico Guaita. In conditions of heavy rain and thick fog, almost immediately England won a penalty which was saved by the Italian keeper, Ceresoli. In the second minute, Monti clashed with Ted Drake, the England centre forward, resulting in a broken bone in Monti's foot. The Azzurri had to play virtually a full game with ten men and, enraged by Drake's tackle, took many opportunities to have a sly kick at the English team .(Drake always subsequently protested that the injury wasn't intentional.) 
England made the most of their advantage; Brook scored twice and Drake added a third before half time. It had been a violent forty five minutes, with Hapgood suffering a broken nose and had to leave the field for a time. It was a very different second half, however. The Italians having calmed down sufficiently to realise there was a game to be won here, finally started playing as befitted world champions. Peppino Meazza scored twice in five heart-stopping minutes and then hit the crossbar with another effort. The Arsenal goalkeeper, Frank Moss, playing in what was to be his last international, produced a number of fine saves to deny the Italians an equaliser and Wilf Copping, England's steely left-half, took man of the match for a gutsy display of tough tackling. It was enough for the FA to continue to claim English's default position of superiority over the rest of the world, the mentality being 'they had their world championship and then we beat the best they had to offer. Ergo, we're better than them lot there.' The Italians, by contrast, could claim a moral victory as they had played with ten men for most of the match. Their team is remembered back in Italy as 'The Lions of London.' The FA were said to be so taken aback by the whole affair that they seriously debated abandoning international matches against overseas nations entirely.
205. Did You Know?: Rubbish moments of World Cup TV analysis, number five: From 2006. 'When you see scenes like that [some Paraguayans singing their – rather jolly – national anthem] you really know you're at the World Cup.' Yes, Motty. Alternatively you could, you know, just look at the match programme or the ticket or, simply ask somebody.
206. Did You Know?: Extreme measures were taken in 2006 in the northern islands of Vanuatu to ensure that World Cup fans had good TV reception, with China's television broadcasts to the area being shut down for the duration of the tournament.
China pays Vanuatu's Broadcasting and Television Corporation to maintain its transmitter in Santo, which sends out the Chinese television service, CCTV9, to Vanuatu's northern islands. However, the powerful signal had been interfering with Vanuatu's own television broadcasts. Viewers who had been waiting to watch the World Cup matches relayed on Vanuatu's own host broadcaster were said to be 'getting concerned.' The Vanuatu Daily Post quoted VBTC general manager Jonas Cullwick as saying that the Chinese embassy and Beijing have been informed but told that the stopping of the CCTV9 service was only temporary.
207. Did You Know?:
Sweden's first great football triumphs was at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. In the first round, they beat Austria 3-0 at White Hart Lane and then followed that with a 12-0 thrashing of Korea. A semi-final victory of neighbours Denmark (4-2) took the Swedes to Wembley where they beat the crack Yugoslavs 3-1, with goals by Gunnar Gren, Stjepan Bobek and Gunnar Nordahl. It was the beginning of a golden decade for the country culminating in their hosting (and being runners-up) in the 1958 World Cup.
208. Did You Know?: Argentina got off to a cracking start in their 1978 World Cup journey, beating Hungary 2-1 in Buenos Aires. Backed by fanatical support from over seventy thousand fans, lots of ticker-tape and a dodgy right-wing government of military boot-boys happy to suppress any dissent, moustachioed Leopoldo Luque and substitue Daniel Bertoni scored their goals after Karoly Csapo had given the Hungarians a surprise early lead. The match was subsequently marred when two Hungarians - Andras Torocsik and Tibor Nyilasi - were sent off, leading many observers to wonder if the referee wasn't 'a bit of a homer.'
The game was most British TV viewers' first sight of little Ossie Ardiles, prompting just about everything good that came from the Argentine midfield. Because the Argentina squad's shirt-number were assigned in alphabetical order, Ardiles wore the number two shirt leading some to assume he was actually a right-back give licence to wander forward. (Such people were, presumably, even more confused by the sight of River Plate's Norberto Alonso, a regular appearer as substitute in several matches, wearing the number one shirt whilst the goalkeeper, Ubaldo Fillol, wore number five.) Ardiles would become one of the stars of the tournament. His future Tottenham team-mate Ricky Villa (wearing twenty two) made rather less of an impact, appearing as a second-half substitute just twice; against Poland in round two and, replacing Ardiles, in the 0-0 draw with Brazil. Mercifully, opposition forwards were spared having to face Racing Club's notoriously brutal - and well-named - defender Daniel Killer. Notorious for his sending-off against England in a friendly a year earlier when he provided a right-hook to Trevor Cherry that George Foreman would have been proud of - Killer remained on the bench throughout the tournament.
209. Did You Know?:
The largest crowd ever at a World Cup finals match was the estimated one hundred and seventy four thousand who watched Brazil play Uruguay in the final-that-wasn't-a-final at the Maracana in 1950. Some estimate the crowd to be even higher, perhaps even beyond two hundred thousand. As for the game itself, Brazil needed only to draw to win the 1950 World Cup but they blew it and the Uruguayans prevailed, 2-1.
210. Did You Know?: Gerd Müller achieved an unusual hat-trick. In the 1970 Germany v Bulgaria game he scored in three different ways: a right-foot shot, a header and a penalty.
211. Did You Know?: Football's oldest international fixture, nothing stirs the blood quite like a good old blood-and-thunder England vs Scotland game. The match in 1977 was one of the first for Scotland's new manager, Ally MacLeod. It seemed he'd brought his entire 'Tartan Army' down to London with the team as an estimated seventy thousand Scots descended on Wembley and turned it into a sea of blue and yellow flags.
Many Scottish supporters had arrived on Friday - one was killed diving into a fountain at Trafalgar Square. There were two hundred and eighty nine arrests in the lead up to the match though most of the Scots were in good humour when they arrived at Wembley and were even more jubilant when their team convincingly beat England. Scotland took the lead before half-time, Gordon McQueen heading in a Don Masson free-kick. Kenny Dalglish made it 2-0 with a scrambled effort. Although a late Mick Channon penalty gave the score a hint of respectability, in reality England had been outclassed. At the final whistle thousands of Scottish supporters broke through a police cordon around Wembley and celebrated by taking souvenir turfs. Dozens also swung on the crossbar until, with great glee, they snapped it in half and that, too, made its way out of the stadium to be carried back across the border as a trohpy of war. More than two thousand police officers, some on horses, were unable to stop the invasion. For a quarter of an hour they simply couldn't contain what FA secretary Ted Croker described as 'the worst invasion I have ever seen.' The Wembley authorities took the immediate decision to build an eight foot fence around the stadium in time for England's World Cup qualifying match against Italy in November. And there it stayed for over a decade until in was torn down in the aftermath of the Hillsborough tragedy. 'Large parts of the famous Wembley turf were probably being transplanted in Scottish gardens yesterday,' wrote The Times' Norman Fox. 'The damage caused when more than ten thousand Scots invaded the pitch was estimated by the groundsmen at about five thousand pounds.' Most of the press went down the predictable 'birch these hooligan scum' route although one or two did point out that, almost exactly ten years earlier, similar scenes had followed another famous Scottish triumph at Wembley (1967's 3-2 victory against the then-world champions) and no-one had batted an eyelid.
212. Did You Know?: Greece refused to play Albania in their first match in the UEFA European Championship (then, the European Nations Cup) in March 1963 as the countries had officially been at war since 1912. Probably time to let it lie then, guys.
213. Did You Know?:
Costa Rica vs Brazil in 2002. Not, perhaps, one of the most memorable games in World Cup history (although it did produce seven goals, Brazil winning 5-2) but it almost certainly featured the finest goal scored from an overhead kick by a centre half in the annuals of the game. Edmilson's sensational finish came just after ITV commentator Peter Drury had casually observed that Brazil 'look a bit dodgy at the back but, every time they come forward you get the feeling their going to score.' Damn straight.
214. Did You Know?: The first World Cup hat-trick was scored by Guillermo Stábile for Uruguay v Mexico in the opening game of the 1930 tournament. Stábile and Harry Andersson - who scored a hat-trick for Sweden v Cuba in the 1938 tournament - both achieved this feat on their international debuts.
215. Did You Know?: There was a story which George Best loved to tell in his later years on those TV chat shows which would still have him as a guest. One night (probably in the early 1970s, if the story isn't apocryphal) Best was staying at a top London hotel with his girlfriend, one of the various Miss Worlds who were regularly seen in his company during that period. Having just won a small fortune at a casino, he rang room-service for a bottle of champagne. Subsequently, a waiter arrived, saw the maverick footballer in bed with one of the world's most beautiful women and thousands of pounds in cash scattered around the room.
'Mr Best, can I ask you a question?' he reportedly queried. 'When did it all go wrong?' The question of when things did start to go wrong (at least in footballing terms) for the greatest player Britain has ever produced is a tough one to answer. But for some, the unravelling of his genius began on a wet Saturday afternoon in April 1970 when he allowed, for probably the first time, a self-destructive streak in his psyche to become visible. Northern Ireland's Home International match with Scotland was dull, lifeless game. Best was irritated at the appalling quagmire of a pitch. But he was also fuming at the apparent benevolence of the referee, Eric Jennings, who seemed happy to allow a series of niggly fouls on Best to go unpunished. He was also perhaps angry at his own missed chances, three of them, that could have given his side the lead. Marked tightly, by Frank McLintock, Best's rag was about to be well and truly lost. The explosive moment came with half an hour left when, having protested in vain that the referee should have given a free kick for, rather than against, Ireland Best spat in anger in the general direction of Jennings and then picked up a piece of mud from the Windsor Park pitch and threw it at the astonished official. Jennings immediately pointed to the dressing room. 
As the referee became surrounded by gesticulating players Best started walking away, considered briefly the folly of refusing to leave the field and finally gave up and trudged off, a desolate figure. Jennings's official reason for sending Best off was 'showing dissent.' Best was suspended for one game by the Irish FA. A horrible slide into a spiral of addiction - to gambling, alcohol and sex – was to follow. He 'retired' from the game half a dozen times over the next few years and generally seemed happy to piss away his talent. A tragedy and a waste.
216. Did You Know?: The finest Belgian player of a generation, Marc Wilmots, was the Red Devils' talismanic captain and play-maker. 
An outstanding attacking midfielder with Standard Liege and the German club Schalke, for Belgium, Wilmots scored twenty eight goals in seventy appearance over twelve years. He played in three World Cups, something of a bit part in 1994, getting two goals in 1998 and adding a further three in 2002. Wilmots remains Belgium's leading goal scorer in World Cup history. He also played in Euro 2000, when Belgium co-hosted the tournament. After retiring, Wilmots went into politics and became a member of the Belgian senate, for the French-speaking liberal party, the Reformist Movement. His finest World Cup moment was his overhead kick that beat Japan in 2002. And, he did so whilst wearing Belgium's change salmon pink strip and not looking at all camp.
217. Did You Know?: 'Separated At Birth'-type lookalikes seen at recent World Cups include Mary Shelley's Oliver Kahn and some form of obscene half-human, half-pig-type scientific experiment which is against All Laws of God and Man, Stern-faced Polish coach Pawel Janas and Sam the Bald Eagle from The Muppet Show, the card-happy Mexican referee from the 2006 England v Paraguay match and Dave Vanian out of The Damned and Croatian coach Zlatko Krancjar and Colin Crompton off The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club.
Also, most of the Ukraine midfield and the second guitarists in a bunch of slightly anonymous mid-1970s American soft-rock bands, Michel Platini and one of those furtive dodgy-looking geezers whom you often see hanging around the meat counter in supermarkets, Davor Suker and the bloke who played Al Bundy in Married with Children and, most obviously, Ronaldo and Vince the Gopher from Deputy Dawg. Former Red Star Belgrade, Real Madrid, Portsmouth and Croatia midfield general Robert Prosinecki (see right) was, it is alleged, seriously considered by the BBC for the role of Wilfred Brambell in their 2008 biopic The Curse of Steptoe due to his uncanny resemblance to the late actor. But, in the end the part went to Phil Davis due to his ability to holler 'ARRROWWWD!' without a Zagreb accent. Separated from their shoulders when they got home after getting beat 8-0 by Germany were the heads of the Saudi Arabian Girls Under XIV team in 2002.
218. Did You Know?: Sweden played it first national game against Norway in July 1908. They won 11-3. Other games in 1908 - against England, Netherlands and Belgium – were a harsh awakener to the realities of international football. They lost all three.
219. Did You Know?: Scotland have only defeated Italy once on the nine occasions the two countries have met, but it was one of the greatest evenings Hampden Park has witnessed. On a thrilling November night in 1965, a combination of shrewd management on the part Jock Stein, barnstorming midfield performances from Jimmy Keep The Ball Up Baxter, Bobby Murdoch and Billy Bremner and a late goal from Rangers' John Greig got the better of an Italian side which featured players of the calibre of Giancinto Facchetti, Sandro Mazzola and Gianni Rivera.
After losing a World Cup tie at Hampden for the first time in eleven years to Poland a month earlier, the Scots came into the match as underdogs. Having thrashed Poland 6-1 in their previous match, the Italians were strong favourites to book their place in the finals by simply avoiding defeat in Glasgow. Avoiding defeat was something which Italian club sides had been doing across Europe for the past few seasons, with some ease. Edmondo Fabbri, the Italian manager, was granted a month free of league games to prepare his men for Scotland. 
Sadly for the Jocks, a 3-0 defeat in the return in Naples the following month - when they were torn apart by AC Milan's Bruno Mora - meant they would not qualify for the finals in England. Four years later, it was much the same story. Drawn in a group that included Austria, Cyprus and West Germany, Scotland held the Germans 1-1 at Hampden but a 3-2 defeat in Hamburg when Celtic's Tommy Gemmill was sent-off for kicking Helmut Haller (see right) into orbit - for which he should, frankly, have been given an award, never mind a punishment - and a subsequent 2-0 loss in Vienna meant Scotland wouldn't be going to Mexico either.
220. Did You Know?:
The top goalscorers in the Bundesliga during 2008 were Luca Toni (see left) and Mario Gomez, with forty three goals between them. The subsequent performance of the pair for their respective countries at Euro 2008 just goes to show the - lack of - quality of that league. Don't forget Germany is the country that encourages David Hasselhoff to keep making records. They must be stopped, it's as simple as that.
221. Did You Know?: The 2010 World Cup is the first with no debutant associations, although two of the qualifiers (Slovakia and Serbia) have previously appeared only as parts of former competing nations.
222. Did You Know?: The Republic of Ireland vs Romania. Not a game you might expect to enter the pantheon of World Cup greats when it took place in June 1990. But Irish fans have never experienced anything like the sheer drama of it since.
Jack Charlton's side had already exceeded the hopes of a nation by making it to the knock-out stages. If the dream had ended there, no-one would have particularly complained. After all, Georghe Hagi, the Maradona of the Carpathians, was in scintillating form when the sides clashed in Genoa. The game ended goalless and penalties were required to settle the issue. Perfect spot kicks from both sides followed, leaving Pat Bonner and Romanian counterpart Silviu Lung with little to do but pick the ball out of the net. Kevin Sheedy led the way for the Irish, followed by successful efforts from Andy Townsend and Ray Houghton. Tony Cascarino scuffed the fourth, but somehow Lung failed to save. Then, dramatically, Bonner saved the last Romanian penalty from Daniel Timofte, diving to his right. David O'Leary (see left), an unlikely penalty taker at the best of time, stepped up and drilled the ball home.
223. Did You Know?:
Players to score four goals in a World Cup match were: Wilimowski (1938, Poland v Brazil) - sixty five minutes, Ademir (1950, Brazil v Sweden) - forty two minutes, Sándor Kocsis (1954, Hungary v Germany) - seventy five minutes, Just Fontaine (1958, France v Germany) - seventy three minutes, Eusébio (1966, see left, Portugal v North Korea) - thirty two minutes, Emilio Butragueño (1986, Spain v Denmark) - fifty seven minutes. The only player ever to score five goals in a World Cup match was Oleg Salenko in the 1994 game between Russia and Cameroon. It took him fifty nine minutes.
224. Did You Know?: The first goal scored in extra time in a World Cup match was by Austria's Anton Schall against France in 1934.
225. Did You Know: Zinedine Zidane's international career ended in disgrace when he was sent off in extra-time of the 2006 World Cup final after headbutting Italy's Marco Materazzi. This followed an alleged series of verbal taunts from the Italian.
It was the fourteenth red card of Zidane's career and - along with Cameroon's Rigobert Song - he's the only player to be sent off in two separate World Cup tournaments. He became the fourth player to be dismissed in a World Cup final. In 2010, Zidane said that he 'would rather die' than apologise to Materazzi. At the time, three British newspapers claimed to have hired lip readers to determine what Materazzi had actually said, with The Times, the Sun and Daily Star all claiming that Materazzi had called Zidane 'the son of a terrorist whore.' In actual fact he said nothing of the sort but had, rather, made a somewhat lewd sexual remark about Zidane's sister. In 2008, the Sun and Daily Star made public apologies to Materazzi. The Times has yet to do so. After the final, French president Jacques Chirac hailed Zidane as a 'man of heart and conviction.' And a very hard forehead, too. Chirac later added that he found the offence to be unacceptable, but he understood that Zidane had been provoked. However, French newspaper Le Figaro called the headbutt 'odious.' Time magazine regarded the incident as a symbol for Europe's 'grappling with multi-culturalism.' Most football supporters simply saw it as one player trying to wind up another one, with a bit of history for having a short-fuse. And succeeding.
226. Did You Know?: The second round game between England and Argentina at the 1998 World Cup in France has many claims to being the most dramatic in the history of the tournament. Previous rivalries from 1966, 1986 and the real world in the form of the two nations having been at war less than twenty years earlier all played their part in the build up.
The game had many noteworthy aspects including a stunning solo goal scored by England's young striker Michael Owen. Behind early on, Glen Hoddle's England recovered to take a 2-1 lead before Javier Zanetti converted a cleverly worked free-kick to equalise. Just before half time, David Beckham was sent off. Having been fouled by Diego Simeone as Simeone stood up, Beckham still lying on the ground, flicked out a petulant leg in the vague direction of the Argeninte who, of course, went down like ton of elephant shit. The referee, Denmark's fair but rather fussy, Kim Milton Nielsen gave Beckham an straight red card. 
Playing with ten men, England held out superbly against the Argentine attacks and, in the dying moments of the game, during a scramble in the Argentine penalty area following a corner, Sol Campbell appeared to have won the game. As the England players began to celebrate the referee blew for a foul against Alan Shearer. The subsequent Argentine free-kick was taken very quickly, while several England players were still off the field celebrating and they had to rush back to, successfully, prevent the Argentines from scoring. There were no further goals. In the ensuing penalty shoot-out, Argentina won 4-3 after Paul Ince and David Batty's efforts were saved by Carlos Roa. 
There was bad feeling after the game with the Argentine players, reportedly, gloating and banging the side of the England team coach with their fists as England prepared to leave the stadium, although in a subsequent interview Gabrielle Batistuta called the game 'a proper football match, a contest between men,' and was full of praise for the spirit shown by England. There was heavy criticism in the England media about Argentina's 'theatrics' although, in general, it was Beckham himself who was vilified by the English press for his petulance and naivety. The headline in the Daily Mirror the following day described the England team as Ten Heroic Lions, One Stupid Boy. It would take Beckham a couple of years to transform himself from national pantomime villain to national icon.
227. Did You Know?: Yer actual Keith Telly Topping's favourite German club side are Schalke 04, Die Königsblauen from the lovely city of Gelsenkirchen - the beer capital of the world.
They remain one of the most fanatically well-supported teams in Germany, even though major successes have been rare since the club's magnificent heyday in the late 1930s (though they did win the UEFA Cup in 1997 and have been runners up in the Bundesliga four times in the last decade). Sound familiar? Yes, you'll be unsurprised to discover that Gelsenkirchen is twinned with Newcastle! Schalke was also the subject of a comedy-drama movie Fußball ist unser Leben (Football is Our Life) – a kind-of German Fever Pitch released in 2000. Uwe Ochsenknecht and Ralf Richter played the main characters whilst then-manager Rudi Assauer, coaches Huub Stevens and Helmut Schulte, winger Yves Eigenrauch and prominent fans Manfred Breuckmann, Ulrich Potofski and DJ Hooligan all made cameos. Check it out if you get the chance, it really rather good.
228. Did You Know?: The first half of South Africa v Slovenia in 2002 has been recognised, officially, as without doubt, the worst forty five minutes of football since Blyth Sparatans Reserves vs Shildon Athletic in the 1911 North Eastern League Second Division. But, it soon lost the title to the thoroughly wretched Switzerland v Ukraine match in 2006. Two hours of our lives that nobody who watched it will ever get back. Even the penalties at the end were rubbish.
229. Did You Know?: The night before the 1998 World Cup final, Ronaldo reportedly suffered a convulsive fit. He was removed from Brazil's starting line-up the following day. However, just over an hour before the match he arrived at the stadium and declared himself fit to play and was reinstated by coach Mario Zagallo. Ronaldo did not perform well and he was injured in a collision with French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez. Brazil lost the final 3-0 to hosts France. The most dramatic account came from Ronaldo's roommate Roberto Carlos.
'Ronaldo was scared about what lay ahead. The pressure had got to him and he couldn't stop crying. At about four o'clock, he started being sick. That's when I called the team doctor and told him to get over to our room as fast as he could.' The Brazilian media subsequently demanded to know why Ronaldo had been allowed to play when his mind was clearly not on the game. Zagalo said 'I kept thinking about taking him off. But he said he felt well enough to play and if I had not played Ronaldo after he said he was fit, I'd have been under even more criticism.' There were even claims that team sponsors, Nike, had put pressure on Zagalo to play him. These were hotly denied.
230. Did You Know?: Few games at the 1990 World Cup captured the imagination like the quarter-final encounter between England and Cameroon. This roller-coaster encounter brought together an England side inspired by the exuberance and artistry of Paul Gascoigne and a Cameroon team who simply charmed with their spirit, pace and strength.
Their midfield dominance and Roger Milla's intelligent use of space led Bobby Robson to abandon England's sweeper system which had worked so well in the previous three games, replacing Terry Butcher and a very ineffectual John Barnes with Peter Beardsley and Trevor Steven. Cameroon led 2-1 with just eight minutes to play when Oman-Biyick missed a golden opportunity to wrap the game up. 
They were made to pay almost immediately when Benjamin Massing brought down Gary Lineker in the box and England had a penalty. Lineker himself took the kick - the first an England international side had been given in almost three years - and levelled the scores. Cameroon had missed their best chance to reach the semi-finals. In extra time Gascoigne's beautifully weighted through ball for Lineker saw the Tottenham striker fouled by Thomas N'Kono and, again, he scored from the spot.
231. Did You Know?: Vasily Rats of the USSR scored one of the best goals of the 1986 World Cup finals, a twenty five yard screamer past France's goalkeepr, Joel Bats, in a 1-1 draw. Both teams - and their respective wildlife-monikered players - progressed to the second round.
232. Did You Know?: In 2009 the Brazilian legend Socrates met the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in Sao Paolo at the Brazilian Museum of Football. Socrates, now a sports injuries doctor, presented the PM with a Brazil number ten shirt bearing his name.
Which, presumably, was up on e-Bay a few moments after the 2010 election was sorted. Anyway, the pair both agreed that David Narey's screamer against the Brazilians in 1982 was one of the greatest World Cup goals of all time. Brown told Socrates of an entire country's delight when the Dundee United central defender opened the scoring in Seville, a game which the brilliant Brazilians eventually won 4-1. Brown noted 'some people back home called it a toe-poke,' referring to an infamous comment about the goal made by the BBC's alleged TV pundit Jimmy Hill which sparked outrage in Scotland. It led the Tartan Army to regularly chant 'We hate Jimmy Hill' at every given opportunity. Well, they're only human after all.
233. Did You Know?: Bolivia had to wait sixty four years for their first goal at the World Cup finals. They first appeared at the World Cup in 1930 but didn't qualify again until 1994; Erwin Sanchez scored the goal in a 3-1 defeat by Spain.
234. Did You Know?: When Ron Greenwood was appointed temporary manager of England in August 1977, the nation was under no illusions about his chances of reaching the 1978 World Cup Finals. They were small to barely existent. His predecessor, Don Revie, had endured months of growing pressure following England's 2-0 defeat away to Italy in November 1976 and decided to labandon ship during the summer of 1977 after getting a lucrative offer from the United Arab Emirates. Greenwood therefore knew his side had to win their last two qualifying matches - Luxembourg away and Italy at home - and hope that Italy's expected victory over Luxembourg in the final game would be by not many goals to qualify for Argentina '78.
To his credit, Ron Greenwood took care of his side of the bargain, steering England to a highly impressive 2-0 win over the Italians at Wembley. Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking, a partnership that would often perform well for England over the next few years, both got on the scoresheet. But in early December, Italy beat Luxembourg 3-0. Level on points with England, Italy's record was better only by the three goals they'd scored in this game. Ultimately, it was England's inability to score more than two against the Luxembourgers in October (and a similar number against Finland a year earlier) that did for England's chances. No-one really expected Ron Greenwood to achieve the impossible after Revie's exit, but the win against Italy gave the nation confidence that England were starting to turn a corner. 
The Football Association agreed, and by the time England played their next match - a friendly against West Germany in February 1978 - they had given Greenwood the job permanently. England qualified for the 1980 European Championship, the first major tournament they'd attended in eight years. And, qualification for the 1982 World Cup was also achieved, albeit with a few bumps along the way, notably a 2-1 defeat in Norway when radio commentator Bjørge Lillelien's stream-of-consciousness celebrations at then end ('Maggie Thatcher, can you hear me? Your boys took a hell of a beating!') proved more memorable than the match itself. Ultimately, victories home and away against eventual group winners Hungary - with, again, Keegan and Brooking prominent, particularly in Budapest - ensured that England would be going to Spain.
235. Did You Know?:
The most important matches of the Czech national team used to be held in Prague's AXA Arena, the home stadium of Sparta Prague. After the recent construction of the purpose-built Stadion Eden, the team now plays its home matches there. Dukla (and their famous away kit), having fallen on tough times of late – they are currently in the Czech second division – play at the Na Julisce. Yer actual Keith Telly Topping has been there, dear blog reader. And, he has to say it makes Victoria Park, Hartlepool look like Wembley by comparison.
236. Did You Know?: Has there ever been a finer performance in a World Cup qualifying match than David Beckham's when England drew 2-2 with Greece at Old Trafford in October 2001? With results elsewhere going their way, it was enough to send England to Japan the following year.
But, it had been a shabby, stumbling, nervous performance from an England side which had, let's remember, beaten Germany in Munich just six weeks earlier. Five-one. Even Heskey scored. England needed to win or, if Germany failed to beat Finland, draw the Greece match in order to qualify outright for the World Cup, but they were, at times, terrible. There were points at which it seemed Beckham, having the finest game of his career, was effectively playing the Greeks on his own. England were trailing 2–1 with little time remaining when Teddy Sheringham was fouled eight yards outside the Greek penalty area. From the resulting free-kick Beckham produced something close to perfection, ensured England's qualification with a curling strike of the kind that had become his trademark. Agonising minutes followed as the result was awaited from Gelsenkirchen. Then came the news that the Finns had held the Germans to a goalless draw. England, thanks to Beckham, had made it.
237. Did You Know?: One of the fastest goals ever scored at the World Cup was Bernard Lacombe's header from a pinpoint Didier Six cross for France against Italy in the opening Group One game. It took just twenty eight seconds. Italy came back to beat the talented young French side 2-1.
238. Did You Know?:
When it comes to commentators briefly forgetting that they're supposed to be neutral, Barry Davies is usually close to the front of the queue. At the 1994 World Cup, when covering the Netherland v Republic of Ireland game at Orlando his anguished cry of 'Ooo, Pat Bonner' when the Irish keeper spilled Vim Jonk's speculative long-range shot into the net was indicitive of what many viewers and saying at exactly that moment. And that's why, for this blogger anyway, Bazza was always preferable to Motty. More passion!
239. Did You Know?: One of the greatest, and certainly most recognisable referees in the history of the game was Italy's Pierluigi Collina. Having contracted a severe form of alopecia early in his career, this resulted in a permanent loss of all Collina's facial hair, giving him his distinctive bald appearance and earning the nickname 'Kojak' from ... the sort of people who think calling a bald man 'Kojak' is the height of wit.
Fearsome looking, but hugely respected by fans and players alike and, apparently, a bit of a sweetie off the field, he was the sort of referee whom even the most argumentative individual would think twice about crossing. In 2002, Collina reached the pinnacle of his career when he was chosen to handle the World Cup final between Brazil and Germany. Prior to the game, Mark Shelley's Oliver Kahn told the Irish Times: 'Collina is a world-class referee, there's no doubt about that, but he doesn't bring luck, does he?' Kahn was referring to two previous high-profile matches that Collina had refereed which involved Kahn: the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final, a 2–1 defeat for Bayern, and Germany's 5–1 defeat against England in 2001. Kahn's luck did not change in the final. Brazil beat Germany 2-0. Collina's handling of the game was, as usual, immaculate.
240. Did You Know?: In every great side, there's usually one chap that everybody forgets about. The bass players.
So, here's your trainspotters guide to The Zeppos of classic World Cup sides: Brazil, 1970 (Everaldo, or may Piazza). The Netherland, 1974 (Wim Rijsbergen). West Germany, 1974 (Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck). Argentina, 1978 (Jorge Olguín). France, 1982 (Gerard Janvion). Italy, 1982 (Fulvio Collovati). Argentina, 1986 (the other ten blokes that weren't Maradonna, see right). Brazil, 1994 (Zinho). France, 1998 (Miss Stephanie Guivarc'h). Brazil, 2002 (Kleberson). There were no great teams in 2006. None whatsoever.
241. Did You Know?: George Best never played in a World Cup finals match. Steve McMahon played in four. It just doesn't seem right, somehow, does it? In 1990, McMahon came on as a substitute in England's opening group game against the Republic of Ireland, and was pretty much responsible for gifting the Irish their equaliser in a 1-1 draw.
His wretched miscontrol of a ball midway inside his own half presented his former Everton team-mate, Kevin Sheedy, with a chance to shot past Peter Shilton. Dropped from the next game, McMahon started against Egypt - why, Bobby Robson, why? - which England won and was also in the side for the second round match against Belgium. He was replaced late in the game by David Platt, who went on to score a spectacular winner and Platt, subsequently kept his place through the rest of the tournament. Once the World Cup was over McMahon would play just once more for England, in a European Championship qualifier against Republic of Ireland in November 1990. So, you can blame Graham Taylor for a lot of stuff but he did one or two things right.
242. Did You Know?:
Ajax's Finidi George, the Nigeria, striker performed a 'urinating dog' celebration after his fine goal against Greece. It was one of the more bizarre moments of USA 94. But, to be fair, no more bizarre than those stupid little trollies that FIFA insisted carry even minorly injured players to the side of the pitch.
243. Did You Know?: The great Marco Taredelli, of Juventus and Italy, is particularly remembered for his famous goal celebration when scoring his country's second against West Germany in the 1982 final. Brimming with emotion, he sprinted towards the Italian bench, fists clenched in front of his chest, screaming - it is often suggested - his own name just like we all did as kids when playing kick-about at the local park and pretending to be the TV commentator. This celebration would subsequently become known as 'Tardelli's Scream.'
A tough defensive midfielder, but one who popped up with more than a sprinking of cracking goals over the years, he was a vital part of Enzo Bearzot's 1982 Italy team, forming a 'they shall not pass' spine of the team with Claudio Gentile and Giuseppe Bergomi. The flair in the team was provided by the brilliant Bruno Conti whose delicate passes led to many of Paolo Rossi's goals in that tournament. Indeed, on the BBC's coverage of the final when Jimmy Hill noted after the match that it had been announced Rossi was to receive an official award from the Italian government equivalent, roughly, to a knighthood in Britian, Lawrie McMenemy suggested that Conti ought to be canonised for his contributions. Unfortunately, that would make him Saint Bruno. Probably loses a lot in translation.
244. Did You Know?: Saudi Arabia's record in World Cup finals is ... well, let's be charitable and say up-and-down. But, mostly down. They qualified for four successive tournaments but, they went out in the first round at three of them and, it has to be said, in 2002 in particular they were a sodding disgrace. (Sending along their Girls Under XIV side to play Germany was a particularly bad move. They got an eight-nil caning.)
However, their first appearance, in 1994 in the US was really rather promising. They won two of their group matches and qualified for the second round before losing to a very good Swedish side. The highlight of their time in America, undoubtedly, was their 1-0 win over Beglium and a wonder goal scored by Saeed Al-Owairan (see right). Only five minutes had elapsed when midfielder Owairan picked up the ball deep inside his own half. Quite why he elected to keep running rather than pass to one of his team mates isn't clear, but his confidence wasn't misplaced. He beat four Belgian defenders before blasting the ball past Michel Preud'homme. Sami Al-Jaber - who scored forty four times for his country in one hundred and sixty three appearances over a fourteen-year international career - competed in all four of Saudi Arabia's World Cups final appearances. His record of caps is second only to Mohamed Al-Deayea in his country's history. A short spell in England, at Wolves (which saw him make only four appearances) was somewhat less successful.
245. Did You Know?:
After their promising performance in the 1988 European Championships (when they were ruunners up to the Netherlands) much was expected of the Soviet Union at the 1990 World Cup. However, injury robbed them of their key playmaker, Alexei Mikhailichenko (left), before the tournmanet and they were a huge disappointment in Italy - losing all three of their group games (to Romania, Argentina and Cameroon) and not even scoring a single goal. By the time the next World Cup came round, the country no longer even existed.
246. Did You Know?: On 21 June 1998 USA and Iran faced each other in the group stages of the World Cup in France. The tension and the rivalry between the two nations - if not, necessarily, the two sides - requires no obvious contextualisation for dear blog readers.
The result, on the other hand, took some explaining. The Americans went into the game as strong favourites and were keen to bounce back from a 2-0 loss to Germany earlier in the group stages. Iran, though, had other ideas and in an extraordinary performance all the odds and claim their first ever World Cup victory. Goals from Hamid Estili and Mehdi Mahdavikia helped secure the win for Iran, with the USA only able to respond with a Brian McBride consolation goal in the final five minutes. Their 2-1 victory over The Great Satan remains one of the most famous nights in Iran's footballing history - which is, of no doubt, some some small consolation to Scotland.
247. Did You Know?: Qualification for England for the 1950 and 1954 World Cups came on the back of FIFA being prepared to use the 1949-50 and 1953-54 Home International Championships as World Cup qualification groups.
By 1958, they'd changed their mind and insisted that the four home nations should qualify properly like everyone else. Ironically, all four promptly did just that! England took part in a group along with the Republic of Ireland and Denmark. Four games brought England three victories and a draw in Dublin. Northern Ireland, astonshingly, put out Italy in their group (along with Portugal), thanks to a 2-1 win in Belfast. Scotland won a tough group over Spain and Switzerland and Wales, despite finishing second to Czechoslovakia in their group were the lucky recipiants of a play-off against Israel.
248. Did You Know?: England v West Germany 1990. Andreas Brehme scores from a free-kick that deflects in off Paul Parker's arse. With ten minutes left, Klaus Augethaler fails to control a cross into the area and Gary Lineker equalises with a sharply taken opportunist strike.
The game goes into a thrilling extra-time period during which both teams come close by hitting the post (Chris Waddle producing a moment of magic only to hit the inside of German woodwork and see to ball, somehow, stay out). Nine minutes into extra time, Paul Gascoigne, having possibly the finest game of his career, is booked by the Brazilian referee for a mistimed tackle of Thomas Berthold which would, if England had won, see suspended him for the final. 
Gascoigne is visibly upset, breaking down in tears and the iconic image of the match, and probably the entire tournament, is his team-mate Lineker spotting this, turning to the bench and mouthing 'have a word with him.' The match is decided by penalties. Both teams score with their first three kicks (Lineker, Brehme, Beardsley, Matthäus, Platt, Riedle). 
But on England's fourth shot, Bodo Illgner saves Stuart Pearce's straight-down-the-middle effort. 'Shilton, big on his line' Brian Moore tells the viewing tens on ITV back home in Blighty but he can't stop Olaf Thon from putting the Germans ahead. Chris Waddle steps up and, as he will later note, is just six inches away from the most perfect penalty ever taken. Unfortunately, those six inches are the distance by which the ball sails over the crossbar. So near and yet so far, the story of the match.
249. Did You Know?:
Top Swiss outfit Young Boys of Berne have the wonderfully named Wankdorfstadion as their home ground. You couldn't make that up, could ya?
250. Did You Know?: Ex-Benfica and Portugal star Eusébio is well known for having the biggest knob in world football. At the height of his powers, his knob actually played up front along side him for two seasons where they formed a highly useful strike partnership. Both were extremely slippery in the box. Allegedly.
It combined sublime individual skill all over the park with almost telepathic complex teamwork in a move that has come to symbolise the sheer joy of Brazilian football and that quite unique collection of players. Originating with the centre-forward, Tostão, finding himself in the left-back position and robbing Antonio Juliano, the ball then passed through all bar two of Brazil's outfield players on its way to a breathtaking climax thirty seconds later. As Carlos Alberto puts it, midfielder Clodoaldo 'started the carnival', receiving a - for once, not particularly accurate - pass from Gérson and, for no reason other than he felt like it, dribbling and bodyswerving his way past four Italian challenges inside his own half, before passing to Rivelino, who lobbed a perfectly weighted ball down the left-wing to Jairzinho. Close to Italy's penalty area and tightly marked by Giacinto Facchetti, Jairzinho passed inside to Pelé, who was standing outside the box. Pelé, knowing that help was arriving paused whilst the Italian defenders stood their ground before stroking the ball into what appeared to be empty space to his right. Then, seemingly from nowhere, Carlos Alberto arrived like a train rushing through a station and smashed a thunderbolt of a right-foot shot into the far corner of the net. Magnifico. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how they do that.202. Did You Know?: When England played Scotland at Hampden Park in the 1972 Home International Championship, the Italian referee Sergio Gonella had to call the two captains, Bob Moore and Billy McNeill, together and order them to tell their players to calm down after awarding forty-six free-kicks in the first thirty minutes.
An Alan Ball goal in the twenty-eighth minute gave England victory in this hate-filled Centenary match of football's oldest rivals. Peter Storey and Norman Hunter were at the heart of the trouble with their fierce tackling, and this brought out the competitive spirit in the likes of Billy Bremner, Bob Moncur, Lou Macari, Willie Donachie and Denis Law. For long spells players seemed more intent on kicking lumps out of each other rather than kicking the ball. Scottish FA President Hugh Nelson described the game as 'a disgrace,' and made no secret of the fact that he thought England had started it with their 'retaliate-first' approach. Veteran onlookers could not recall a more vicious encounter between the old enemies.203. Did You Know?:
The most matches played by the same two countries in finals is the seven occasions that Brazil have met Sweden. They played each other in 1938, 1950, 1958 (in the final, see right), 1978, 1990 and twice in 1994.204. Did You Know?: On 14 November 1934 Italy played England at Highbury in what was billed as 'a friendly.' It was, actually, anything but. Italy were the reigning World Champions although it would be more true to say they were the winners of a recent competition called the World Cup. England had remained on the sidelines because of disagreements regarding the status and treatment of amateurs and professionals. And, because they were a bunch of snotty little Englanders who thought Johnny Foreigner was, frankly, an uppity non-entity. They were wrapped in their own little world of denial, assuming that they would win an world competiton easily and therefore seeing no point in actually competing in one. The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish teams followed suit like three good lap-dogs. After all, they already had their own annual contest with the English - the Home Internaitonal Championship. That was as good as World Cup to all of Britain's football men. In England the match against Italy was treated, nevertheless, as a decider for who really was The Best Team In All The World, Bar None. In Italy, possibly even greater importance was attached to the match - Mussolini is reputed to have promised an Alfa Romeo and mucho de Lira as a win bonus for the players.
The FA Selection Committee chose seven players from the current First Division champions, Arsenal. Eddie Hapgood, was appointed captain for the first time. Of the four-non Arsenal players, Stoke's young winger Stanley Matthews was winning his third cap. The others were Everton's Cliff Britton, Derby's Jack Barker and Manchester City's Eric Brook. The Italian team were coached and selected by Vittorio Pozzo, a tactical genius who promoted solid defence from which to launch incisive, swift counter attacks. They had hosted and won the World Cup in a dour final against Czechoslovakia five months earlier where Luis Monti had become the first player to win a World Cup final medal for two different countries, as he'd played for losing finalists Argentina in the 1930 tournament. The Italian team was largely the one that had lifted the Jules Rimet Trophy, featuring two other South American-born oriundi, Raymundo Orsi and Enrico Guaita. In conditions of heavy rain and thick fog, almost immediately England won a penalty which was saved by the Italian keeper, Ceresoli. In the second minute, Monti clashed with Ted Drake, the England centre forward, resulting in a broken bone in Monti's foot. The Azzurri had to play virtually a full game with ten men and, enraged by Drake's tackle, took many opportunities to have a sly kick at the English team .(Drake always subsequently protested that the injury wasn't intentional.) 
England made the most of their advantage; Brook scored twice and Drake added a third before half time. It had been a violent forty five minutes, with Hapgood suffering a broken nose and had to leave the field for a time. It was a very different second half, however. The Italians having calmed down sufficiently to realise there was a game to be won here, finally started playing as befitted world champions. Peppino Meazza scored twice in five heart-stopping minutes and then hit the crossbar with another effort. The Arsenal goalkeeper, Frank Moss, playing in what was to be his last international, produced a number of fine saves to deny the Italians an equaliser and Wilf Copping, England's steely left-half, took man of the match for a gutsy display of tough tackling. It was enough for the FA to continue to claim English's default position of superiority over the rest of the world, the mentality being 'they had their world championship and then we beat the best they had to offer. Ergo, we're better than them lot there.' The Italians, by contrast, could claim a moral victory as they had played with ten men for most of the match. Their team is remembered back in Italy as 'The Lions of London.' The FA were said to be so taken aback by the whole affair that they seriously debated abandoning international matches against overseas nations entirely.205. Did You Know?: Rubbish moments of World Cup TV analysis, number five: From 2006. 'When you see scenes like that [some Paraguayans singing their – rather jolly – national anthem] you really know you're at the World Cup.' Yes, Motty. Alternatively you could, you know, just look at the match programme or the ticket or, simply ask somebody.
206. Did You Know?: Extreme measures were taken in 2006 in the northern islands of Vanuatu to ensure that World Cup fans had good TV reception, with China's television broadcasts to the area being shut down for the duration of the tournament.
China pays Vanuatu's Broadcasting and Television Corporation to maintain its transmitter in Santo, which sends out the Chinese television service, CCTV9, to Vanuatu's northern islands. However, the powerful signal had been interfering with Vanuatu's own television broadcasts. Viewers who had been waiting to watch the World Cup matches relayed on Vanuatu's own host broadcaster were said to be 'getting concerned.' The Vanuatu Daily Post quoted VBTC general manager Jonas Cullwick as saying that the Chinese embassy and Beijing have been informed but told that the stopping of the CCTV9 service was only temporary.207. Did You Know?:
Sweden's first great football triumphs was at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. In the first round, they beat Austria 3-0 at White Hart Lane and then followed that with a 12-0 thrashing of Korea. A semi-final victory of neighbours Denmark (4-2) took the Swedes to Wembley where they beat the crack Yugoslavs 3-1, with goals by Gunnar Gren, Stjepan Bobek and Gunnar Nordahl. It was the beginning of a golden decade for the country culminating in their hosting (and being runners-up) in the 1958 World Cup.208. Did You Know?: Argentina got off to a cracking start in their 1978 World Cup journey, beating Hungary 2-1 in Buenos Aires. Backed by fanatical support from over seventy thousand fans, lots of ticker-tape and a dodgy right-wing government of military boot-boys happy to suppress any dissent, moustachioed Leopoldo Luque and substitue Daniel Bertoni scored their goals after Karoly Csapo had given the Hungarians a surprise early lead. The match was subsequently marred when two Hungarians - Andras Torocsik and Tibor Nyilasi - were sent off, leading many observers to wonder if the referee wasn't 'a bit of a homer.'
The game was most British TV viewers' first sight of little Ossie Ardiles, prompting just about everything good that came from the Argentine midfield. Because the Argentina squad's shirt-number were assigned in alphabetical order, Ardiles wore the number two shirt leading some to assume he was actually a right-back give licence to wander forward. (Such people were, presumably, even more confused by the sight of River Plate's Norberto Alonso, a regular appearer as substitute in several matches, wearing the number one shirt whilst the goalkeeper, Ubaldo Fillol, wore number five.) Ardiles would become one of the stars of the tournament. His future Tottenham team-mate Ricky Villa (wearing twenty two) made rather less of an impact, appearing as a second-half substitute just twice; against Poland in round two and, replacing Ardiles, in the 0-0 draw with Brazil. Mercifully, opposition forwards were spared having to face Racing Club's notoriously brutal - and well-named - defender Daniel Killer. Notorious for his sending-off against England in a friendly a year earlier when he provided a right-hook to Trevor Cherry that George Foreman would have been proud of - Killer remained on the bench throughout the tournament.209. Did You Know?:
The largest crowd ever at a World Cup finals match was the estimated one hundred and seventy four thousand who watched Brazil play Uruguay in the final-that-wasn't-a-final at the Maracana in 1950. Some estimate the crowd to be even higher, perhaps even beyond two hundred thousand. As for the game itself, Brazil needed only to draw to win the 1950 World Cup but they blew it and the Uruguayans prevailed, 2-1.210. Did You Know?: Gerd Müller achieved an unusual hat-trick. In the 1970 Germany v Bulgaria game he scored in three different ways: a right-foot shot, a header and a penalty.
211. Did You Know?: Football's oldest international fixture, nothing stirs the blood quite like a good old blood-and-thunder England vs Scotland game. The match in 1977 was one of the first for Scotland's new manager, Ally MacLeod. It seemed he'd brought his entire 'Tartan Army' down to London with the team as an estimated seventy thousand Scots descended on Wembley and turned it into a sea of blue and yellow flags.
Many Scottish supporters had arrived on Friday - one was killed diving into a fountain at Trafalgar Square. There were two hundred and eighty nine arrests in the lead up to the match though most of the Scots were in good humour when they arrived at Wembley and were even more jubilant when their team convincingly beat England. Scotland took the lead before half-time, Gordon McQueen heading in a Don Masson free-kick. Kenny Dalglish made it 2-0 with a scrambled effort. Although a late Mick Channon penalty gave the score a hint of respectability, in reality England had been outclassed. At the final whistle thousands of Scottish supporters broke through a police cordon around Wembley and celebrated by taking souvenir turfs. Dozens also swung on the crossbar until, with great glee, they snapped it in half and that, too, made its way out of the stadium to be carried back across the border as a trohpy of war. More than two thousand police officers, some on horses, were unable to stop the invasion. For a quarter of an hour they simply couldn't contain what FA secretary Ted Croker described as 'the worst invasion I have ever seen.' The Wembley authorities took the immediate decision to build an eight foot fence around the stadium in time for England's World Cup qualifying match against Italy in November. And there it stayed for over a decade until in was torn down in the aftermath of the Hillsborough tragedy. 'Large parts of the famous Wembley turf were probably being transplanted in Scottish gardens yesterday,' wrote The Times' Norman Fox. 'The damage caused when more than ten thousand Scots invaded the pitch was estimated by the groundsmen at about five thousand pounds.' Most of the press went down the predictable 'birch these hooligan scum' route although one or two did point out that, almost exactly ten years earlier, similar scenes had followed another famous Scottish triumph at Wembley (1967's 3-2 victory against the then-world champions) and no-one had batted an eyelid.212. Did You Know?: Greece refused to play Albania in their first match in the UEFA European Championship (then, the European Nations Cup) in March 1963 as the countries had officially been at war since 1912. Probably time to let it lie then, guys.
213. Did You Know?:
Costa Rica vs Brazil in 2002. Not, perhaps, one of the most memorable games in World Cup history (although it did produce seven goals, Brazil winning 5-2) but it almost certainly featured the finest goal scored from an overhead kick by a centre half in the annuals of the game. Edmilson's sensational finish came just after ITV commentator Peter Drury had casually observed that Brazil 'look a bit dodgy at the back but, every time they come forward you get the feeling their going to score.' Damn straight.214. Did You Know?: The first World Cup hat-trick was scored by Guillermo Stábile for Uruguay v Mexico in the opening game of the 1930 tournament. Stábile and Harry Andersson - who scored a hat-trick for Sweden v Cuba in the 1938 tournament - both achieved this feat on their international debuts.
215. Did You Know?: There was a story which George Best loved to tell in his later years on those TV chat shows which would still have him as a guest. One night (probably in the early 1970s, if the story isn't apocryphal) Best was staying at a top London hotel with his girlfriend, one of the various Miss Worlds who were regularly seen in his company during that period. Having just won a small fortune at a casino, he rang room-service for a bottle of champagne. Subsequently, a waiter arrived, saw the maverick footballer in bed with one of the world's most beautiful women and thousands of pounds in cash scattered around the room.
'Mr Best, can I ask you a question?' he reportedly queried. 'When did it all go wrong?' The question of when things did start to go wrong (at least in footballing terms) for the greatest player Britain has ever produced is a tough one to answer. But for some, the unravelling of his genius began on a wet Saturday afternoon in April 1970 when he allowed, for probably the first time, a self-destructive streak in his psyche to become visible. Northern Ireland's Home International match with Scotland was dull, lifeless game. Best was irritated at the appalling quagmire of a pitch. But he was also fuming at the apparent benevolence of the referee, Eric Jennings, who seemed happy to allow a series of niggly fouls on Best to go unpunished. He was also perhaps angry at his own missed chances, three of them, that could have given his side the lead. Marked tightly, by Frank McLintock, Best's rag was about to be well and truly lost. The explosive moment came with half an hour left when, having protested in vain that the referee should have given a free kick for, rather than against, Ireland Best spat in anger in the general direction of Jennings and then picked up a piece of mud from the Windsor Park pitch and threw it at the astonished official. Jennings immediately pointed to the dressing room. 
As the referee became surrounded by gesticulating players Best started walking away, considered briefly the folly of refusing to leave the field and finally gave up and trudged off, a desolate figure. Jennings's official reason for sending Best off was 'showing dissent.' Best was suspended for one game by the Irish FA. A horrible slide into a spiral of addiction - to gambling, alcohol and sex – was to follow. He 'retired' from the game half a dozen times over the next few years and generally seemed happy to piss away his talent. A tragedy and a waste.216. Did You Know?
An outstanding attacking midfielder with Standard Liege and the German club Schalke, for Belgium, Wilmots scored twenty eight goals in seventy appearance over twelve years. He played in three World Cups, something of a bit part in 1994, getting two goals in 1998 and adding a further three in 2002. Wilmots remains Belgium's leading goal scorer in World Cup history. He also played in Euro 2000, when Belgium co-hosted the tournament. After retiring, Wilmots went into politics and became a member of the Belgian senate, for the French-speaking liberal party, the Reformist Movement. His finest World Cup moment was his overhead kick that beat Japan in 2002. And, he did so whilst wearing Belgium's change salmon pink strip and not looking at all camp.217. Did You Know?: 'Separated At Birth'-type lookalikes seen at recent World Cups include Mary Shelley's Oliver Kahn and some form of obscene half-human, half-pig-type scientific experiment which is against All Laws of God and Man, Stern-faced Polish coach Pawel Janas and Sam the Bald Eagle from The Muppet Show, the card-happy Mexican referee from the 2006 England v Paraguay match and Dave Vanian out of The Damned and Croatian coach Zlatko Krancjar and Colin Crompton off The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club.
Also, most of the Ukraine midfield and the second guitarists in a bunch of slightly anonymous mid-1970s American soft-rock bands, Michel Platini and one of those furtive dodgy-looking geezers whom you often see hanging around the meat counter in supermarkets, Davor Suker and the bloke who played Al Bundy in Married with Children and, most obviously, Ronaldo and Vince the Gopher from Deputy Dawg. Former Red Star Belgrade, Real Madrid, Portsmouth and Croatia midfield general Robert Prosinecki (see right) was, it is alleged, seriously considered by the BBC for the role of Wilfred Brambell in their 2008 biopic The Curse of Steptoe due to his uncanny resemblance to the late actor. But, in the end the part went to Phil Davis due to his ability to holler 'ARRROWWWD!' without a Zagreb accent. Separated from their shoulders when they got home after getting beat 8-0 by Germany were the heads of the Saudi Arabian Girls Under XIV team in 2002.218. Did You Know?: Sweden played it first national game against Norway in July 1908. They won 11-3. Other games in 1908 - against England, Netherlands and Belgium – were a harsh awakener to the realities of international football. They lost all three.
219. Did You Know?: Scotland have only defeated Italy once on the nine occasions the two countries have met, but it was one of the greatest evenings Hampden Park has witnessed. On a thrilling November night in 1965, a combination of shrewd management on the part Jock Stein, barnstorming midfield performances from Jimmy Keep The Ball Up Baxter, Bobby Murdoch and Billy Bremner and a late goal from Rangers' John Greig got the better of an Italian side which featured players of the calibre of Giancinto Facchetti, Sandro Mazzola and Gianni Rivera.
After losing a World Cup tie at Hampden for the first time in eleven years to Poland a month earlier, the Scots came into the match as underdogs. Having thrashed Poland 6-1 in their previous match, the Italians were strong favourites to book their place in the finals by simply avoiding defeat in Glasgow. Avoiding defeat was something which Italian club sides had been doing across Europe for the past few seasons, with some ease. Edmondo Fabbri, the Italian manager, was granted a month free of league games to prepare his men for Scotland. 
Sadly for the Jocks, a 3-0 defeat in the return in Naples the following month - when they were torn apart by AC Milan's Bruno Mora - meant they would not qualify for the finals in England. Four years later, it was much the same story. Drawn in a group that included Austria, Cyprus and West Germany, Scotland held the Germans 1-1 at Hampden but a 3-2 defeat in Hamburg when Celtic's Tommy Gemmill was sent-off for kicking Helmut Haller (see right) into orbit - for which he should, frankly, have been given an award, never mind a punishment - and a subsequent 2-0 loss in Vienna meant Scotland wouldn't be going to Mexico either.220. Did You Know?:
The top goalscorers in the Bundesliga during 2008 were Luca Toni (see left) and Mario Gomez, with forty three goals between them. The subsequent performance of the pair for their respective countries at Euro 2008 just goes to show the - lack of - quality of that league. Don't forget Germany is the country that encourages David Hasselhoff to keep making records. They must be stopped, it's as simple as that.221. Did You Know?: The 2010 World Cup is the first with no debutant associations, although two of the qualifiers (Slovakia and Serbia) have previously appeared only as parts of former competing nations.
222. Did You Know?: The Republic of Ireland vs Romania. Not a game you might expect to enter the pantheon of World Cup greats when it took place in June 1990. But Irish fans have never experienced anything like the sheer drama of it since.
Jack Charlton's side had already exceeded the hopes of a nation by making it to the knock-out stages. If the dream had ended there, no-one would have particularly complained. After all, Georghe Hagi, the Maradona of the Carpathians, was in scintillating form when the sides clashed in Genoa. The game ended goalless and penalties were required to settle the issue. Perfect spot kicks from both sides followed, leaving Pat Bonner and Romanian counterpart Silviu Lung with little to do but pick the ball out of the net. Kevin Sheedy led the way for the Irish, followed by successful efforts from Andy Townsend and Ray Houghton. Tony Cascarino scuffed the fourth, but somehow Lung failed to save. Then, dramatically, Bonner saved the last Romanian penalty from Daniel Timofte, diving to his right. David O'Leary (see left), an unlikely penalty taker at the best of time, stepped up and drilled the ball home.223. Did You Know?:
Players to score four goals in a World Cup match were: Wilimowski (1938, Poland v Brazil) - sixty five minutes, Ademir (1950, Brazil v Sweden) - forty two minutes, Sándor Kocsis (1954, Hungary v Germany) - seventy five minutes, Just Fontaine (1958, France v Germany) - seventy three minutes, Eusébio (1966, see left, Portugal v North Korea) - thirty two minutes, Emilio Butragueño (1986, Spain v Denmark) - fifty seven minutes. The only player ever to score five goals in a World Cup match was Oleg Salenko in the 1994 game between Russia and Cameroon. It took him fifty nine minutes.224. Did You Know?: The first goal scored in extra time in a World Cup match was by Austria's Anton Schall against France in 1934.
225. Did You Know: Zinedine Zidane's international career ended in disgrace when he was sent off in extra-time of the 2006 World Cup final after headbutting Italy's Marco Materazzi. This followed an alleged series of verbal taunts from the Italian.
It was the fourteenth red card of Zidane's career and - along with Cameroon's Rigobert Song - he's the only player to be sent off in two separate World Cup tournaments. He became the fourth player to be dismissed in a World Cup final. In 2010, Zidane said that he 'would rather die' than apologise to Materazzi. At the time, three British newspapers claimed to have hired lip readers to determine what Materazzi had actually said, with The Times, the Sun and Daily Star all claiming that Materazzi had called Zidane 'the son of a terrorist whore.' In actual fact he said nothing of the sort but had, rather, made a somewhat lewd sexual remark about Zidane's sister. In 2008, the Sun and Daily Star made public apologies to Materazzi. The Times has yet to do so. After the final, French president Jacques Chirac hailed Zidane as a 'man of heart and conviction.' And a very hard forehead, too. Chirac later added that he found the offence to be unacceptable, but he understood that Zidane had been provoked. However, French newspaper Le Figaro called the headbutt 'odious.' Time magazine regarded the incident as a symbol for Europe's 'grappling with multi-culturalism.' Most football supporters simply saw it as one player trying to wind up another one, with a bit of history for having a short-fuse. And succeeding.226. Did You Know?: The second round game between England and Argentina at the 1998 World Cup in France has many claims to being the most dramatic in the history of the tournament. Previous rivalries from 1966, 1986 and the real world in the form of the two nations having been at war less than twenty years earlier all played their part in the build up.
The game had many noteworthy aspects including a stunning solo goal scored by England's young striker Michael Owen. Behind early on, Glen Hoddle's England recovered to take a 2-1 lead before Javier Zanetti converted a cleverly worked free-kick to equalise. Just before half time, David Beckham was sent off. Having been fouled by Diego Simeone as Simeone stood up, Beckham still lying on the ground, flicked out a petulant leg in the vague direction of the Argeninte who, of course, went down like ton of elephant shit. The referee, Denmark's fair but rather fussy, Kim Milton Nielsen gave Beckham an straight red card. 
Playing with ten men, England held out superbly against the Argentine attacks and, in the dying moments of the game, during a scramble in the Argentine penalty area following a corner, Sol Campbell appeared to have won the game. As the England players began to celebrate the referee blew for a foul against Alan Shearer. The subsequent Argentine free-kick was taken very quickly, while several England players were still off the field celebrating and they had to rush back to, successfully, prevent the Argentines from scoring. There were no further goals. In the ensuing penalty shoot-out, Argentina won 4-3 after Paul Ince and David Batty's efforts were saved by Carlos Roa. 
There was bad feeling after the game with the Argentine players, reportedly, gloating and banging the side of the England team coach with their fists as England prepared to leave the stadium, although in a subsequent interview Gabrielle Batistuta called the game 'a proper football match, a contest between men,' and was full of praise for the spirit shown by England. There was heavy criticism in the England media about Argentina's 'theatrics' although, in general, it was Beckham himself who was vilified by the English press for his petulance and naivety. The headline in the Daily Mirror the following day described the England team as Ten Heroic Lions, One Stupid Boy. It would take Beckham a couple of years to transform himself from national pantomime villain to national icon.227. Did You Know?: Yer actual Keith Telly Topping's favourite German club side are Schalke 04, Die Königsblauen from the lovely city of Gelsenkirchen - the beer capital of the world.
They remain one of the most fanatically well-supported teams in Germany, even though major successes have been rare since the club's magnificent heyday in the late 1930s (though they did win the UEFA Cup in 1997 and have been runners up in the Bundesliga four times in the last decade). Sound familiar? Yes, you'll be unsurprised to discover that Gelsenkirchen is twinned with Newcastle! Schalke was also the subject of a comedy-drama movie Fußball ist unser Leben (Football is Our Life) – a kind-of German Fever Pitch released in 2000. Uwe Ochsenknecht and Ralf Richter played the main characters whilst then-manager Rudi Assauer, coaches Huub Stevens and Helmut Schulte, winger Yves Eigenrauch and prominent fans Manfred Breuckmann, Ulrich Potofski and DJ Hooligan all made cameos. Check it out if you get the chance, it really rather good.228. Did You Know?: The first half of South Africa v Slovenia in 2002 has been recognised, officially, as without doubt, the worst forty five minutes of football since Blyth Sparatans Reserves vs Shildon Athletic in the 1911 North Eastern League Second Division. But, it soon lost the title to the thoroughly wretched Switzerland v Ukraine match in 2006. Two hours of our lives that nobody who watched it will ever get back. Even the penalties at the end were rubbish.
229. Did You Know?: The night before the 1998 World Cup final, Ronaldo reportedly suffered a convulsive fit. He was removed from Brazil's starting line-up the following day. However, just over an hour before the match he arrived at the stadium and declared himself fit to play and was reinstated by coach Mario Zagallo. Ronaldo did not perform well and he was injured in a collision with French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez. Brazil lost the final 3-0 to hosts France. The most dramatic account came from Ronaldo's roommate Roberto Carlos.
'Ronaldo was scared about what lay ahead. The pressure had got to him and he couldn't stop crying. At about four o'clock, he started being sick. That's when I called the team doctor and told him to get over to our room as fast as he could.' The Brazilian media subsequently demanded to know why Ronaldo had been allowed to play when his mind was clearly not on the game. Zagalo said 'I kept thinking about taking him off. But he said he felt well enough to play and if I had not played Ronaldo after he said he was fit, I'd have been under even more criticism.' There were even claims that team sponsors, Nike, had put pressure on Zagalo to play him. These were hotly denied.230. Did You Know?: Few games at the 1990 World Cup captured the imagination like the quarter-final encounter between England and Cameroon. This roller-coaster encounter brought together an England side inspired by the exuberance and artistry of Paul Gascoigne and a Cameroon team who simply charmed with their spirit, pace and strength.
Their midfield dominance and Roger Milla's intelligent use of space led Bobby Robson to abandon England's sweeper system which had worked so well in the previous three games, replacing Terry Butcher and a very ineffectual John Barnes with Peter Beardsley and Trevor Steven. Cameroon led 2-1 with just eight minutes to play when Oman-Biyick missed a golden opportunity to wrap the game up. 
They were made to pay almost immediately when Benjamin Massing brought down Gary Lineker in the box and England had a penalty. Lineker himself took the kick - the first an England international side had been given in almost three years - and levelled the scores. Cameroon had missed their best chance to reach the semi-finals. In extra time Gascoigne's beautifully weighted through ball for Lineker saw the Tottenham striker fouled by Thomas N'Kono and, again, he scored from the spot.231. Did You Know?: Vasily Rats of the USSR scored one of the best goals of the 1986 World Cup finals, a twenty five yard screamer past France's goalkeepr, Joel Bats, in a 1-1 draw. Both teams - and their respective wildlife-monikered players - progressed to the second round.
232. Did You Know?: In 2009 the Brazilian legend Socrates met the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in Sao Paolo at the Brazilian Museum of Football. Socrates, now a sports injuries doctor, presented the PM with a Brazil number ten shirt bearing his name.
Which, presumably, was up on e-Bay a few moments after the 2010 election was sorted. Anyway, the pair both agreed that David Narey's screamer against the Brazilians in 1982 was one of the greatest World Cup goals of all time. Brown told Socrates of an entire country's delight when the Dundee United central defender opened the scoring in Seville, a game which the brilliant Brazilians eventually won 4-1. Brown noted 'some people back home called it a toe-poke,' referring to an infamous comment about the goal made by the BBC's alleged TV pundit Jimmy Hill which sparked outrage in Scotland. It led the Tartan Army to regularly chant 'We hate Jimmy Hill' at every given opportunity. Well, they're only human after all.233. Did You Know?: Bolivia had to wait sixty four years for their first goal at the World Cup finals. They first appeared at the World Cup in 1930 but didn't qualify again until 1994; Erwin Sanchez scored the goal in a 3-1 defeat by Spain.
234. Did You Know?: When Ron Greenwood was appointed temporary manager of England in August 1977, the nation was under no illusions about his chances of reaching the 1978 World Cup Finals. They were small to barely existent. His predecessor, Don Revie, had endured months of growing pressure following England's 2-0 defeat away to Italy in November 1976 and decided to labandon ship during the summer of 1977 after getting a lucrative offer from the United Arab Emirates. Greenwood therefore knew his side had to win their last two qualifying matches - Luxembourg away and Italy at home - and hope that Italy's expected victory over Luxembourg in the final game would be by not many goals to qualify for Argentina '78.
To his credit, Ron Greenwood took care of his side of the bargain, steering England to a highly impressive 2-0 win over the Italians at Wembley. Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking, a partnership that would often perform well for England over the next few years, both got on the scoresheet. But in early December, Italy beat Luxembourg 3-0. Level on points with England, Italy's record was better only by the three goals they'd scored in this game. Ultimately, it was England's inability to score more than two against the Luxembourgers in October (and a similar number against Finland a year earlier) that did for England's chances. No-one really expected Ron Greenwood to achieve the impossible after Revie's exit, but the win against Italy gave the nation confidence that England were starting to turn a corner. 
The Football Association agreed, and by the time England played their next match - a friendly against West Germany in February 1978 - they had given Greenwood the job permanently. England qualified for the 1980 European Championship, the first major tournament they'd attended in eight years. And, qualification for the 1982 World Cup was also achieved, albeit with a few bumps along the way, notably a 2-1 defeat in Norway when radio commentator Bjørge Lillelien's stream-of-consciousness celebrations at then end ('Maggie Thatcher, can you hear me? Your boys took a hell of a beating!') proved more memorable than the match itself. Ultimately, victories home and away against eventual group winners Hungary - with, again, Keegan and Brooking prominent, particularly in Budapest - ensured that England would be going to Spain.235. Did You Know?:
The most important matches of the Czech national team used to be held in Prague's AXA Arena, the home stadium of Sparta Prague. After the recent construction of the purpose-built Stadion Eden, the team now plays its home matches there. Dukla (and their famous away kit), having fallen on tough times of late – they are currently in the Czech second division – play at the Na Julisce. Yer actual Keith Telly Topping has been there, dear blog reader. And, he has to say it makes Victoria Park, Hartlepool look like Wembley by comparison.236. Did You Know?: Has there ever been a finer performance in a World Cup qualifying match than David Beckham's when England drew 2-2 with Greece at Old Trafford in October 2001? With results elsewhere going their way, it was enough to send England to Japan the following year.
But, it had been a shabby, stumbling, nervous performance from an England side which had, let's remember, beaten Germany in Munich just six weeks earlier. Five-one. Even Heskey scored. England needed to win or, if Germany failed to beat Finland, draw the Greece match in order to qualify outright for the World Cup, but they were, at times, terrible. There were points at which it seemed Beckham, having the finest game of his career, was effectively playing the Greeks on his own. England were trailing 2–1 with little time remaining when Teddy Sheringham was fouled eight yards outside the Greek penalty area. From the resulting free-kick Beckham produced something close to perfection, ensured England's qualification with a curling strike of the kind that had become his trademark. Agonising minutes followed as the result was awaited from Gelsenkirchen. Then came the news that the Finns had held the Germans to a goalless draw. England, thanks to Beckham, had made it.237. Did You Know?: One of the fastest goals ever scored at the World Cup was Bernard Lacombe's header from a pinpoint Didier Six cross for France against Italy in the opening Group One game. It took just twenty eight seconds. Italy came back to beat the talented young French side 2-1.
238. Did You Know?:
When it comes to commentators briefly forgetting that they're supposed to be neutral, Barry Davies is usually close to the front of the queue. At the 1994 World Cup, when covering the Netherland v Republic of Ireland game at Orlando his anguished cry of 'Ooo, Pat Bonner' when the Irish keeper spilled Vim Jonk's speculative long-range shot into the net was indicitive of what many viewers and saying at exactly that moment. And that's why, for this blogger anyway, Bazza was always preferable to Motty. More passion!239. Did You Know?: One of the greatest, and certainly most recognisable referees in the history of the game was Italy's Pierluigi Collina. Having contracted a severe form of alopecia early in his career, this resulted in a permanent loss of all Collina's facial hair, giving him his distinctive bald appearance and earning the nickname 'Kojak' from ... the sort of people who think calling a bald man 'Kojak' is the height of wit.
Fearsome looking, but hugely respected by fans and players alike and, apparently, a bit of a sweetie off the field, he was the sort of referee whom even the most argumentative individual would think twice about crossing. In 2002, Collina reached the pinnacle of his career when he was chosen to handle the World Cup final between Brazil and Germany. Prior to the game, Mark Shelley's Oliver Kahn told the Irish Times: 'Collina is a world-class referee, there's no doubt about that, but he doesn't bring luck, does he?' Kahn was referring to two previous high-profile matches that Collina had refereed which involved Kahn: the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final, a 2–1 defeat for Bayern, and Germany's 5–1 defeat against England in 2001. Kahn's luck did not change in the final. Brazil beat Germany 2-0. Collina's handling of the game was, as usual, immaculate.240. Did You Know?: In every great side, there's usually one chap that everybody forgets about. The bass players.
So, here's your trainspotters guide to The Zeppos of classic World Cup sides: Brazil, 1970 (Everaldo, or may Piazza). The Netherland, 1974 (Wim Rijsbergen). West Germany, 1974 (Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck). Argentina, 1978 (Jorge Olguín). France, 1982 (Gerard Janvion). Italy, 1982 (Fulvio Collovati). Argentina, 1986 (the other ten blokes that weren't Maradonna, see right). Brazil, 1994 (Zinho). France, 1998 (Miss Stephanie Guivarc'h). Brazil, 2002 (Kleberson). There were no great teams in 2006. None whatsoever.241. Did You Know?: George Best never played in a World Cup finals match. Steve McMahon played in four. It just doesn't seem right, somehow, does it? In 1990, McMahon came on as a substitute in England's opening group game against the Republic of Ireland, and was pretty much responsible for gifting the Irish their equaliser in a 1-1 draw.
His wretched miscontrol of a ball midway inside his own half presented his former Everton team-mate, Kevin Sheedy, with a chance to shot past Peter Shilton. Dropped from the next game, McMahon started against Egypt - why, Bobby Robson, why? - which England won and was also in the side for the second round match against Belgium. He was replaced late in the game by David Platt, who went on to score a spectacular winner and Platt, subsequently kept his place through the rest of the tournament. Once the World Cup was over McMahon would play just once more for England, in a European Championship qualifier against Republic of Ireland in November 1990. So, you can blame Graham Taylor for a lot of stuff but he did one or two things right.242. Did You Know?:
Ajax's Finidi George, the Nigeria, striker performed a 'urinating dog' celebration after his fine goal against Greece. It was one of the more bizarre moments of USA 94. But, to be fair, no more bizarre than those stupid little trollies that FIFA insisted carry even minorly injured players to the side of the pitch.243. Did You Know?: The great Marco Taredelli, of Juventus and Italy, is particularly remembered for his famous goal celebration when scoring his country's second against West Germany in the 1982 final. Brimming with emotion, he sprinted towards the Italian bench, fists clenched in front of his chest, screaming - it is often suggested - his own name just like we all did as kids when playing kick-about at the local park and pretending to be the TV commentator. This celebration would subsequently become known as 'Tardelli's Scream.'
A tough defensive midfielder, but one who popped up with more than a sprinking of cracking goals over the years, he was a vital part of Enzo Bearzot's 1982 Italy team, forming a 'they shall not pass' spine of the team with Claudio Gentile and Giuseppe Bergomi. The flair in the team was provided by the brilliant Bruno Conti whose delicate passes led to many of Paolo Rossi's goals in that tournament. Indeed, on the BBC's coverage of the final when Jimmy Hill noted after the match that it had been announced Rossi was to receive an official award from the Italian government equivalent, roughly, to a knighthood in Britian, Lawrie McMenemy suggested that Conti ought to be canonised for his contributions. Unfortunately, that would make him Saint Bruno. Probably loses a lot in translation.244. Did You Know?: Saudi Arabia's record in World Cup finals is ... well, let's be charitable and say up-and-down. But, mostly down. They qualified for four successive tournaments but, they went out in the first round at three of them and, it has to be said, in 2002 in particular they were a sodding disgrace. (Sending along their Girls Under XIV side to play Germany was a particularly bad move. They got an eight-nil caning.)
However, their first appearance, in 1994 in the US was really rather promising. They won two of their group matches and qualified for the second round before losing to a very good Swedish side. The highlight of their time in America, undoubtedly, was their 1-0 win over Beglium and a wonder goal scored by Saeed Al-Owairan (see right). Only five minutes had elapsed when midfielder Owairan picked up the ball deep inside his own half. Quite why he elected to keep running rather than pass to one of his team mates isn't clear, but his confidence wasn't misplaced. He beat four Belgian defenders before blasting the ball past Michel Preud'homme. Sami Al-Jaber - who scored forty four times for his country in one hundred and sixty three appearances over a fourteen-year international career - competed in all four of Saudi Arabia's World Cups final appearances. His record of caps is second only to Mohamed Al-Deayea in his country's history. A short spell in England, at Wolves (which saw him make only four appearances) was somewhat less successful.245. Did You Know?:
After their promising performance in the 1988 European Championships (when they were ruunners up to the Netherlands) much was expected of the Soviet Union at the 1990 World Cup. However, injury robbed them of their key playmaker, Alexei Mikhailichenko (left), before the tournmanet and they were a huge disappointment in Italy - losing all three of their group games (to Romania, Argentina and Cameroon) and not even scoring a single goal. By the time the next World Cup came round, the country no longer even existed.246. Did You Know?: On 21 June 1998 USA and Iran faced each other in the group stages of the World Cup in France. The tension and the rivalry between the two nations - if not, necessarily, the two sides - requires no obvious contextualisation for dear blog readers.
The result, on the other hand, took some explaining. The Americans went into the game as strong favourites and were keen to bounce back from a 2-0 loss to Germany earlier in the group stages. Iran, though, had other ideas and in an extraordinary performance all the odds and claim their first ever World Cup victory. Goals from Hamid Estili and Mehdi Mahdavikia helped secure the win for Iran, with the USA only able to respond with a Brian McBride consolation goal in the final five minutes. Their 2-1 victory over The Great Satan remains one of the most famous nights in Iran's footballing history - which is, of no doubt, some some small consolation to Scotland.247. Did You Know?: Qualification for England for the 1950 and 1954 World Cups came on the back of FIFA being prepared to use the 1949-50 and 1953-54 Home International Championships as World Cup qualification groups.
By 1958, they'd changed their mind and insisted that the four home nations should qualify properly like everyone else. Ironically, all four promptly did just that! England took part in a group along with the Republic of Ireland and Denmark. Four games brought England three victories and a draw in Dublin. Northern Ireland, astonshingly, put out Italy in their group (along with Portugal), thanks to a 2-1 win in Belfast. Scotland won a tough group over Spain and Switzerland and Wales, despite finishing second to Czechoslovakia in their group were the lucky recipiants of a play-off against Israel.248. Did You Know?: England v West Germany 1990. Andreas Brehme scores from a free-kick that deflects in off Paul Parker's arse. With ten minutes left, Klaus Augethaler fails to control a cross into the area and Gary Lineker equalises with a sharply taken opportunist strike.
The game goes into a thrilling extra-time period during which both teams come close by hitting the post (Chris Waddle producing a moment of magic only to hit the inside of German woodwork and see to ball, somehow, stay out). Nine minutes into extra time, Paul Gascoigne, having possibly the finest game of his career, is booked by the Brazilian referee for a mistimed tackle of Thomas Berthold which would, if England had won, see suspended him for the final. 
Gascoigne is visibly upset, breaking down in tears and the iconic image of the match, and probably the entire tournament, is his team-mate Lineker spotting this, turning to the bench and mouthing 'have a word with him.' The match is decided by penalties. Both teams score with their first three kicks (Lineker, Brehme, Beardsley, Matthäus, Platt, Riedle). 
But on England's fourth shot, Bodo Illgner saves Stuart Pearce's straight-down-the-middle effort. 'Shilton, big on his line' Brian Moore tells the viewing tens on ITV back home in Blighty but he can't stop Olaf Thon from putting the Germans ahead. Chris Waddle steps up and, as he will later note, is just six inches away from the most perfect penalty ever taken. Unfortunately, those six inches are the distance by which the ball sails over the crossbar. So near and yet so far, the story of the match.249. Did You Know?:
Top Swiss outfit Young Boys of Berne have the wonderfully named Wankdorfstadion as their home ground. You couldn't make that up, could ya?250. Did You Know?: Ex-Benfica and Portugal star Eusébio is well known for having the biggest knob in world football. At the height of his powers, his knob actually played up front along side him for two seasons where they formed a highly useful strike partnership. Both were extremely slippery in the box. Allegedly.
