Switzerland 1954: The Miracle of Bern, Invincible Hungary and the draw that left Spain out

If the Maracanazo was the greatest shock in World Cup history, this ranks right up there — and some say it's even more shocking. Because in 1950, Uruguay were world champions; in 1954, West Germany was a ruined country that had just been readmitted to international football.

The greatest side ever to win nothing (and lose a World Cup final)

You need to understand what that Hungary team was. Olympic champions in 1952. Four years without losing a match. And most importantly: in November 1953 they went to Wembley and beat England 6-3, England's first home defeat to a continental side. In case anyone doubted it, they repeated the dose in Budapest in May 54: 7-1.

Puskás, Kocsis, Hidegkuti, Bozsik, Czibor, Grosics. The Aranycsapat, the Golden Team. Between 1950 and 1956 they played fifty matches and lost exactly one. The one on 4 July 1954.

Sitting in the Wembley crowd that day of the 6-3, there was a German gentleman named Sepp Herberger. As he left, he said just one sentence: «I've seen what I wanted to see».

The weirdest format a World Cup has ever had

Sixteen teams, four groups… but only two matches per team. In each group, two seeded teams were hand-picked, and the seeded teams didn't face each other, nor did the unseeded ones. If there was a 90-minute draw, extra time was played in the group stage; and if it stayed level, it remained a draw. Goal difference didn't count: tied teams on points were resolved with another match, and if needed, a drawing of lots.

With such a system, all sorts happened, including two teams from the same group playing twice while two others never met. They abolished it immediately after.

Spain knocked out by a slip of paper in a cup

This is Spain's chapter in this World Cup, and it's one that stings. Spain were battling head-to-head with Turkey for qualification.

They won 4-1 at Chamartín on Epiphany. Lost 1-0 in Istanbul in March. And three days later, decider in Rome: 2-2 after extra time, with a goal from Escudero in the 79th minute. There were no penalties — that didn't enter the rulebook until 1970. So they decided it with a draw.

Here's how: they put two slips of paper in a cup, one reading SPAGNA and one TURCHIA in Italian, and blindfolded a fourteen-year-old lad who was hanging around the stadium with a white handkerchief, Franco Gemma. He pulled one out. The man who took it from his hand shouted: «Turchia!».

Spain had scored more goals than Turkey across the entire tie (6-4) and they were out. They didn't return to a World Cup until 1962. The manager resigned, the federation president resigned, and the whole board stepped down.

And there's a second, murkier layer to it. Ladislao Kubala played in the Istanbul match for Spain despite not meeting the three-year residency requirement FIFA demanded — Spain's federation itself admits this in its official history today. Minutes before the Rome decider, the head of the Spanish delegation came into the dressing room with a telegram from the Italian federation president: «Attention équipe espagnole situation joueur Kubala». It didn't explicitly forbid anything. But fear did the job. Kubala stayed out and no one ever knew who sent that telegram.

Let's set the record straight on two myths: it's often said the draw was a coin toss — FIFA itself once claimed this — and also that the USSR was in the group and withdrew. Neither is true: it was slips of paper, and the USSR didn't debut in a qualifying round until 1958.

The 8-3 that changed everything

In the group stage, the draw paired Hungary and West Germany. Herberger made seven changes and lost 8-3. The humiliation was so complete that he received letters at home suggesting he hang himself "in a way the rope could still be used afterwards". He read them aloud in the dressing room before the next match.

In that same 8-3, Werner Liebrich broke Puskás's ankle, forcing him to miss the quarter-finals and semi-finals.

Germany then beat Turkey 7-2 in the play-off, Yugoslavia 2-0 in the quarter-finals and Austria 6-1 in the semi-final. And they reached the final against the team that had put eight past them.

The Battle of Berne

The quarter-final between Hungary and Brazil on 27 June, played in the rain, has earned its own place in history. 42 fouls, two penalties and three red cards. Hungary won 4-2, but the real drama came after: Brazilian players stormed the Hungarian dressing room and a brawl broke out. Manager Gusztáv Sebes had to get four stitches in his face. Hungarian riot police with batons pulled them apart.

English referee Arthur Ellis recalled it years later: "I thought it would be the best match I'd ever see… I don't know if politics and religion had something to do with it, but they behaved like animals". FIFA didn't sanction anyone.

The final: 0-2 in eight minutes, then 3-2

4 July 1954, Wankdorf in Berne, under torrential rain. Hungary went 2-0 up in eight minutes — Puskás in the 6th, Czibor in the 8th — and it looked like another thrashing was coming.

But Germany levelled before the quarter-hour: Morlock in the 10th and Rahn in the 18th. And in the 84th minute, Helmut Rahn again: 3-2. Two minutes later, Puskás scored to make it 3-3 but Welsh linesman Mervyn Griffiths ruled it out for offside.

It was the first time since the Second World War that the German national anthem had been heard at a world sporting event.

What losing cost Hungary

In Budapest they had already printed the commemorative stamps for the champions. And behind the Népstadion, seventeen pedestals had been erected for seventeen statues of the players, larger than life-size. The German federation writes today that they remain there "as a monument to criminal recklessness".

Goalkeeper Gyula Grosics, whom part of the country blamed for the third goal, was accused of espionage, placed under house arrest and forcibly transferred from Honvéd to a provincial club. The radio commentator was benched for a season. There were demonstrations in Budapest that started over football and turned against Rákosi's regime; Grosics would later say that in those protests lay "the seed of the 1956 uprising" — though that's his reading, not a settled historical thesis.

The epilogue is lovely and almost nobody tells it: in 1990, after the Iron Curtain fell, the Germans invited the surviving Hungarian players to Fritz Walter's 70th birthday. After that they got together every year for decades, alternating countries. Grosics: "I believe the friendship between the old Hungarian and German players can be called the most extraordinary in the world".

The most goal-filled World Cup in history

140 goals in 26 matches: an average of 5.38. Nobody's beaten it and nobody's going to — the second-highest is 1938, with 4.66. Out of this one came crackers like Austria 7-5 Switzerland, which with its twelve goals remains the highest-scoring match in World Cup history.

Mind you, we shouldn't dress it up as magic: a good chunk of that average comes down to the format — extra time in the group stage, two knockout play-offs and a fair few runaway results.

And one last thing, because it sums everything up perfectly. They call it the «Miracle of Bern», but Herberger had been planning it for eight months since that 6-3 thrashing at Wembley: he marked Hidegkuti with a midfielder instead of a defender, tasked a winger with chasing Bozsik to save Fritz Walter's legs, had his assistant lodged in the Hungarian hotel and written permission since April. He settled it himself: «Did we get lucky, did the Hungarians have bad luck? I'd say we won fair and square».