Lsu Football 1958
Elly Garnand
The 1958 season is regarded as a watershed year in which the popularity of professional football in the United States began to rival that of baseball in the public imagination. "Professional football was beyond coming of age in 1958," one writer enthused, "it was on an even plane with baseball as the game of the people."[1]
Stadium attendance was robust throughout the league, with crowds in excess of 100,000 twice filling the Los Angeles Coliseum to see the Los Angeles Rams, while the Detroit Lions managed to sell a staggering 42,000 season tickets in advance of the 1958 campaign, ensuring home sellouts at Briggs Stadium.[1]
At the other end of the attendance spectrum, the Chicago Cardinals faltered with the live gate, overshadowed again by the legendary Bears. The team ultimately moved two of their home games for 1959 to Minneapolis before permanently departing for St. Louis the following year.[1] Similarly, the Pittsburgh Steelers were disappointed with their attendance in their new home at Schenley Field, which proved difficult to access and provided a particularly windy and inhospitable place to watch a game.[1] The team sought to remedy its problems by opting out of its two year lease.[1]
Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown electrified football fans around the league by gaining more than 1,500 yards on 257 carries, an average of 5.9 yards per carry.[2] The powerful Cleveland runner smashed the previous NFL record of 1,146 yards in a 12 game season, set by Steve Van Buren in 1949.[2] He also nearly doubled the total of the second leading ground-gainer of 1958, fullback Alan Ameche of the Baltimore Colts.[2] Brown's 17 touchdowns scored similarly dwarfed the tallies of any other player, with Colts end Raymond Berry second on the list with 9 scores.[3]
On the defensive side of the ball, defensive back James Patton of the New York Giants lead the league with 11 interceptions in the 12 game season, followed by Pittsburgh Steelers defender Jack Butler with 9.[5] Quarterback sacks were not an official statistic in this era, but the league-low 183 points allowed by the New York Giants (15.25 per game) give testimony to the stoutness of their defensive unit.
The 1958 FIFA World Cup was the sixth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Sweden from 8 to 29 June 1958. It was the first and only FIFA World Cup to be played in a Nordic country.
This was the first appearance of Wales at the FIFA World Cup. They would not qualify for another until 64 years later. This tournament also marked the debuts of fellow British side Northern Ireland, as well as the Soviet Union. Defending champions West Germany were eliminated by runners-up Sweden and would lose to France in a third place match.
Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Sweden expressed interest in hosting the tournament.[1] Swedish delegates lobbied other countries at the FIFA Congress held in Rio de Janeiro around the opening of the 1950 World Cup finals.[1] Sweden was awarded the 1958 tournament unopposed on 23 June 1950.[2]
The hosts (Sweden) and the defending champions (West Germany) qualified automatically. Of the remaining 14 places, nine were allocated to Europe, three to South America, one to North/Central America, and one to Asia/Africa.
Aside from the main European zone matches, Wales, which finished second in its group behind Czechoslovakia, was drawn into a play-off with Israel after Israel won its group by default because its three opponents, Turkey, Indonesia and Sudan, refused to play. FIFA had imposed a rule that no team would qualify without playing at least one match, something that had happened in several previous World Cups. Wales won the play-off and qualified for the first time. With Northern Ireland making its debut, and England and Scotland also qualifying, this World Cup was the only one to date to feature all four of the United Kingdom's Home Nations.
This World Cup also saw the entry and qualification of the Soviet Union for the first time, while Argentina appeared for the first time since 1934. It was also the first one for which Italy failed to qualify (Italy did not take part in the 1930 tournament but there was no qualification for that competition). Other teams that failed to qualify included two-time champions and 1954 semifinalists Uruguay, as well as Spain and Belgium.
On 8 February 1958, in Solna, Lennart Hyland and Sven Jerring presented the results of the draw where the qualified teams were divided into four groups. Seeding was geographical rather than by team strength, with each group containing one western European team, one eastern European team, one of the four British teams that had qualified, and one from the Americas.[3]
The format of the competition changed from 1954: 16 teams still competed in four groups of four, but this time each team played each of the other teams in its group at least once, without extra time in the event of a draw. Two points were awarded for a win and one point for a draw. If the first two teams finished on equal points, then goal average would decide who was placed first and second. As in 1954, if the second and third-placed teams finished on the same points, then there would be a play-off with the winner going through. If a play-off resulted in a draw, goal average from the group games would be used to determine who went through to the next round. If the goal averages were equal, then lots would have been drawn. By the time the competition began, these arrangements were still in discussion. Some teams complained that a play-off match, meaning three games in five days, was too much, and before the second round of group matches, FIFA informed the teams that goal average would be used before resorting to a play-off.[4] This was overturned when the Swedish Football Association complained, stating that it was wrong to change the rules mid-tournament, but also because it wanted the extra revenue from playoff matches.[4]
This was the first time that goal average was available to separate teams in a World Cup. It was used to separate the teams finishing first and second in one of the groups. However, all three playoffs finished with decisive results and so it was not needed to separate the teams involved in a tied playoff.
Almost all the matches kicked off simultaneously in each of the three rounds of the group phase, as did the quarter-finals and semi-finals. The exceptions were Sweden's three group matches, all of which were televised by Sveriges Radio; these started at other times so Swedes could attend other matches without missing their own team's. Apart from these, one match per round was televised, and relayed across Europe by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Many Swedes bought their first television for the World Cup.
The official ball was the "Top-Star VM-bollen 1958" model made by Sydsvenska Lder & Remfabriks AB (aka "Remmen" or "Sydlder") in ngelholm. Four FIFA officials conducted a blind test to choose it from 102 candidates.[5][6]
Playoffs were also needed in Group 1 (Northern Ireland beat Czechoslovakia to join the defending champions West Germany in the quarter-finals) and Group 3 (Wales topped Hungary to advance with hosts Sweden). Hungary had become a spent force after their appearance in the final of the previous tournament. They had lost their best players two years before, when they fled in the wake of the failed uprising against the communist regime. In a rather restrictive sense, from the 1954 team, only goalkeeper Gyula Grosics, defender Jozsef Bozsik and forward Nndor Hidegkuti remained.
The quarter-finals saw France's Just Fontaine continue in similar form as in the group stage, managing another two goals as France triumphed over Northern Ireland. West Germany's Helmut Rahn put them into the semi-finals with a single goal against Yugoslavia, while Sweden went through at the expense of USSR. The other game in the quarter-finals saw Pel score the only goal for Brazil against Wales.
The final was played in Solna, in the Rsunda Stadium; 50,000 people watched as the Brazilians went a goal down after four minutes. However, Vav equalised shortly afterwards and then put them a goal ahead before half time. In the second half, Pel outshone everyone, notching two goals, including the first one where he lobbed the ball over Bengt Gustavsson then followed it with a precise volley shot. Zagallo added a goal in between, and Sweden managed a consolation goal.
The Final saw many records made in World Cup history that still stand as of 2018[update]. At age 17, Pel simultaneously became the youngest player to participate in, score, and win a World Cup final. Conversely, Nils Liedholm became the oldest player to score in a World Cup Final at 35 years 263 days. This final had the highest number of goals scored by a winning team (5), the highest number of total goals scored (7), and together with the 1970 and 1998 finals shares the highest goal margin of difference (3); Brazil played in all those three finals.
A total of twelve cities throughout the central and southern parts of Sweden hosted the tournament. FIFA regulations required at least six stadiums to have a capacity of at least 20,000.[10] If Denmark had qualified, the organisers had planned to use the Idrtsparken in Copenhagen for Denmark's group matches.[10] The Idrtsparken was renovated in 1956 with this in mind, but Denmark lost out to England in qualification.[10] When doubts arose about whether funding would be forthcoming for rebuilding the Ullevi and Malm Stadion, the organisers considered stadiums in Copenhagen and Oslo as contingency measures.[11]
The Rsunda Stadium was expanded from 38,000 for the World Cup by building end stands.[12] Organising committee chairman Holger Bergrus mortgaged his house to pay for this.[12] The new Malm Stadion was built for the World Cup, replacing the 1896 Malm Stadion at a new site.[13] The Idrottsparken had 4,709 seats added for the World Cup. The Social Democratic municipal government refused to pay for this until the organisers threatened to select Folkungavallen in Linkping instead.[14] At the Rimnersvallen, a stand from the smaller Oddevallen stadium was moved to Rimnersvallen for the World Cup. The crowd at Brazil v. Austria was estimated at 21,000, with more looking in from the adjoining hillside.[12] The most used stadium was the Rsunda Stadium in Stockholm, which hosted 8 matches, including the final, followed by the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg (the biggest stadium used during the tournament), which hosted 7 matches. The Malm Stadium hosted 4 matches, Norrkping hosted 3 matches; Bors, Halmstad, Helsingborg, Vsters, and Sandviken hosted 2 matches each, and rebro, Eskilstuna, and Uddevalla each hosted 1 match.
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