The game of worlds

1958 Brazil-Sweden 5:2

Brazil sent a team reformatted after a misfire at the previous championship to the Swedish World Cup, which included a whole group of young players who turned out to be incredibly talented. And the most talented of them became the hero of the final match against the hosts of the championship. It started with a goal conceded by the Brazilians, but by the break they were leading. And after him, the 17-year-old striker of the Brazilian team Pele took the floor. He scored a goal that went down in history. The Brazilian debutant who received the ball in the penalty area, juggling it, fooled several Swedish defenders, and then delivered a crushing blow in terms of strength and accuracy, which finished off the opponents.

1962 Brazil-Czechoslovakia 3:1

At the World Cup in Chile, the Brazilians looked like favorites, but in its decisive match, it was believed that they met with an extremely uncomfortable opponent. The Czechoslovak team at the group stage was able to hold back the incredibly powerful Brazilian attack, having obtained a goalless draw, and even in that match deprived it of its main weapon: the injury did not allow Pele to continue playing in the tournament, turning Garrincha into the leader of the Brazilian national team. However, the inconvenience was imaginary. The Brazilians again conceded an early goal, but then, dominating and without Pelé, they scored three in response.

1970 Brazil-Italy 4:1

A very popular point of view is that it was at the world championship in Mexico that the best football team of all time played. It’s not so much the performance of the Brazilians – six wins in six matches, but in their game. It looked absolutely harmonious, almost perfect, because it was built on a phenomenal mutual understanding of star players like Gerson, Jairzinho, Tostao, Carlos Alberto, who were connected into a single whole by Pelé, who took on the functions of a playmaker rather than a forward, and still remains the only footballer , in whose track record there are three world titles. The luxurious Brazilian team was head and shoulders above all the competitors that came across it, including the Italians who got it in the final. Those resisted the football standard only in the first half, and the second was a vivid demonstration of the exclusivity of the Brazilian style.

1978 Argentina-Netherlands 3:1

The Argentina national team won its first title at the home championship, which ended in a dramatic final with the recent Dutch football trendsetters, for whom the former leader Johan Cruyff refused to play. Passions ran high before the match. The Dutch accused the Argentines of deliberately delaying the start of the game by sitting too long in the locker room to knock the opponent off the rhythm. The Argentines demanded to ban the Dutch footballer René van de Kerkhof from entering the field because of a plaster splint on his arm. The meeting nevertheless took place and turned out to be insanely interesting in terms of plot. Argentinean Mario Kempes, unexpected hero of the tournament, opened the scoring with his fifth goal of the championship. Dirk Nanning equalized him at the end of normal time. And the success of the Argentina national team brought amazing luck Kempes. He scored the decisive goal in overtime after a series of amazing rebounds.

1986 Argentina-Germany 3:2

The new title brought the Argentines a match, the scenario of which was also famously twisted. After the Argentine team took a 2-0 lead at the beginning of the second half, the intrigue seemed to have been killed. But the Germans in the end suddenly started up and equalized the score. The victory of the Argentina national team was brought by the genius of Diego Maradona, whose greatness was perfectly emphasized by that championship. In the last minutes in the counterattack, instead of the suggestive pass to Jorge Valdano, he gave the transfer to another forward, Jorge Burruchage, leaving the German defenders in the cold.

1990 Germany-Argentina 1:0

Four years later in Italy, the Argentina national team was, despite the presence of Diego Maradona, only a pathetic semblance of a “golden” team, but managed to crawl to the second consecutive clash in the final with the now, on the contrary, mighty Germans. The match turned out to be boring, and the favorites were guaranteed a gold medal by a controversial penalty a few minutes before the whistle about the end of regular time.

1994 Brazil-Italy 0:0 (penalty shoot-out – 4:2)

Another terribly boring World Cup decider game. The final of the championship, held in the USA, just shouted that it wanted to end in a goalless draw, and taxied to it. And the penalty shoot-out was remembered, first of all, by the miss of its leader Roberto Baggio, who destroyed the hopes of the Italian national team, who sent the ball over the crossbar.

1998 France-Brazil 3:0

Perhaps the most paradoxical final in the history of the world championships. The Brazilian national team in front of him was quoted much higher than the French hosts, but in the match itself it did not look like itself. And later it became known that on the eve of the game, the leader of the Brazilians Ronaldo experienced a nervous attack. The French national team, by the end of the first half, secured a colossal, two-goal, margin of safety in a way that no one would dare to bet on. Neither before nor after that championship, Zinedine Zidane was noticed in the ability to play – literally, not figuratively – with his head. And then he scored twice with it after corners.

2002 Brazil-Germany 2:0

Reminiscent of its predecessor from 1970 in terms of playing philosophy, with an amazing set of players in terms of skill – from Ronaldo and Rivaldo, Cafu and Ronaldinho, Roberta Carlos and Edmilson – the Brazilian national team absolutely deservedly and without any problems won the fifth league title. The Germans could consider it their achievement that in the finals in Yokohama they held out on an equal footing with her for one and a half times. And then Ronaldo, who had eight goals in the championship, scored twice, and logic prevailed.

year 2014. Germany-Argentina 1:0

A story reminiscent of the one that happened in 1990. The German national team, if we take the entire Brazilian championship as a whole, was much more like the strongest team in the world than the Argentines, but it was difficult for her to win the final. To get it, I had to wait for overtime and a goal from the “joker” Mario Gotze, who came on as a substitute in the second half.