The 1954 FIFA World Cup was the fifth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football tournament for senior men's national teams of the nations affiliated to FIFA. It was held in Switzerland from 16 June to 4 July. Switzerland was selected as the host country in July 1946. At the tournament, several all-time records for goalscoring were set, including the highest average number of goals scored per game. The tournament was won by West Germany, who defeated tournament favourites Hungary 3–2 in the final for their first World Cup title. Uruguay, the defending champions, were eliminated by Hungary in the semi-finals and would lose to Austria in the match for third place.
The highest scoring match of a men’s World Cup happened in the quarter-finals of this tournament, when Austria defeated hosts Switzerland 7–5.
Switzerland was awarded the tournament unopposed at a meeting in Luxembourg City on 22 July 1946, the same day Brazil was selected to host the 1950 World Cup.
The hosts (Switzerland) and the defending champions (Uruguay) qualified automatically. Of the remaining 14 places, 11 were allocated to Europe (including Egypt, Turkey, and Israel), two to the Americas, and one to Asia.
Scotland, Turkey, and South Korea made their World Cup debuts at this tournament (Turkey and Scotland had qualified for the 1950 competition but both withdrew). South Korea became the first independent Asian country to participate in a World Cup tournament. Austria appeared following a hiatus from 1934. Several teams, such as Hungary and Czechoslovakia were back into the tournament after missing out the 1950 World Cup.
German teams as well as Japan were allowed to qualify again, after having been banned from the 1950 FIFA World Cup. West Germany qualified against fellow Germans from the Saarland (which then was a French protectorate), while East Germany did not enter, having cancelled international football matches after the East German uprising of 1953. Argentina declined to participate for the third successive World Cup.
The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.
The 1954 tournament used a unique format. The sixteen qualified teams were divided into four groups of four teams each. Each group contained two seeded teams and two unseeded teams. Only four matches were scheduled for each group, each pitting a seeded team against an unseeded team. This contrasts with the usual round-robin in which every team plays every other team: six matches in each group. Another oddity was that extra time, which in most tournaments is not employed at the group stage, was played in the group games if the score was level after 90 minutes, with the result being a draw if the scores were still level after 120 minutes.
Two points were awarded for a win and one for a draw. The two teams with the most points from each group progressed to the knockout stage. In the case of a tie between two teams for second place, the two tied teams competed in a play-off to decide which team would progress to the next stage, with extra time and drawing of lots if necessary. Had all four teams in a group been tied on points, there would have been two further play-offs – one play-off between the two seeded teams, and the other between the two unseeded teams, again with extra time and drawing of lots if necessary – with the winner of each play-off progressing to the quarter-finals.
Two of the four groups ended up requiring play-offs – one between Switzerland and Italy, and the other between Turkey and West Germany. In each match, the unseeded team (Switzerland and West Germany) repeated an earlier victory against the seeded team (Italy and Turkey) to progress. The fact that two group matches were played twice, while other group opponents never faced each other at all, attracted criticism; newly elected FIFA President Rodolphe Seeldrayers declared that this group format would be abandoned in future world cups.
For each of the first two quarter-finals, one team progressing from group 1 was drawn against one team progressing from group 2. For the remaining two quarter-finals, this procedure was repeated for groups 3 and 4. Before the tournament, it was stated that in the event of a quarter-final being tied after 90 minutes, 30 minutes of extra time would be played, followed by drawing of lots if necessary. Later, it was stated that a quarter-final could be replayed in this situation. The draw was scheduled to be held on Sunday 20 June, though in fact it was delayed into the early morning of Monday 21 June.
For the semi-finals, a further draw was held, with each semi-final featuring one team from groups 1–2 against one team from groups 3–4. In the event of a semi-final being tied after extra time, it would be replayed once, followed by drawing of lots if necessary.
The draw for the semi-finals, held on Sunday 27 June, was delayed by a complaint from the Hungarian team concerning the manner in which their quarter-final against Brazil had been played.
The final would be replayed if scores were level after extra-time. If the replay was also tied, the winner would be decided by the tournament organising committee, or by drawing of lots.
Before qualification was complete, the eight seeded teams were determined by FIFA. They were Austria, Brazil, England, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Uruguay.
These seedings were thrown into disarray when, in an unexpected result, Turkey eliminated Spain in qualification. FIFA resolved this situation by giving Turkey the seeding that had previously been allocated to Spain.
The Germany national football team, then limited to the area of West Germany only, had been reinstated as full FIFA members only in late 1950, had played only 18 games since, and were unseeded. When meeting the seeded Turkish side at Wankdorf stadium in Berne, the Turks scored early, but the Germans convincingly won the encounter, which would turn out as the first of two within six days.
The South Koreans, the other unseeded team, lost 7–0 and 9–0 against the seeded sides of Hungary and Turkey. West Germany, being denied the chance to play such an easy opponent, had to face the seeded team of Hungary, a favourite to win the World Cup. Sepp Herberger, the West German coach, did not want his A-squad to suffer a possible defeat against a strong opponent while trying to qualify for a rather meaningless first place, and gambled by going the easier route into the play-offs and sending in a reserve side which lost 8–3 in Basel. A benefit was that the Hungarians did not get to know the best German players in case both teams would meet again - which they did, in the final, along with referee William Ling. Now two teams were tied for second place on 2 points, and with no tie breaking procedures in effect, even though West Germany had beaten Turkey head-to-head, they had to play-off against each other, a match-up that West Germany easily won for the second time within six days, this time in Zürich.