FIFA World Cup

Season Description
The 1966 FIFA World Cup was the eighth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in England from 11 to 30 July 1966. England defeated West Germany 4–2 in the final to win their first ever World Cup title. The final was level at 2–2 after 90 minutes and went to extra time, when Geoff Hurst scored two goals to complete his hat-trick, the first to be scored in a men's World Cup final. Portuguese striker Eusébio was the tournament's top scorer, with nine goals clinching the golden boot with three goals more than second placed Helmut Haller. It was the first FIFA World Cup held in the English-speaking world. England were the fifth nation to win the event, and the third host nation to win after Uruguay in 1930 and Italy in 1934. Two time reigning champions Brazil failed to get past the group stages as they were defeated by Hungary and Portugal. It was the second time that defending champions were eliminated in the group stages after Italy in 1950. This would not occur again until 36 years later. The two debut teams performed well at the competition – North Korea beat Italy 1–0 on the way to reaching the quarter-finals, where they lost to Portugal 5–3 after leading 3–0. Portugal themselves finished third, beating Soviet Union 2–1 in the bronze-match. During the qualifying, FIFA, citing competitive and logistical issues, decided that there would be no direct qualifying place for an African team: all 15 African nations who had entered immediately boycotted the competition in protest. Matches were played at eight stadiums across England, foremost Wembley Stadium, which had a capacity of 98,600. Here England played all its matches, here the tournament was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and here the final was held as well. Prior to the tournament, the Jules Rimet trophy was stolen, but was recovered by a dog named Pickles four months before the tournament began. It was the first World Cup to have selected matches broadcast via satellite to countries on other continents. The final, which was broadcast locally by the BBC, was the last to be shown entirely in black and white. This was also the only World Cup in history that did not have matches on Sundays, due to religious laws at the time, which were only repealed ten years after in 1976.

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