First World Cup of Football

The 1930 FIFA World Cup was the inaugural FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in Uruguay from 13 July to 30 July 1930. FIFA, football's international governing body selected Uruguay as host nation as the country would be celebrating the centenary of its first constitution, and the Uruguay national football team had successfully retained their football title at the 1928 Summer Olympics. All matches were played in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, the majority at the Estadio Centenario, which was built for the tournament.

Thirteen teams, seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America entered the tournament. Few European teams chose to participate because of the difficulty of travelling to South America. The teams were divided into four groups, with the winner of each group progressing to the semi-finals. The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously, and were won by France and the United States, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0, respectively. Lucien Laurent of France scored the first goal in World Cup history.

Argentina, Uruguay, United States and Yugoslavia each won their respective groups to qualify for the semi-finals. In the final, hosts and pre-tournament favourites Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people, and became the first nation to win the World Cup.

In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic football tournament as a "world football championship for amateurs", and took responsibility for managing the event at the next three Olympiads: from 1920 to 1928. In the 1908 Olympic Games and the 1912 Olympic Games the football competitions had been organised by The Football Association and the Swedish Football Association respectively.

The preliminary schedule for the held in Los Angeles did not include football. FIFA and the International Olympic Committee disagreed over the status of amateur players, so association football was dropped from the Games. On 26 May 1928, at FIFA's Amsterdam conference and on the opening day of the Olympic football tournament, FIFA president Jules Rimet announced plans to stage a tournament independent of the Olympics, open to all FIFA members and with professionalism permitted. The membership voted 25–5 to accept the proposal.

Host selection

FIFA World Cup hosts

Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Uruguay all lodged applications to host the event. Uruguay's bid became the clear favourite for a number of reasons. Uruguay were reigning Olympic champions, and thus de facto world champions, the bid included plans to build a new stadium as a centrepiece, and the Uruguayan authorities also offered to refund the expenses of all participants. The other nations withdrew their bids, and Uruguay was chosen to host the tournament at a FIFA congress at Barcelona in 1929. A golden trophy known as "The Goddess of Victory" was commissioned from French sculptor Abel Lafleur.

Participants

For a list of all squads that appeared in the final tournament, see 1930 FIFA World Cup squads.

Participating countries

The first World Cup was the only one without qualification. Every country affiliated with FIFA was invited to compete, and given a deadline of 28 February 1930 to accept. Plenty of interest was shown by nations in the Americas; Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and the United States all entered. A total of seven South American teams participated, more than in any subsequent World Cup Finals. However, because of the long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean, and the length of absence required for players, very few European teams were inclined to take part. Some refused to countenance travel to South America in any circumstances, and no European entries were received before the February deadline. In an attempt to gain some European participation, the Uruguayan Football Association sent a letter of invitation to The Football Association, even though the Home Nations were not members of FIFA at the time. This was rejected by the FA Committee on 18 November 1929. Two months before the start of the tournament, no team from Europe had officially entered.

Replica of the trophy awarded to the winners

We were 15 days on the ship Conte Verde getting out there. We embarked from Villefranche-sur-Mer in company of the Belgians and the Yugoslavians. We did our basic exercises down below and our training on deck. The coach never spoke about tactics at all ...

Lucien Laurent^[13]

FIFA president Rimet intervened, and eventually four European teams made the trip by sea: Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The Romanians, managed by Constantin Rădulescu and coached by their captain Rudolf Wetzer and Octav Luchide, entered the competition following the intervention of newly crowned King Carol II. He selected the squad personally, and negotiated with employers to ensure that the players would still have jobs upon their return.^[14] The French entered at the personal intervention of Rimet, but neither France's star striker Manuel Anatol nor the team's regular coach Gaston Barreau could be persuaded to make the trip. The Belgians participated at the instigation of FIFA vice-president Rudolf Seedrayers.

The Romanians boarded the SS Conte Verde at Genoa, the French were picked up at Villefranche-sur-Mer on 21 June 1930; and the Belgians embarked at Barcelona. The Conte Verde carried Rimet, the trophy and the three designated European referees: the Belgians Jean Langenus and Henri Christophe, along with Thomas Balway, a Parisien who may have been English. The Brazilian team were picked up when the boat docked in Rio de Janeiro on 29 June before arriving in Uruguay on 4 July. Yugoslavia travelled via the mail steamship Florida from Marseille.

Peru would not compete in another World Cup finals until 1970.

Venues

The Estadio Centenario hosted the majority of the tournament's matches.

All matches took place in Montevideo. Three stadiums were used: Estadio Centenario, Estadio Pocitos, and Estadio Parque Central. The Estadio Centenario was built both for the tournament and as a celebration of the centenary of Uruguayan independence. Designed by Juan Scasso,^[18] it was the primary stadium for the tournament, referred to by Rimet as a "temple of football".^[19] With a capacity of 90,000, it was the largest football stadium outside the British Isles.^[15] The stadium hosted 10 of the 18 matches, including both semi-finals and the final. However, a rushed construction schedule and delays caused by the rainy season meant the Centenario was not ready for use until five days into the tournament.^[6] Early matches were played at smaller stadiums usually used by Montevideo football clubs Nacional and Peñarol, the 20,000 capacity Parque Central and the Pocitos.

[edit] Format

The thirteen teams were drawn into four groups, with group 1 containing four teams, and the others containing only three. Each group played a round-robin format, with two points awarded for a win and one point for a draw. If two teams had tied on points to win a group, a play-off would have been used to decide the group winner; however this was not necessary. The four group winners progressed to the knockout semi-final stage. Extra-time was available in the knockout matches if the two teams were level after ninety minutes, but it was not required.

Draw

Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and the USA were seeded, and were kept apart in the draw,which took place in Montevideo once all the teams arrived.

Since there were no qualifying games, the opening two matches of the tournament were the first World Cup games ever played, taking place simultaneously on 13 July 1930; France beat Mexico 4–1 at the Estadio Pocitos, while the United States defeated Belgium 3–0 at the same time at the Estadio Gran Parque Central. France's Lucien Laurent was the scorer of the first World Cup goal.

First Car

An first car, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels, and to be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods.[1]
There are approximately 600 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car per eleven people).[2][3] Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; they burn over 1 billion m³ (260 billion US gallons) of petrol/gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.
Etymology
Look up automobile in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The word automobile comes, via the French automobile, from the Ancient Greek word αὐτός (autós, "self") and the Latin mobilis ("movable"); meaning a vehicle that moves itself, rather than being pulled or pushed by a separate animal or another vehicle. The alternative name car is believed to originate from the Latin word carrus or carrum ("wheeled vehicle"), or the Middle English word carre ("cart") (from Old North French), or from the Gaulish word karros (a Gallic Chariot).
History
Main article: History of the automobile
The first working steam-powered vehicle was probably designed by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65 cm-long scale-model toy for the Chinese Emperor, that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger. It is not known if Verbiest's model was ever built.
In 1752, Leonty Shamshurenkov, a Russian peasant, constructed a human-pedalled four-wheeled "auto-running" carriage, and subsequently proposed to equip it with odometer and to use the same principle for making a self-propelling sledge.
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is often credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769, by adapting an existing horse-drawn vehicle. However, this claim is disputed by some who doubt Cugnot's three-wheeler ever ran or was stable.[citation needed] In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods, and was of little practical use.
In the 1780s, a Russian inventor of merchant origin, Ivan Kulibin, developed a human-pedalled, three-wheeled carriage with modern features such as a flywheel, brake, Transmission, and bearings; however, it was not developed further.[11]
In 1807 Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude probably created the world's first internal combustion engine which they called a Pyréolophore, but they chose to install it in a boat on the river Saone in France.[12] Coincidentally, in 1807 the Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed his own 'internal combustion engine' and used it to develop the world's first vehicle, to be powered by such an engine. The Niépces' Pyréolophore was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried Lycopodium moss), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.[12] Neither design was very successful, as was the case with others, such as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir with his hippomobile, who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by clumsy internal combustion engines.
In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled automobile powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.[14]
Although several other German engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Siegfried Marcus) were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz generally is acknowledged as the inventor of the modern automobile.
An automobile powered by his own four-stroke cycle gasoline engine was built in Mannheim, Germany by Karl Benz in 1885, and granted a patent in January of the following year under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie., which was founded in 1883. It was an integral design, without the adaptation of other existing components, and included several new technological elements to create a new concept. He began to sell his production vehicles in 1888.

A photograph of the original Benz Patent-Motorwagen, first built in 1885 and awarded the patent for the concept
In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle.
His first Motorwagen was built in 1885, and he was awarded the patent for its invention as of his application on January 29, 1886. Benz began promotion of the vehicle on July 3, 1886, and about 25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced along with a model intended for affordability. They also were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz automobile to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early automobiles, initially more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany.
In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion flat engine, called boxermotor. During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest automobile company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899 and, because of its size, Benz & Cie., became a joint-stock company.
Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890, and sold their first automobile in 1892 under the brand name, Daimler. It was a horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, that they retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after disputes with their backers. Benz, Maybach and the Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each others' early work. They never worked together; by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG.
Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an engine named Daimler-Mercedes, that was placed in a specially ordered model built to specifications set by Emil Jellinek. This was a production of a small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his country. Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG automobile was produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine which generated 35 hp. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own. Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers.