Brazil did not really consider the best nation in football until the "Boys from Brazil" won the WC in Mexico. West Germany, the 2nd most successful nation in WC history, did not start their run until after the European Championship in 1972. Who were the best nations before the late 1960's? Italy? England?
Hungary and Austria were great sides that were never able to win the World Cup back in the 1930s-1950s....
You can have an approximation, to your question on this link https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1381429
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongest_football_nations_by_Elo_Ratings That shows ELO's average ratings by decade.
Until WWI, England was the best nation in football. During 20s, Uruguay was the best. Since 30s until 40s, Argentine was the best, and second was Italy. During 50s Argentine and Hungary were the best. In the thread WORLD CUP Fantasy, i do an analize about TOP-4 in every World Cup, considering ELO Rating. I'll apreciate any contribution, about players missing or NT not considered
The 50s were a well balanced decade among England Brazil Hungary West Germany France Sweden etc Before that I'd say England were very likely the beast team in the primordial times , having the '20s being dominated by Uruguay and the 30s by Italy. Overall since England didn't take part in competitions I'd answerd the OP question by sayin' that Italy wins over Uruguay by a slice margine. I remind you of what Italy gained in those years: 1928 - Third at the Olympic Games 1930 - Central European Cup Champions 1932 - second in the Central European Cup Champions 1934 - World Champions 1935 - Central European Cup Champions 1936 - Olympic Champions 1938 - World Champions need to say more? Imho overrated by the Elo ranking system , what has Argentina accomplished in World Cups before not only the '60s but also the 70s? one final in the very first edition and then only miserable performances.
For the same period(20`s till 1950), but for Uruguay : 1920 : America Cup Champions 1923 : America Cup Champions 1924 : America Cup Champions 1924 : Olympic Champions (before 1930, considered equivalent to a World Championship) 1926 : America Cup Champions 1927 : America Cup Finalist 1928 : Olympic Champions (before 1930, considered equivalent to a World Championship) 1930 : World Champions 1935 : America Cup Champions 1939 : America Cup Finalist 1941 : America Cup Finalist 1942 : America Cup Champions 1950 : World Champions Willingly they decided not to participate in 1934 and 1938 World Cups, as a boycot towards Italy`s and some Europeans nations boycot towards 1930 World Cup held in Uruguay.
Somehow, we can consider that football as we know it only dates back to the Brazilian 50's/60's era. Before then, the game was a lot more monodimensional. In a way, it's a bit like asking who influenced the most christianism before Jesus.
We disagree completely on this. Maybe for you, Football started in the 1950-1960 era, But for me it started long before that. Imho, as a football fan, your observation is a highly ignorant (not refering to your person, but to what you said instead) and more so, to the Jules Rimet Cup, which as you should know is what started the WC history, and as a fact it is about what this topic is precisely about (more than half of its history and the times before it, too). Your resemblence to western religion is completely out of place, too.
Don't take my post too seriously Rickdog! The comparison with christianism was more fun than anything else. Of course the game is very old... it dates back to the medieval times in various different forms. The game has its roots in popular tradition accross Western Europe and hasn't been "invented", like cricket, in English universities. The unification of the rules in 1863 made a lot to devellop the game but isn't really a year of "foundation" of the sport. The thing however is that the game constantly evolved, and how it was played at the end of the 19th century in the British Home championship was totally different from the modern game. The off-side rule as we know it only dates back to 1926, and has drastically changed the formation of teams from a heavy attack of 5 to 6 forwards to a more balanced distribution of players all accross the field. What I only wanted to highlight is how the game has been perfected in the 50's. The Hungarian 4-2-4 of 1954 was a real revolution in gameplay, which later has been improved even further by the Brazilians in 1958. And even disregarding tactics and gameplay, I'm not really convinced we could really pretend any country was "dominating" at world stage before the 50's. The sport was practiced globally, but the logistic difficulties to organize international competitions tended to isolate world regions from one another. It's generally told that England dominated the game initially, but they were the only one to play the sport in the 19th century, and they didn't participate to many serious international tournaments during the first half of the 20th century. At first, there was no world cup at all, and we can even question the Olympics true competitiveness considering it was a demonstration gala in the first editions and it was later disrupted by the whole amateur vs professional conflict. As for the three first editions of the world cup, they didn't really achieved there purpose as only 4 European teams made the trip to Uruguay in 1930 (making it a copa america with wild cards) and Uruguay boycotted the 1934 and 1938 editions in Europe which were interfered by a crappy political climate. All this to say that different footballs in the world really started to meet each others only in 1950, when the British teams participated to their first world cup, both the former title holders Italy and Uruguay together shown, and both continental Europe and the Americas were decently represented. At that moment, the game really developped fast, and competition at a global scale really became decently-organized. That's why, overall, saying who was the best side between Argentina, Italy, England or Uruguay in the first half of the 20th century seems very hard to tell to me... and isn't really that significant overall.
well argentina sent a amateur side to the cup in 1934 and none at all in 1938. In the 1940's, Argentina won the Copa America 4 times and mind you this was the time that Argentina was fueled by La Maquina (the machine) the team Alfredo Di Stefano still rates as the best team he ever saw, but obviously there was no world cup in the 1940's. In 1950 and 1954, Argentina boycotted the world cup due to a combination of Peron and refusing to play in Brazil in 1950 because they felt they should have had it. Not playing in these 2 cups is the main reason why Alfredo Di Stefano and Omar Sivori, two of the greatest players in the history of Real Madrid and Juventus respectively, never represented Argentina at a World Cup. Politics got in the way of what could potentially been two great teams, but this is no surprise as politicians are still medaling with the Argentine team today, causing it to fail The point is however, had things gone a bit differently, Argentina could have had an extra star or two on the jersey But clearly Uruguay is the best team prior to brazil, and they almost beat hungary in 1954
Argentina lead a South American boycot to the WC of 1938, cause it was suposed to be held in Argentina, asuming the rotation of the host of the WC, between Europe and South America. since the former one was in Italy, it was South America`s turn for 1938, which finaly was held in France. Once more, politics were Champions here, so the best 2 teams from the world, Argentina and Uruguay, in those days weren`t present in that WC either, the first where it also happened was in 1934, in which case the cause was a payback for the European boycot for 1930 WC.
It amazes me the hate on Italy. After Uruguay in the 20s and early 30s, Italy clearly was the superpower in soccer. 2 World Cups and one Olympic games which in that time was more important then the World Cup. After WW2 broke out and two WCs were cancelled Italy was still the superpower and had it not been for the Torino Air Crash which took out what was then considered the greatest team of all time (which included half the Italian national team) they would have won in 1950 when the WC resumed. Germany has nothing on Italy, see the 1970 and 2006 Semi Finals as well as the 1982 final. Nuff said.
Italy in fact along with Argentina (silver in 1928 Olympics and Finalist in 1930 WC) and Uruguay (Olympic Golds in 1924 and 1928, and WC champion in 1930), were the nations to beat in those years. But you must also note that the finals of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Football was flawed, the moment that Peru was treated as it were during those summer games. Peru, the only CONMEBOL nation present, who had managed to beat every team it faced in those games, finally after achieving a well deserved victory against Austria (silver medal), by 4-2 including 3 perfect goals disallowed in its favor, was forced to play the match again, since the Austrian team, an Arian team with the full support of Hitler and the Axi state, claimed that it had been flawed. Since Peru thought this was a complete harrasment due to the fact that most of its players were colored, abandoned the Olympic games that year after this episode and of course they refused to play that second game. If Peru would have past to semifinals instead of Austria, it is very likely that it would have also won it, since it proved it was a better team than Austria, and if this would have happened, Peru would have faced Italy in the final game for the Gold medal, where it isn`t unlikely that it could have also beat the Italian team. Later in Athletics, Hitler once again showed everybody what he thought about colored people, when he refused to stretch Mr. Owen`s hand after his victory in the 100 m dash.......
Not defending Hitler by any means but its common knowledge that Hitler only congratulated German athlete's on the first day of competition and was told not to congratulate anyone anymore after that day because he had to show neutrality. Hitler snubbed another black named Cornelius Johnson that day but the Jesse Owens story is all myth.
True . I made the mistake refering it to Mr. Owens, but actually it is as you said it, in reference to the congratulations.
Germany has made the quarterfinals or better of 15 World Cups in a row. Not an easy record to dismiss.