I know you said that you mostly base it on watching the DVDs but which sources were the best for the pre-war World Cups? I guess it were English sources mostly? [I mean sources of that era itself btw; not reviews of years later although they can be valuable I know] Also wonder whether an archive exists with all 'Shoot!' magazines available? I know that the dudes of Charles Buchan Football Monthly are now busy with digitalizing the 70s and 80s editions though.
Sindelar in 1933 has to be number one for me. Austria Vienna was not a very good team as this point, regularly finishing in the bottom half of the Austrian table (they qualified by winning the cup). In some of the strong runs they had in the later years 35, 36, and 37 the team was more competitive in the Austrian League regularly challenging for the title and it reflected in the match descriptions, with other top players like Sesta, Mack, and Nausch all making critical contributions to the teams success. In 1933 you get a much stronger impression of Sindelar just single handedly taking apart Slavia (by far the dominant Czech team of the early 30s) and Juventus (by far the dominant Italian team of the early 30s), and then he had the dramatic, famous hatrick in the second leg of the final. Behind that I would say Braine 1935 and Sarosi 1937 are 2a and 2b. They both did everything to help there team win (defending, playmaking, and scoring) and had signature moments where they took over game (Sarosi's 6 goal final, Braine's long run in the second leg of the final and the demolition of Juventus in the playoff). After that there are a number of strong performances that would be in the conversation: Takas in 1928, Ivar in 1929, Meazza in 1933, Sindelar in 1935, and Sarosi in 1935. As individual performances I am guessing that Bican in 38 and Zsengellér in 39 will be right there as well, and could be pushing for the top few spots if not for the tournaments loss of quality. In 1938 the Austrians are out and in 1939 the Austrians and Czechs are out.
Hello? I guess it can be hard to judge which sources look reliable reflections of events? (the passers right etc.)
There are basically no contemporary English sources for the pre-war World Cups. They were totally ignored. So what you are left with is very patchy film (actually not too bad for 1938 when there is an official film) and foreign sources. I've used some Uruguayan sources which are quoted in modern books (Four Weeks in Montevideo by Hyder Jawad and moreso Where It All Began by Rony Almeida). Also the Official Report for 1934 in Italian which is extremely hard to obtain (I don't have a copy but have seen one). A major source to me for those early ones are the books published in German by Agon Verlaag, as well as Association Football which has a number of nice sections written by Willy Meisl. Obviously also the contemporary sources such as Glanville, Freddi, Kobylecky etc, plus the various books on specific nations like the series by the IFFHS and more modern ones like Tor!, Calcio, La Roja etc. You do have to be very careful though. I've been revising my stuff recently given some newly available footage and the descriptions are often markedly different from what happened. As such I find both contemporary and later sources for those tournaments unreliable, hence I've watched as much as I've been able to in order to independently verify everything where possible.
Remarkable that still some new footage surfaces now and then from such a well-exposed event... from which vaults did the newest footage come? Also interesting that UK didn't care (to that extent).
I'm not sure where they have come from. They probably existed before but just weren't widely circulated.
For those early tournaments just on Youtube. I haven't seen anything pre-1953 on collectors' lists as far as I can remember.
They have been taken off the IFFHS website but I have found a round about way of getting to them through archived screenshots. http://archive.is/Vknts That is an example, but there is no good way to search the archive so you just have to click around until you find what you want.
For those interested in the lineups I have the two IFFHS issues dealing with the Mitropa Cup and I could upload that information (I will try to). But I suppose a separate thread would be more suited for that in order not to overload this thread.
Thanks to your tip I could take a look at the IFFHS write-ups (almost integrally copied from their magazine it seems?). Want to make a little caveat: it seems like the 1933 write-ups are shorter as the later ones? Later tournaments had more entrants but it seems like more detail is given too? What's your idea?
This is definitely true, the write up for the first addition especially is very brief, very little detail. 1933 seemed like it had a lot of detail. They really starting waxing poetically about Sindelar in that description. I would say that once you get passed the first couple write ups they seem equally detailed.
Sorry for the self-promotion but this book is now out on amazon. The aim throughout was to create the most comprehensive history of the World Cup ever written via detailed reports of every match at the World Cup, including line-ups, formations, attendances, officials and all manner of information. Hopefully it has achieved that and it's getting some favourable feedback so far. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Complete-History-World-Cup-ebook/dp/B00K9URA7M/ref=zg_bs_362884031_12
"Not many things get you in World Cup mood like a rousing rendition of the German national anthem." https://twitter.com/ademir2z/status/466287614421909504 Signed in for a German passport already?
Hello, I'm Belgian and interested in history of football, and much in Raymond Braine as I read somewhere he is considered as the best Belgian player of all time. What do you think? In Belgium nobody considers him the best or the greatest. It niggles me, how good was he really? Why nobody in Belgium rates him that high? At most 5th best of all time. Everybody rates Van Himst higher and now there are Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard, these 2 are also higher. What would your top 10 be from Belgium?
This link may be of interest. Braine's spending six seasons in Prague might have been a factor. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/b...er-dor-1954-2010.1853033/page-5#post-39079818