Top 10 NTs - The 1950s

Sweden played at WC 1950 without its professional stars players that won gold in the Olympics two years earlier, such as Gre-No-Li trio, that fact weakened its potential squad. Two years after, they won bronze at Olympics with a home based team. Because of this, they decided to play WCQ 1954 with an amateur team that failed to qualified against Belgium.

The finest moment in this decade came in the WC 1958, where they finished second place, the highest in its history



Sweden had in the 1950s some All Time Greats in : Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordhal, Nils Liedholm and Kurt Hamrin. Other great footballers were: Agne Simonsson, Orvar Bergmark, Bengt Gustavsson, Karl Svensson, Gösta Sandberg, Lennart Skoglund, Åke Johansson.

 

Soviet Union returned to international scene in the Olympics 1952, from the previous tours of Dinamo at 1945 and CDKA at 1947. They did a very good impresion in Helsinki, where they put a hard oposition to a strong Yugoslavia side. In the next Olimpics at 1956, soviets won gold, taking the rematch vs Yugoslavia.

Then they took part in the WC, getting pass the first round vs England and Austria, to being eliminated by local Sweden. USSR also had the merit to have a favorable record vs Hungary this decade.



An All Time Great was: Lev Yashin. Other great soviet footballers were: Igor Netto, Nikita Simonyan, Sergei Salnikov, Vsevolod Bobrov, Anatoli Bashashkin, Mikhail Ogonkov, Eduard Streltsov, Valentin Ivanov, Anatoliy Maslyonkin, Anatoliy Ilyin.

 

Yugoslavia had a record in the Olympics, obtained in the years 1948-56, the Silver medal three times in a row, first two beaten by powerful Sweden and Mighty Magyars. In the Olympics 1960, they finally won golden.

In the WCs, they left a great impression too, at Brazil 1950, they were beaten by the powerful local side after a tight match. In the next WC at 1954, they faced again to Brazil, this time both qualified to second round, where Yugoslavia was defeat by future champion W.Germany. Four years after, Yugoslavia fielded another strong side at Sweden 1958, but was again knocked out by germans in the KO stage.

So, even Yugoslavia enjoyed one of the better generation of players, they had to faced some of the strongest teams of the decade (Brazil-1950, Mighty Magyars, Germany-1954, etc), which prevented to get higher places at major tournaments.



Some of the great footballers were: Branko Zebec, Stjepan Bobek, Branko Stankovic, Ivica Horvat, Vladimir Beara, Rajto Mitic, Bernard Vukas, Vujadin Boskov, Zlatko Cajkovski, Tomislav Crnkovic, Todor Veselinovic and Milos Milutinovic.

 

Another countries to mention were:

Perú, had a very good generation of players lead by Toto Terry, Valeriano López, Guillermo Delgado, Tito Drago, Oscar Gomez Sánchez, also Joya and Seminario in the late 1950s. An irregular team, but in its best moments able to beat argentinian Carasucias, Wright's England or Didi's Brazil. Peruvians withdrew from the 1950 & 54 WCQs and loss the 58 qualifying by 1 goal (FK by Didi). Perú missed the chance to win the CA'53 due to a surprising defeat with Bolivia, also the CA'59 is remembered as one of the greatest ever.

Chile, had a very good pool of players too, Enrique Hormazábal, Jorge Robledo, Leonel Sánchez and Jaime Ramírez. After a decent WC'50 in a strong group with Spain & England, they had its better moments at CA 1955 & 1956 where they get two consecutives second places.

Switzerland, also a good side who was the only european side to not loss against Brazil 1950, they also had a very decent WC at home in 1954. Some of their main players were: Jacky Fatton, Charles Antenen and Roger Bocquet.

Belgium, attended to WC 1954 playing in the tightest group of all. The Red Devils also have some notable friendlies beating Mighty Magyars and current world champion W.Germany. Some of the main players were: Jef Jurion, Pol Anoul, Vic Mees, Rik Coppens and Jef Mermans.

Wales made its only WC final appearence in 1958 after winning a play-off to Israel (Belgium was drawn out first among the UEFA second placed teams but refused to participate). Wales made a great impression in the WC, losing by 1 goal against Pele's Brazil. Wales had its golden generation in the 1950s with players such as: John Charles (who missed the Brazil match), Ivor Allchurch, Cliff Jones, Jack Kelsey and Alf Sherwood.

Northern Ireland, also qualified for the first time at the WC finals in 1958, making an unprecedent full UK attended nations at WC. Surpringly Wales and them (and not powerhouses England & Scotland) qualified for the KO stages. Some of the main players were: Danny Blanchflowers, Harry Gregg, Jimmy McIlroy, Peter McParland, Alf McMichael and Billy Bingham.

In the other Confederations, I think are whorthy of mention to some level of opposition, Mexico and Costa Rica (over USA), the first attended to all three WCs and also two Panamerican Games, contested by some SA top countries as an attemp to a full Americas championship, but withdrew from most Concacaf tournaments, some notable mexican players in the 1950s: Antonio Carbajal, Horacio Casarin and Raúl Cárdenas.

The Ticos, with Mexico absence were the dominant force at Concacaf championships, also had a good participation in the Panamerican Games 1956, a team known as "Los chaparritos de Oro", in this decade some players were signed by El Dorado and argentine leagues. The main players were: Ruben Jimenez, Carlos Alvarado, and "Fello" Meza.

 

Even with few votes, the countries that are ahead to join the top-10 in the 1950s are France, Yugoslavia and Austria. Alongside the six pre-nominees in Hungary, Argentina, Brazil, W.Germany, Uruguay and England.

 

I made an exercise to calculate strenghts of the main countries in the 1950s, with 5 variables, each one rated from 3 to 0 points:

Tournament: only considered tournaments played with 4 contenders for top10.
WC (3 points for finalist, 2 for SF, 1 for QF, 0 for others).
Olympics & SAC & Gerö Cup (2 points for finalist, 1 for SF, 0 for others)

ELO average: I take for each year, 2 ratings and average them.

Elite Stars: countries having the top world players

Depth: amount of local talent

Head to Head: matches against 1st Tier and against 2nd Tier (see first posts)

With more or less points, I found this overview, satisfactory.