Here are five names to have at your fingertips about the eighth World Cup, hosted and won by England.
World CupWilly. The nation that wrote the rules to the game 103 years earlier finally hosted the World Cup. It created the first World Cup mascot — the soccer-playing lion World Cup Willy, the firstin a long line of marketable World Cup icons.
Pickles. The solid gold World Cup trophy was put on display at the National Stamp Exhibition in London before the tournament — and vanished. The host nation’s embarrassmentwas relieved when a dog named Pickles discovered it while sniffing around a garbage dump in South London.
Previous Editions of “FiveNames”:
Uruguay 1930 |
Switzerland 1954 |
Eusebio. While Pele was the victim of a trend toward violent soccer, Mozambican-born Eusebio (the “BlackPanther”) ensured himself a place in history as one of the world’s greatest players by leading Portugal to third place. He scored three first-round goals, including two that helpedeliminate Brazil, and four goals in a 5-3 quarterfinal win over North Korea – which had upset Italy in the first round and took a 3-0 lead over Portugal. Eusebio finished with atournament-leading nine goals.
Antonio Carbajal. With the USA failing to qualify since the 1950 World Cup, Mexico was Concacaf’s lone representative for the fourthstraight finals. In England, Antonio “El Cinco Copas” Carbajal made his fifth World Cup appearance, a record not matched until German Lothar Matthaeus’ 1982-1998 run. El Tri tied Uruguay andFrance, but fell, 2-0, to host England, failing on its sixth try to reach the second round.
Geoff Hurst. England coach Al Ramsey changed histeam’s formation from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2. After starting slow with a 0-0 tie against Uruguay, the “Wingless Wonders” – inspired in attack by Bobby Charlton with a defensemarshaled by Bobby Moore – reeled off wins against Mexico, France, Argentina and Portugal to reach the final against West Germany. An 89th-minute goal by Wolfgang Weber tied the game at 2-2 andsent it into overtime. Geoff Hurst remains the only player to score a World Cup final hat trick, although his strike to give England a 3-2 lead was highly controversial as it hit the underside of thecrossbar and bounced off the ground and back into play — with linesman Tofiq Bahramov ruling it had crossed the line. Hurst scored his third in the final minute for a 4-2 win and 93,000 fans inWembley celebrated as Queen Elizabeth II presented Moore the trophy.
