And Gazza Misses The Final
Classic World Cup clashes brought to life and re-evaluated by two of the writers of the popular Guardian minute-by-minute football blog. Watching each match in real time and reacting to the twists and turns of the action, Murray and Smyth bring you the real stories of the matches as they happened, not the highlights package or rose-tinted version.
From the crowd swarming over the pitch moments before the Brazil-Uruguay classic of 1950 kicked off, to the dubious refereeing decisions that decided England's single triumph at Wembley, this is the history of the World Cup as you've never seen it before. As well as 30 classic moments from other matches, the games given a full report include:
1950
Uruguay v Brazil
1962
Chile v Italy
1966
England v Argentina
England v West Germany
1970
England v West Germany
Italy v West Germany
Brazil v Italy
1974
West Germany v Holland
1978
Scotland v Holland
1982
Brazil v Italy
West Germany v France
1986
England v Argentina
France v Brazil
1990
England vs Cameroon
England v West Germany
1994
Romania v Argentina
1998
Argentina v England
2006
Italy v Germany
2010
Spain v Holland
Rob Smyth has written for the Guardian, Wisden, Intelligent Life, GQ Style, Sports Illustrated and the official Manchester United magazine. He has written three books and was highly commended at the 2009 Sports Journalists Association awards.
Scott Murray has written for the Guardian, the Observer, the Evening Standard, GQ, the Blizzard, FourFourTwo and Men's Health. He was sports editor of the website formerly known as Guardian Unlimited, is co-author of Phantom of the Open, a good book about bad golf, and has penned two tomes of football miscellany.