WORLD CUP HISTORY
Top Moments

In 1962 Italy faced Chile in Santiago. The history wrote it down as the most vicious and disgraceful game that was ever played in football. It took only 12 seconds for the first infringement, before the nightmare of punches broken noses and the intervention of the police in the field three times. It is no surprise that the title was attributed. Yet another match that goes down for the wrong reasons.

The diminutive North Koreans warmed the hearts of their English hosts when a strike — three minutes from half time — from Army Corporal Park Do-Ik handed the Asian nation an unlikely win over pedigreed Italy. The loss eliminated the Italians from the tournament in the group stage.

The Chollima (a mythical winged horse that cannot be mounted by a mortal, a symbol of the nation’s revolutionary zeal), in its quarterfinal against Portugal, raced to a 3-0 lead by the 25th minute, but a magical display from the tournament’s highest scorer, Eusebio, killed its dream.

In the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final played in London's original Wembley Stadium between England and Germany, 11 minutes of extra-time had elapsed and the score was level at 2–2. Alan Ball put in a cross to England striker Geoff Hurst, who swivelled and shot from close range. The ball hit the underside of the crossbar bouncing down towards the line and bounced off the ground before being cleared away by West Germany's defenders.

Referee Gottfried Dienst was uncertain if they had indeed scored. He consulted his assistant, Tofiq Bahramov; after a brief conversation in broken English, the Swiss referee awarded the goal to the home team.

A total of seven outfield players from Brazil passed the ball until captain Carlos Alberto hammered the ball into the corner of the Italian goal following a pass across the Italian penalty area from Pelé, prompted by Tostão, who, with his back to the goal, told Pelé that Alberto was steaming in on the right flank. Tostão started the move five yards from the left of the Brazilian penalty area, then ran the length of the field to the Italian box without touching the ball again to tell Pelé to lay it off for Alberto. The players involved in the passes in order were Tostão, Brito, Clodoaldo, Pelé and Gérson. Clodoaldo beat four Italian players in his own half before passing to Rivellino who hit a perfect pass down the wing to Jairzinho. Jairzinho crossed from the wing to the centre of the box to Pelé who held the ball up to play a pass for Alberto to smash it home. The only outfield players not involved in the move were Everaldo and Piazza.

Carlos Alberto's goal is considered one of the greatest goals ever scored in the history of the tournament.

Some people call this "clash" the worst match in World Cup history. After losing to Algeria in the first match of the group stage, Germany faced the possibility of early elimination in the tournament.  The match was the last game of the first-round Group 2, with Algeria and Chile having played the day before. With the outcome of that match already decided and known, a win by one or two goals for West Germany at the expense of Austria would result in both West Germany and Austria qualifying instead of Algeria, which had defeated West Germany in the first game. The Germans scored the only goal within the first 10 minutes of the match, which progressively deteriorated towards near standstill in the second half. Spectators of the match accused both teams of fixing the outcome, although FIFA ruled that neither team had broken any rules. This performance was widely deplored by all observers. West German ARD commentator Eberhard Stanjek at one point refused to comment on the game any longer. Austrian commentator Robert Seeger bemoaned the spectacle, and asked viewers to turn off their television sets. Almost 25 years after the World Cup in Spain, former German player Hans-Peter Briegel acknowledged that his team arranged a victory over Austria (1–0) in the first phase, which classified the two teams and eliminated the African team. As a result of the game, from the World Cup 1986 onward, the final pair of group matches in World Cups always start at the same time.

Swivelling on the edge of Germany’s penalty area before lashing the ball into the bottom left corner, Marco Tardelli’s strike in the 69th minute of the 1982 final would turn out to be Italy’s winner.

But it was Tardelli’s celebration, rather than his finish, that would be played on showreels for years to come.

The image of the Juventus midfielder wheeling away with exhilaration demonstrated in a few seconds on film, what no amount of words ever could — what it means to score in a World Cup final.

Who doesn't remember  Diego Maradona's goal against England on June 22 1986? The Argentine punched the ball with his hand to push it away from Peter Shilton's reach and score the first goal of the match. A goal that would have never stood if VAR was available then. However, neither the assistant nor the referee noticed the discrepancy allowing it to count.

For many this is the best goal that was ever scored. It is most regrettable that it sealed the victory over England after the "hand of God" debacle. Maradona, run through half the field, dripped any opponent that tried to challenge him, including Peter Shilton, before sending the ball in the net.

Cameroon reached the quarter-finals, where they were narrowly defeated by England. They opened the tournament with a shock victory over reigning champions Argentina, before topping the group ahead of them, Romania and European Championship runners-up the Soviet Union. Their success was fired by the goals of Roger Milla, a 38-year-old forward who came out of international retirement to join the national squad at the last moment after a personal request from Cameroonian President Paul Biya. Milla's four goals and flamboyant goal celebrations made him one of the tournament's biggest stars as well as taking Cameroon to the last eight.

When Jorge Solari’s Saudi Arabia side arrived in the USA in the summer of 1994 for the World Cup, expectations were not especially high given that it was the country’s maiden appearance at the global showpiece.

Against all odds, however, The Green Falcons made history by qualifying for the Round of 16 on their World Cup debut. After losing their opening game to the Netherlands, they recorded their first victory at the finals with a 2-1 defeat of Morocco. They then stunned the footballing world by overcoming Belgium thanks to Saeed al Owairan’s fantastic individual effort, which remains one of the most memorable World Cup moments.

Roberto Baggio was one of the biggest stars of the 1994 World Cup scoring 5 of Italy's 6 goals in the knockout round. He was also the teams first choice penalty taker but at the 1994 World Cup final he made probably the most famous penalty miss in football history. Roberto Baggio missed a decisive penalty in the 1994 World Cup final that led to Italy's 3-2 defeat to Brazil in the penalty shoot-out. After the miss, the Italian forward stood at the penalty mark for a long time, lowering his head. It was a miss that haunts Baggio's career. After that miss he was dropped from the Italian squad for Euro 96 and even ended up playing for Bologna in 1997.

The pace of Owen up front was causing Argentina problems early on and not long after Argentina had taken the lead he was brought down in the box by Roberto Ayala. The referee pointed to the spot once more. The resulting penalty was taken by Alan Shearer and he made no mistake. With just ten minutes of this last 16 clash gone the game was tied again at 1-1. This really was pulsating stuff. Just six minutes after Michael Owen etched his name into the history of the World Cup.

The ball was passed onto Michael Owen by David Beckham and Owen went on his infamous run. The Argentinian defence could not handle him. He was lightning quick, especially when he first burst onto the scene. The nemesis of Ayala that night, he rounded him and shot beyond the grasp of Carlos Roa in the Argentine net. This was some game.

There is perfection as aesthetic idealism, the thing with which Dennis Bergkamp is most associated and which informed so much of what he did on a football field.

On 4 July 1998, Bergkamp climbed the highest mountain for 2.11 seconds – the time it took for him to produce the three divine touches and score the penultimate-minute winner against Argentina that put Netherlands into the World Cup semi-final.

South Korea met Italy in the Round of 16 in the 2002 World Cup.

In the fifth minute of play, Ecuadorian referee Byron Moreno awarded a controversial penalty for South Korea after judging Christian Panucci to have pulled down Seol Ki-Hyeon in the box, but Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon saved Ahn Jung-Hwan's spot kick, putting the ball out for a corner. Italy took the lead in the 19th minute after Christian Vieri headed in a Francesco Totti corner. The second half became increasingly physical, which saw several players on both teams sustain minor injuries, while Gianluca Zambrotta and Kim Nam-Il were later forced off; Seol Ki-Hyeon eventually managed to equalise in the 89th minute to send the match into extra-time. In the first half of extra-time, Italy were reduced to ten men after Moreno showed Totti a second yellow card for an alleged dive in South Korea's penalty area, while Moreno was 40 yards away from the play, and in the second half, Damiano Tommasi appeared to score a golden goal for Italy, which was however disallowed for offside; Ahn later scored the golden goal in the 118th minute to give the co-hosts a 2–1 victory, which allowed them to progress to the quarter-finals of the competition, the first time an Asian team had done so since 1966.

The deciding game for the Group F runners-up place, Croatia vs. Australia, saw the English referee Graham Poll mistakenly issue three yellow cards to Croatian Josip Šimunić before sending him off. Šimunić was shown a yellow card by Poll in the 61st minute for a foul on Harry Kewell. In the 90th minute, Poll again showed Šimunić a yellow card for a foul, but did not follow it with a mandatory red card. In the 93rd minute, after Poll had blown the final whistle, Šimunić approached Poll angrily and gave him a push. Poll thus issued Šimunić with a third yellow card and also showed him the red card. As a result of his error, Poll and his assistants did not progress to the second stage of the tournament. Despite encouragement from the FIFA president Sepp Blatter and chief executives of the Football Association and Premier League, Poll retired from international tournaments. He explained his decision to retire was a result of the "pain and agony" and "sleepless nights" that resulted from his mistake and the fear of it happening again.

The tournament had a record number of yellow and red cards, breaking the previous record set by the 1998 World Cup. Players received a record-breaking 345 yellow cards and 28 red cards, with Russian referee Valentin Ivanov handing out 16 yellow and 4 red cards in the round of 16 match between Portugal and the Netherlands in a match known as the Battle of Nuremberg.

In 2006, 10 minutes before the overtime was over, Zinedine Zidane turned to Marco Materazzi and hit him with his head to the chest. Later on, the perpetrator would go on to say that the Italian made a racist comment against his family and that was the reason behind his action. The result was for France to lose their best player and for Italy to claim the World Cup title.

Uruguay, the only South American team to reach the semi-finals, overcame Ghana in a penalty shoot-out after a 1–1 draw in which Ghana missed a penalty at the end of extra time after Luis Suárez controversially handled the ball on the line.

No one doubts that the Uruguayan is a gifted scorer. However, his character is a big problem. In 2014 during the match between his country and Italy he bit Giorgio Chiellini. While the Mexican referee did not spot the incident, FIFA did and punished Suarez with a 4-month suspension and a fine of close to $92,000. It was the third time that he used this "technique" against an opponent.

For many, this should be the goal of the century. No one could ever have foreseen that the long shot towards Spain's goal could have ever ended up anywhere than the hands of St. Iker Cassillas. The Dutch striker leveled his body horizontally and managed to strike a header that went over the goalkeeper into the back of the net. If nothing else, this is probably the hardest and most intelligent goal ever scored. No wonder he received the Puskas Award for it.

In 2018 Croatia became the first country from the Balkans to play a senior level World Cup final. Their journey started with a qualifying play-off against Greece won 4-1 in aggregate. Then the team won all of it's three games in a rather tough group with Iceland, Nigeria and Argentina. Croatia then became the first team to avoid defeat after trailing in three knockout matches at a single World Cup, 3-2 penalty win against Denmark, 4-3 penalty win against the hosts Russia and a 2-1 win in overtime against England. In a final marked by some controversial referee decisions Croatia was defeated by France with 4-2.