Category: Sports Research

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

As fans around the world watch the 23rd World Cup this summer hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, RBSC recently browsed the stacks for World Cup history. We are pleased to highlight these sources from the collection documenting the first two World Cup tournaments in 1930 and 1934.

The inaugural World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930, and the host nation ended up winning the championship. After the tournament, the Uruguayan Football Association published an illustrated history of the event, Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football = La Coupe du monde : Montevideo, julio de 1930 (The First World Football Championships – The World Cup: Montevideo, July 1930). This oversized book commemorates and documents the tournament in more than 120 pages and hundreds of photographs.

Printed in both Spanish and French, the book contains plentiful information about the teams, players, and games. This page devoted to the runner-up Argentinian team is typical of the coverage of the participating countries (page 26). The book also includes images and descriptions of every tournament match, like this two-page spread about the United States’ 3-0 opening round victory over Belgium (pages 42-43).

The book gave extensive coverage to the semifinals and the finals, intricately documenting each goal in the championship game. Here we see a description of Uruguay’s third goal by Santos Iriarte in the 68th minute that gave Uruguay the lead for good en route to its 4-2 victory (page 96).

Four years later, Italy, under dictator Benito Mussolini, hosted the second World Cup, and, again the home team came away victorious. In advance of the tournament, the Italian National Tourism Board published this 26-page English-language pamphlet, See Italy and the World’s Football Championship, to entice visitors to come to Italy despite the continuing Great Depression. 

The competition took place in eight different locations, which, as the pamphlet pointed out, “are most attractive, as only Italian cities can be” (page 6). The finals were held in Rome, which the Tourism Board declared, “embraces every attraction in Italy and is unsurpassed by any other city in the world” (page 20).

The booklet featured photographs, descriptions, and simple maps of each of the host cities and stadiums, including the Mussolini Stadium of Turin and the San Siro Stadium of Milan. The championship game, which would see Italy defeat Czechoslovakia 2-1, was held in the Stadium of the National Fascist Party at Rome.

The following year, the Italian Olympic Committee in collaboration with the popular magazine Lo Sport Fascista jointly published Lo sport in regime fascista : 28 ottobre 1922-I 28 ottobre 1935-XIII (Sport in the Fascist Regime: 28 October 1922 I – 28 October 1935 XIII). This book recounted and celebrated Italian athletic achievements across a myriad of sports, including Italy’s recent World Cup title. The book’s frontispiece, which included a large image of Mussolini, demonstrated the close relationship between Italian sports and the ruling Fascist regime.

Calcio—or soccer—was featured in the fifth chapter, and the book revelled in Italy’s 1934 World Cup success. “Only in Fascist Italy could one seriously think about organizing the Second World Cup tournament” the book contended. “Only Italy could have taken on such a massive amount of work and responsibility. And it was a magnificent, beautiful, unforgettable event. Our beautiful sports fields, modern and superbly equipped; endless streams of foreigners who enjoyed our intelligent and truly affectionate hospitality; the battles between great champions, fought in an ideal atmosphere of serenity, discipline, and understanding” (page 40).

Original Italian: “Solo nell’Italia Fascista si poteva seriamente pensare all’organizzazione del II Torneo per la disputa della Coppa del Mondo…. Solo l’Italia poteva accettare un simile cumulo di lavoro e di responsabilità. E fu una cosa grandiosa, bellissima, indimenticabile. I nostri bei campi sportivi, moderni e mirabilmente attrezzati; interminable carovane di stranieri che godettero la nostra intelligente e veramente affettuosa ospitalità; battaglie di grandi campioni combattute in un clima ideale di serenità, di disciplina, di comprensione.”

The book celebrated the victorious Italian national team, writing that “great goals, in truth, still await our formidable army of footballers. They will be achieved in the name of Fascism and for the glory of a sport that has truly brought Italy unparalleled satisfaction. The path already traveled and the conquests achieved, give the march of Italian footballers the rhythm and air of the inevitable” (page 40).

Original Italian: “Grandi mète, in verità, ulteriormente attendono il formidabile esercito dei nostri calciatori. Saranno raggiunte, nel nome del fascismo e per la gloria di uno sport che veramente diede all’Italia impareggiabili soddisfazioni. Il cammino percorso, le conquiste fatte, danno alla marcia dei calciatori italiani il ritmo ed il significato dell’ineluttabile.”

World Cup soccer has always been influenced by contemporary politics, and, like the Italian Fascists, national leaders have often sought to co-opt sporting success and athletic achievements for their own partisan reasons.

But, for just as long, many fans, spectators, athletes, and other observers have believed that global sporting events like the World Cup could serve a larger purpose and help to bridge the differences and conflicts between people. In his speech at the welcoming banquet for the delegations at the inaugural 1930 World Cup, for example, Dr. Raoul Jude, President of the Uruguayan Football Association, expressed his hope that the tournament could be a unifying event:

“Welcome, you travelers who arrive from all points of the compass, bringing us the message of solidarity and cordiality from different peoples and races, united nevertheless, above all differences and all of life’s hardships, within the higher fellowship of a lofty purpose aimed at the betterment of all mankind.  

We read the clear message you bring us; and though some parts are not written in a language familiar to us, we instantly grasp their meaning through the frank gestures and the serene, united gaze of those who bear them” (Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football, pages 33-34).

Original Spanish: Bien venidos vosotros, viajeros que llegáis de todos los puntos cardinales trayéndonos el mensaje solidario y cordial de pueblos y razas diferentes, hermanadas no obstante, por encima de todas las diferencias y de todas las miserias de la vida, en la comunidad superior de un alto designio en el sentido del mejoramiento de todos los hombres de la tierra.

Leemos el claro mensaje que nos traéis, y aunque algunos de ellos no están escritos en la lengua que nos es familiar, descubrimos en seguida su sentido en el gesto franco y en la mirada serena y unánime de sus portadores.”

With the 2026 World Cup soon coming to a close, we hope all teams, players, and fans have experienced a taste of La alégria del triunfo—the joy of victory—like the jubilant 1930 Uruguayan team seen here.

Thanks to Ruben Celani, Postdoctoral Research Associate and Italian Studies Curatorial Fellow, and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Latin American & Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator, for assistance with Italian and Spanish translations.