Coolest Football tit-bits, statistics, and historic facts.

• Rules of soccer were laid down in 1846 by Cambridge university students.
• Franz Binder was the first footballer to score 1000 goals.
• FIFA was founded in Paris by 7 member nations in 1904. Its President, Jules Rimet formulated the idea of a tournament to determine the best international side. In 1929, FIFA passed a vote to hold the first ever World Cup.
• Along with Jules Rimet a French journalist Robert Guerin was instrumental in starting the world cup.
• Uruguay was the only country to volunteer to host the tournament. As a country celebrating its centenary of independence and current holders of the Olympic football title, she proved an excellent host.
• Uruguay had won the football gold in 1928 Olympics. Despite protests from European football associations, the first cup was held in that country. 13 teams, 8 from Europe, 5 from Latin America and U.S had participated in the event. Uruguay was fortunately, the last team to qualify for the World Cup.
• Lucien Laurent had scored the first goal in the history of the football world cup for France.
• Ottorino Barassi of Italy was the vice president of Fifa during World war II and had hidden the Jules Rimet trophy in a shoe box under his bed to protect it from the hands of the Nazis.
• Brazil is the only country to have appeared in all the 21 editions of Football World cup. It has hosted the world cup twice.
• Hakan Sukur of Turkey had scored the fastest goal in the history of football against South Korea in 11 seconds while fighting for the third place in 2002 edition. He had thus broken the record of Vaclav Masek’s (he belonged to Czechoslovakia) record of 15^th second goal against Mexico in the 1962 edition of the world cup.
• The world cup trophy was earlier called Jules Rimet trophy in the honour of Jules Rimet. During the preparations of the 1966 edition of World Cup in England, the Jules Rimet Trophy was stolen. It was later recovered by a dog named “Pickles”. It was won outright by Brazil in the 1970 Mexico edition of the world cup. It was again stolen in 1983, this time forever.
• Bobby Moore who led England to victory in the 66 edition was arrested at Colombia in 1970 under false pretexts in order to prevent him from playing in the cup at Mexico.

Edition	Host	Winner	Runners-Up
1930	Uruguay	Uruguay	Argentina
1934	Italy	Italy	Czechoslovakia
1938	France	Italy	Hungary
1950	Brazil	Uruguay	Brazil
1954	Switzerland	West Germany	Hungary
1958	Sweden	Brazil	Sweden
1962	Chile	Brazil	Czechoslovakia
1966	England	England	West Germany
1970	Mexico	Brazil	Italy
1974	West Germany	West Germany	Poland
1978	Argentina	Argentina	Netherlands
1982	Spain	Italy	West Germany
1986	Mexico	Argentina	West Germany
1990	Italy	West Germany	Argentina
1994	USA	Brazil	Italy
1998	France	France	Brazil
2002	Japan-South Korea	Brazil	Germany
2006	Germany	Italy	France
2010	South Africa	Spain	Netherlands
2014	Brazil	Germany	Argentina

• Brazil, Italy, Mexico, France, Germany (As West Germany in 1974) have hosted the Football World Cup twice.
• Italy (1934, 1938), Brazil (1958, 1962) have managed to retain the World Cup trophy.
• Brazil has been the most successful team in world cups having won 5 out of the 20 editions. However, it has never won the world cup on its home soil. In 1950, it lost to Uruguay in the finals. In 2014, Brazil managed 4^th Spot.
• Germany has the record of making it to the finals for three successive world cups (1982, 1986, and 1990).
• Japan & South Korea were the first Asian nations to host the world cup; in case of Africa, South Africa, Morocco and Egypt hosted the world cup finals in 2010.
• Oleg Salenko of Russia scored 5 goals against Cameroons in the 1994 world cup, the highest by an individual.
• Peter Shilton was the English goal keeper, when Diago Maradona scored the magnificent “Hand of God” goal, in the 1986 edition of WC hosted by Mexico.
• Australia in a world cup qualifier match created a record at Coff’s harbour, Australia smashing Samoa by 31-0. Archie Thompson made 13 goals.
• Argentina in 1990 and Brazil in 1998 are two instances of a defending champion losing the world cup final match.
• Germany has the record of losing two consecutive World Cup final matches (1982 against Italy and 1986 against Argentina).
• The highest margin of win in a world cup match was created when Hungary beat El Salvador 10-1 in a league match in 1982 Spain edition of the cup.
• Juan Basso Guerin was the first substitute to make a goal in the history of world cup.
• 1962 WC match at Santiago, when hosts Chile met Italy, is known as “Battle of Santiago” as game erupted into a flurry of kicks and punches. It is still regarded as one of the worst matches in history of the tournament.
• Brazilian player Vava was the first to score goals in two separate world cup final matches.
• The 1970 edition of world cup held at Mexico was the first to be televised on colour.
• Franz Beckenbauer was part of 1966 German squad that lost the finals, came third in 1970. He was the captain of the 1974 cup winning squad. He was to return as coach of 1990 German team that won on Italian grounds. He served as head of organizing committee for 2006 edition held at Germany.
• 1982, Spain edition of World Cup saw 24 places for grab with the qualifiers and changed structure. It was increased to 32 in 1998 France edition.
• German goalie Harold Schumacher clattered French substitute Patrick Battinson with a forearm smash. The ball trickled wide of the net but, amazingly, Dutch referee Charles Corver awarded a goal-kick as Battiston lay motionless on the field, having lost two teeth. When asked about the incident, Schumacher is famed to have uttered, “I will pay for his dentist fees”.
• 1986 edition of world cup, originally to be hosted by Columbia was given to Mexico as Columbia was unable to meet the economic demands of staging the world cup.
• Roger Milla of Cameroons played in 1994 USA edition at the age of 42, the highest in history of football world cups.
• Germany is the only European nation to have won the world cup in America in 2014.
• Spain was the first European nation to win the world cup outside Europe. It won the world cup in 2010, which was hosted in Africa.