The Globalisation of Football (AEWCF sequel)

Chapter 1: Coming back to football
Chapter 1: Coming back to football.
June 15, 1947

As the FIFA members looked at the bid of Sweden, they had something else on their mind and that was to do in terms of the tournament size. After getting extra funds because of the Victory International tournament that was run by FIFA after the Second World War, they had plans to expand the tournament from the sixteen team competition that had been running since the 1926 edition which was held in Spain.

After a conversation lasted for about a couple of hours, it was decided that the 1950 edition would be expanded to twenty teams with the format being four groups of five with the top two teams going into the knockout phase. This now left with who was going to be hosting the tournament and with only one bid coming from Sweden, it was decided that Sweden would be hosting this tournament as the country was neutral during the Second World War and with facilities barely having any damage from the war it was decided to hold it there.

OOC: Welcome to the sequel to my first timeline on the forum in Alt World Football which can be found here and will pick up 14 years after the ending of the first timeline. The format of these posts would be different though and might be putting more detail in the posts between the World Cup and will also be adding other football related stuff like the domestic results that started here.
 
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Chapter 2: A history of the World Cup (1906-1914)
OOC: I thought I might work on this and at least get up to 1950 FIFA World Cup here.

Chapter 2.1: How did we get there (Part 1 - 1906-1914)

With Sweden getting the rights to host the 1950 FIFA World Cup. We look back over the history of the Cup from the beginnings to all the way to today.

1906 FIFA World Cup (Host: France, Winner: Uruguay)
After FIFA announced that they would be holding a World Cup in 1906, some people were sceptical of this act. Especially knowing that at the time, there had been no “World” Cup for national teams. This was international football was only thirty years old at the time. when this was revealed and getting the national FA’s to complete this formation. For FIFA, they wanted to invite the Argentina and Uruguay FA's over to Europe for the World Cup.

The hesitation of the two FA’s in wanting to join the competition was a big factor in joining. they united in the cost of getting the national teams over to France, where the World Cup was being played with some help from FIFA. To get used to the European conditions, the national teams appeared in matches around France over the two months before the World Cup which included the Swiss Tri Tournament that was run for three editions.

The main worry from the European FA’s was that if the teams didn’t do well, they wouldn’t lose on money that had been invested to them. For the two South American teams surprised the European teams with both teams heading into the semi-finals with Uruguay taking out the 1906 World Cup over Austria with Carlos Cespedes being the top goalscorer with four goals.

England who dominated the group stage scoring nine goals in the process was a surprise semi-finalist when they were held in the semi-final against Uruguay with the tight defence that Uruguay had during the tournament being critical in the semi-final. The host nation in France got knocked-out in the group stage finishing bottom of the group.

1910 FIFA World Cup (Host: Austria, Winner: England)
The next edition of the World Cup was originally meant to be in South America with Uruguay hosting the tournament. This was following a proposal in the FIFA Congress stating that the winner would host the following edition. But that was scrapped with the Civil War starting again in Uruguay. This meant that the league was suspended for two years and the chance of hosting the cup gone. As runner-ups, the hosting rights went to Austria with the hope of a successful tournament.

That meant for Argentina, they would be the only team from outside of Europe to compete in the fifteen team competition. Also on the list of nations that had enter would be four debutantes to the World Cup. That would be Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, with the last three coming off the Olympic football competition that competed in the UK. Denmark would be the only country to make it out of the first round. The other being in 1938 in Argentina which will be covered later.

In the semi-finals, it was England and Belgium who would win their matches to meet up in the final. Belgium had to dig deep to overcome the hosts with Hector Goetinck scoring the goal in the 88th minute to give the win for Belgium by a score of 3-2. The other semifinal saw England’s John Parkinson scoring a double to get England over the line against Argentina. For the South Americans, they were out in the semis for the second time.

The final would see England taking home the World Cup. This was because a slip up in the 85th minute of play saw Dicky Bond who scored at the previous World Cup to reply and give England a 2-1 lead and give England the title. Belgium couldn’t believe what had happened as they were only five minutes off from going to a replay but it wasn’t meant to be.

1914 FIFA World Cup (Host: England, Winner: Denmark)

With an England title, this meant that the English became the hosts for the 1914 FIFA World Cup which some people have put as the early turning point for the World Cup to be a featured event that some would call today. This helped with the fact that average attendances across the league the Football League were over 15,000 people on average across the top division.

A big issue that had plagued the previous two World Cup’s was the attendances in games that didn’t have the home nation in England. Also added to the fact was that there would only be three British teams in the World Cup when Wales lost to Scotland in the play-off for the 1914 FIFA World Cup. The other playoffs would see Chile making their debut after they defeated Russia 2-1 in Moscow. Italy also made light work of Luxembourg to debut in the World Cup at their first attempt.

After a group stage which saw no surprises, the top two teams qualified through to the quarterfinals with the England and Belgium making their third and second semi respectively. The other semi would see Italy and Denmark appear in their first World Cup semi. The first semi saw the same result as the previous time that these two teams met with England taking an early lead in the 19th minute from Dicky Bond. When Stan Fazackerley scored the English second goal, it had confirmed what many was predicting and that England would be World Cup champions.

Standing in the way was Denmark who after taking out the other semi with three different goal scorers aiding their path in the 3-2 win over Italy. All of the favouritism was towards the English winning the title at home with most of the betting having the hosts as favourites. Denmark’s Oskar Nørland though didn’t get the memo as he scored the opening goal for Denmark to give them the early lead. This meant that at half-time, Denmark led England, one-nil despite the pressure that England had put on the team.

Stan Fazackerley scored an early goal in the second half to level the match up at 1-1 before Harry Hampton scored a goal which the home crowd thought of that goal being the winning goal to seal England’s second World Cup title. That was until a certain player by the name of Nørland who scored the equaliser to bring the match into extra time.

The crowd was in shock as they couldn’t believe that England had made the error of letting Denmark back into the match and with tiring legs on both sides, mistakes were going to be costly and in his debut match for Denmark, Dolf Van der Nagel scored the fifth goal of the game and what some would call the sealer for Denmark. If it wasn't confirmed, it would be in the 115th minute with Sophus Nielsen scoring his goal and for Denmark their first (and to date only) World Cup title.
 
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