1962 FIFA World Cup

The 1962 FIFA World Cup was the 7th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial search for men's best national football team. It took place in Chile from May 30th until June 17th 1962. Around August 1960 and December 1961, the qualification rounds were played with 56 teams competing in the final tournament from six confederations and fourteen entrants including the defending champions Chile, the hosts and Brazil. Brazil has comfortably defended the crown of the World Cup, defeating Czechoslovakia 3–1 in the final at Santiago, the capital of Chile. We became the second team to win the World Cup twice in succession, after Italy in 1934 and 1938; since then there has been no achievement for either side. In the play-off the host country Chile took third place, defeating Yugoslavia 1–0. A tense environment and violence among the pitch participants marred the game; it included the first-round match between Chile and Italy, regarded as the Battle of Santiago, one of the notorious matches of the competition. Magallanes president Ernesto Alvear attended a FIFA conference held in Helsinki as the Finnish country hosted Summer Olympics in 1952. He believed Chile would host a World Cup. Some sources also suggest that the FIFA did not allow Argentina to run alone, calling almost symbolically on Chile to join in. Chile declared its candidacy in 1954 along with Argentina and West Germany, the latter retiring on appeal from FIFA. Initially, eight stadiums were chosen in eight cities to host the World Cup matches: Santiago, Viña del Mar, Rancagua, Arica, Talca, Concepción, Talcahuano, Valdivia and others. It was the first World Cup to use goal average to distinguish equivalent from teams. This was also the first World Cup at which the average number of goals per match has been less than three since the creation of the competition; this was later repeated at World Cup. After two consecutive World Cups won by Europe, the American federations requested that South America join the tournament's 1962 edition, or face the tournament's full boycott, much like 1938. Given recent lack of candidates, Argentina has been the favourite. Provided preparations were well under way in May 1960, Chile suffered the highest ever recorded earthquake, causing major damage to the national infrastructure. Charged with this, Carlos Dittborn, President of the Organizing Committee, coined the expression "Because we have nothing, we will do whatever we can to repair." Stadiums and other facilities were rebuilt at record speed, and the tournament took place on schedule without any technical malfunction. Dittborn did not live to see the results of his efforts, because he died a month before the start of the tournament. The Arica World Cup stadium has been named to his memory, Estadio Carlos Dittborn, bearing his legacy to this day. Yet Chile was able to satisfy the seating demand for such limited and low-capacity stadiums, since there was no international travel to Chile, far from Europe at the time. The game was marred by continued abuse at the ground. This toxic climate, known as the Santiago Battle, resulted in the first-round match between host Chile and Italy. Two Italian journalists have written unflattering articles about the host country and its capital city, describing Santiago as a highly primitive, pornography-ridden landfill. Though the English referee Ken Aston sent off just two players, the match saw repeated efforts by players from both sides to injure opponents and the Italian team called for police security to leave the field in peace. Articles in the Italian newspapers La Nazione and Corriere della Sera said it was "pure madness" to allow Chile to host the World Cup; this has been exploited and magnified by local media to inflame the Chilean community. "The game offers every hint of a bloody bloodbath. Stories read like dispatches at the battlefront; the match between Italy and West Germany has been described as 'wrestling and fighting,'" wrote the British Daily Express.