Home

Portfolio

Without an international competition to prove it, calling professional sports teams "world champion" is just a senseless moniker (there was a a Nike ad starring Brian McBride a few years ago that mocked this notion). All they've really done is beat a bunch of other teams from around the country during a five to eight month period. There is only one sport that crowns a true world champion - soccer (or futból, depending on what part of the world you're from). Soccer's world champion is determined by the greatest sporting event in the world - the FIFA World Cup.

Every four years, one country hosts the event (except in 2002 when Korea and Japan became the first co-hosts in the event's 72 year history), and 32 teams do battle during the course of a month to win the World Cup.

The three major U.S. sports claim to crown a "World Champion," but the name really holds no true meaning.

The World Cup is arguably the most popular sporting event in the world (The Olympics and the Super Bowl its only rival). People in Ireland lobbied Parliament to change Ireland's time zone to match up with Japan and Korea's so they could watch the games live and not have to alter their schedules during the 2002 World Cup. The legislation didn't pass, but that just goes to show how big an event this is.

But what's blossomed into a gigantic spectacle, evolved from humble beginnings.

Jules Rimet, president of FIFA from 1921-1954, is credited with founding the idea for the World Cup. The Olympics had been recognized as the venue that would determine a world champion, but FIFA, soccer's worldwide governing body, had long wanted to stage an event of its own.

Only the Super Bowl and Olympics rival the spectacle that is the World Cup.

In May 1928, the FIFA Congress approved a plan to stage such an event, and Uruguay, the 1924 and 1928 Olympic champion, was picked as the host. Only 13 teams participated in the 1930 tournament, and the host country won The Golden Nike (the original name of the trophy).

After successful tournaments in 1934 and 1938, in which Italy won its first two championships, the World Cup was not played for the next 12 years because of World War II. When it resumed in 1950, Brazil played host. Uruguay reappeared in the tournament to win its second title after 20 years of political bickering kept them out of the championships.

Eight years a later, a 17-year-old Brazilian named Edson Arantes Do Nascimento, but better known as Pele, showed up in Sweden, scored six goals and gave Brazil its first World Cup title. Pele, however, would not have an impact in the World Cup again until 1970 because injuries forced him to miss the 1962 and 1966 tournaments.

For the 1978 tournament, FIFA expanded the teams to 24 that would participate in the Finals, and for France '98, the body upped the participants to 32, primarily because more teams were involved in qualifying. In 1930 there wasn't even a qualifying round, but in 2002, 195 teams vied for the 32 spots in Korea and Japan.

Pele with the Jules Rimet Cup after Sweden 1958.

As the tournament has evolved throughout its 72-year history, so too has the trophy the winner takes home after the month-long tournament.

During World War II, FIFA Vice President, Dr. Ottorino Barassi hid the trophy in a shoe box under his bed so troops wouldn't find it and melt it down. But once the tournament resumed in 1950, FIFA renamed the trophy the Jules Rimet Cup, after the tournament's founding father. It was also ruled that the country first to win three World Cup tournaments would get to permanently keep the trophy. Brazil achieved the feat in 1970, but it was stolen in 1983 and never recovered. Brazil ordered a replica be made.

The World Cup trophy that we see today was founded in 1970 and first awarded to the victorious West German squad at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany. FIFA commissioned Italian sculptor Silvio Gazzaniga to design the new trophy. Upon its completion, Gazzaniga described his work: "The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory".

The Jules Rimet Cup was given to the winner until 1970.

It is made of 18-carat gold and has an estimated value of $10 million. Regulations state the trophy is FIFA's possession and, that the trophy can never be won outright. The World Cup winners keep the real trophy for the four year's until the next tournament and are given a gold-plated replica to keep for good.

Of the 16 tournaments, only seven countries have won it. Brazil has been victorious five times, while Italy and Germany have each won it three times. In 2002, when Brazil won an unprecedented fifth World Cup, the Brazilian side became the first to ever win the tournament outside of its hemisphere.

For a complete list of all the winners, click here.

The World Cup

What is perhaps the best attribute of the tournament is that it is one of the few sports where players play for the passion of bringing the World Cup home, and not for a pay check (Although they are rewarded handsomely for making the national team). The joy and jubilation that can be seen on on the English team that won the nation's only World Cup in 1966, or Diego Maradona's face after Argentina won the 1986 Cup demonstrate how hard players work to get to that pinnacle of success.

And the fans are just as excited. They travel all over the world to cheer their team on to victory, and if their country comes out on top, they feel as though they've won something, too.

The English team in 1966 and Maradona in '86 all share the wonderful emotion of bringing the World Cup back to their native land.

Fans take time off from work and put down thousands of dollars to travel wherever the team goes. They paint their faces and bodies, sport their team's colors and put every bit of themselves into cheering their team on, all because they love the game.

The tournament brings people of all shapes, sizes, colors and ages together to enjoy a truly beautiful sporting event. Although it'd be wonderful to have a tournament that's so unifying more often, part of what makes the tournament so great is the four years of anticipation that builds up inside soccer fans everywhere. And when the time finally comes, people hardly know what to do with themselves.

As the 2006 Cup is only three years away, more than two million people are already making their travel plans for Germany. Coaches are beginning to mull over their talent pools to find the best players to use in order to qualify for for the next World Cup. More than 30 billion will watch the tournament when it rolls around, and ambitious soccer players begin to train for the chance to become a true World Champion.

Contact: Timothy Candon