The Tournament 1974

[Muriel Trettin]

NorthCarolina State won its first NCAA national championship in 1974, beating Marquette 76-64 in the title game. David Thompson was named Most Outstanding Player after scoring 21 points against the Warriors in the championship.

Thompson's 28 points in the national semifinal were also key to the Wolfpack's first title, as NC State took down UCLA in the Final Four, snapping the Bruins' streak of seven consecutive national championships.

Both NC State and Marquette made their first appearances at the Final Four and national final while UCLA (11th Final Four) and Kansas (sixth Final Four) would meet in the third-place game, which UCLA won.

Zach Pekale is an alumnus of Arizona State University with a degree in sports journalism. He has worked for Arizona PBS, Arizona Sports 98.7 FM and the Cape Cod Baseball League. His writing has also appeared on FOX Sports, Bleacher Report and at the Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter @ZachPekale.

The tournament began on March 9, 1974, and ended with the championship game on March 25 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Until 2019, when Virginia defeated Texas Tech, it was the last tournament in which neither school had previously appeared in any national championship game at any level. A total of 29 games were played, including a third-place game in each region and a national third-place game.

This was the final year that only conference champions and independents could participate in the tournament. During the same time in 1974, the Collegiate Commissioners' Association held a tournament in St. Louis, Missouri. They invited the second-place teams from eight conferences to participate. In 1975, the NCAA would expand the field to include at-large bids for conference runners-up.

The Wolfpack became the fifth team in history to win the national championship playing in its home state. CCNY won the 1950 NCAA championship (as well as the NIT championship) at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Kentucky won the 1958 championship at Freedom Hall in Louisville, and UCLA won both the 1968 and 1972 championships at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. UCLA also would win the 1975 championship in its home state, at the San Diego Sports Arena. No team has accomplished the feat since then, although the Kansas Jayhawks won the 1988 championship in nearby Kansas City, Missouri, at Kemper Arena, which is closer to the KU campus in Lawrence, Kansas than Greensboro is to Raleigh.

Thanks in large part to the reclassification of Division I, the 1974 tournament is the last tournament to include a team no longer in Division I. The Cal State Los Angeles Golden Eagles spent one year in the modern Division I, winning the Pacific Coast Athletic Association before dropping to Division II.

Curt Gowdy, Tom Hawkins, Charlie Jones, and Ross Porter - First Round at Terre Haute, Indiana (Marquette-Ohio, Notre Dame-Austin Peay) Final Four at Greensboro, North Carolina; Jones was used as a sideline reporter for the first round and Porter was used for the Final Four.

The 1974 FIFA World Cup was the tenth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in West Germany (and West Berlin) between 13 June and 7 July. The tournament marked the first time that the current trophy, the FIFA World Cup Trophy, created by the Italian sculptor Silvio Gazzaniga, was awarded. The previous trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, had been won for the third time by Brazil in 1970 and awarded permanently to the Brazilians.

West Germany was chosen as the host nation by FIFA in London, England on 6 July 1966. Hosting rights for the 1978 and 1982 tournaments were awarded at the same time. West Germany agreed to a deal with Spain by which Spain would support West Germany for the 1974 tournament, and in return West Germany would allow Spain to bid for the 1982 World Cup unopposed.

Some of football's most successful nations did not qualify, including 1966 champions England, France, hosts and quarter-finalists of the 1970 tournament Mexico, Spain, 1966 third-place finishers Portugal, 1970 quarter-finalists Peru, Belgium, 1962 runners-up Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Hungary, and Romania. The USSR was also disqualified after refusing to travel for the second leg of their playoff against Chile as a result of the 1973 Chilean coup d'tat. The Netherlands and Poland qualified for the first time since 1938. Scotland was back in the Finals after a 16-year absence. Argentina and Chile were also back after having missed the 1970 tournament and Yugoslavia was back after missing both the 1966 and 1970 tournaments.

First-time qualifiers were East Germany (who made their sole World Cup or European Championship appearance as a separate team); Australia, which were the first team from Oceania to qualify (although they would not qualify again until the next time the tournament was held in Germany, in 2006); Haiti, the first team from the Caribbean to qualify since Cuba in 1938; and Zaire, the first team from sub-Saharan Africa to reach the finals, and the third African team overall.

This was the first tournament in which the defending champions (in this case Brazil) played in the opening game as opposed to the hosts, although this was later changed back to the hosts for the 2006 tournament, which was also held in Germany, as the defending champions no longer had a secured spot in the tournament.

The tournament featured a new format. While the competition once again began with the sixteen teams divided into four groups of four teams, the eight teams which advanced did not enter a knockout stage as in the previous five World Cups but instead played in a second group stage. The winners of the two groups in the second stage then played each other in the final, with the respective runners-up from each group meeting in the third place play-off. This was one of only two times that this format was deployed (1978 being the other). For the 1974 World Cup, FIFA introduced the penalty shoot-out as a means of determining the winner in knockout stages should the match end on a draw after 120 minutes.[3] The method, however, was not put in practice as both the third-place match and the final were decided after 90 minutes. The first World Cup to feature a penalty shoot-out was the 1982 World Cup, in the semi-final match between France and West Germany.

It was decided in advance that if the host nation progressed to the second round their matches would not take place simultaneous to the other matches but instead be held in the other timeslot (either 16:00 or 19:30 local time).[4]

The tournament was held mostly in bad weather, and the stadia had few protected places. Only five western European nations had qualified, of which only the Netherlands, West Germany and Sweden made it past the group stage. Fans from the Eastern Communist neighbour states East Germany, Bulgaria and Poland were hindered by political circumstances.

Carlos Caszely of Chile became the first player to be sent off with a red card in a World Cup match, during their match against West Germany. Red cards were formally introduced in World Cup play in 1970, but no players were sent off in that tournament.

Group 1 contained both East Germany and the host West Germany, and they both progressed at the expense of Chile and newcomers Australia. The last game played in Group 1 was much anticipated, a first ever clash between the two German teams. West Germany was already assured of progression to the second round whatever the result. In one of the most politically charged matches of all time, it was the East that won, thanks to a late Jrgen Sparwasser goal. This result forced a realignment of the West German team that would later help them win the tournament.

The final was held on 7 July 1974 at Olympiastadion, Munich. West Germany was led by Franz Beckenbauer, while the Dutch had their star Johan Cruyff, and their Total Football system which had dazzled the competition. With just a minute gone on the clock, following a solo run, Cruyff was brought down by Uli Hoene inside the German penalty area, and the Dutch took the lead from the ensuing penalty by Johan Neeskens before any German player had even touched the ball. West Germany struggled to recover, and in the 26th minute were awarded a penalty, after Bernd Hlzenbein fell within the Dutch area, causing English referee Jack Taylor to award another controversial penalty. Paul Breitner spontaneously decided to kick, and scored. These two penalties were the first in a World Cup final. West Germany now pushed, and in the 43rd minute, in his typical style, Gerd Mller scored what turned out to be the winning goal, and the last of his career as he retired from the national team. The second half saw chances for both sides, with Mller putting the ball in the net for a goal that was disallowed as offside. In the 85th, Hlzenbein was fouled again, but no penalty this time. Eventually, West Germany, European Champions of 1972, also won the 1974 World Cup.

This was the only case of the reigning European champions winning the World Cup, until Spain (champions of the UEFA Euro 2008) defeated the Netherlands in the South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup Final. France have also held both trophies, albeit in a different order, at the same time by winning the 1998 World Cup followed by Euro 2000.

This was only the second time that a team had won the World Cup after losing a match in the Finals (West Germany losing to East Germany during the group stage). The previous occasion was West Germany's earlier win in 1954.

Poland's Grzegorz Lato led the tournament in scoring seven goals. Gerd Mller's goal in the final was the 14th in his career of two World Cups, beating Just Fontaine's record of 13, in his single World Cup. Mller's record was only surpassed 32 years later, in 2006 by Ronaldo's 15 goals from three World Cups and then 8 years after, in 2014 by Klose's 16 goals from four World Cups.

Gnter Netzer, who came on as a substitute for West Germany during the defeat by the East Germans, was playing for Real Madrid at the time: this was the first time that a World Cup winner had played for a club outside his home country.

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