1970 FIFA World Cup

The 1970 FIFA World Cup was the ninth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for men's senior national teams. Held from 31 May to 21 June in Mexico, it was the first World Cup tournament held outside Europe and South America, and also the first held in North America. Teams representing 75 nations from all six populated continents entered the competition, and its qualification rounds began in May 1968. Fourteen teams qualified from this process to join host nation Mexico and defending champions England in the 16-team final tournament. El Salvador, Israel and Morocco made their debut appearances at the final stage.
In the tournament final, Brazil won 4–1 against Italy, another FIFA two-time champion. Brazil also overcame another two-time champion and South American champions Uruguay, by 3–1 in the semi-final, and defending champions England 1–0 in the group stage as they were also eliminated by West Germany in the quarter-finals. This is currently the only time that the winning team defeated the European and South American champions alongside the tournament's defending champions.
The win gave Brazil its third World Cup title, which allowed them to permanently keep the Jules Rimet Trophy, and a new trophy was introduced in 1974. The victorious team, led by Carlos Alberto and featuring players such as Pelé, Gérson, Jairzinho, Rivellino and Tostão, is often cited as the greatest football team of all time. They achieved a perfect record of wins in all six games in the finals, as well as winning all their qualifying fixtures.
Despite the issues of altitude and high temperature, the finals largely produced attacking football which created an average goals per game record not since bettered by any subsequent World Cup Finals. With the advancements in satellite communications, the 1970 Finals attracted a new record television audience for the FIFA World Cup as games were broadcast live around the world and, in a few cases, in colour—the first time that that was the case.

Host selection

Mexico was chosen as the host nation on 8 October 1964 vote at the FIFA congress in Tokyo, where the only other bid submitted was by Argentina, who would go on to host the 1978 World Cup. The 1970 selection of Mexico as host would mark several distinctions. It was the first World Cup that was staged in North America and the first to be staged outside of South America and Europe. Further distinction would come to Mexico at the 1986 World Cup when it became the first country to host the FIFA World Cup twice after stepping in as a substitute for Colombia, which was struggling financially.

Qualification

A total of 75 teams entered the 1970 FIFA World Cup, and 73 were required to qualify. Due to rejected entries and withdrawals, 68 teams eventually participated in the qualifying stages, including eight for the first time. Mexico as the host nation and England as reigning World Cup champions were granted automatic qualification, with the remaining 14 finals places divided among the continental confederations.
Eight places were available to teams from UEFA, three for CONMEBOL, one for CAF, one for a team from either the AFC or the OFC, and one for CONCACAF.
A place in the finals for an African team was guaranteed for the first time: this came in response to the events of 1966, where all 15 entered African nations boycotted the qualifying in protest after FIFA - who had combined the qualifying for Africa, Asia and Oceania into one group for only one place at the finals - declined CAF's requests to change the qualifying format and the allocation of places, citing competitive and logistical issues. Thus, while Morocco was the first African team to qualify for the World Cup since Egypt in 1934, they were the first to be assured qualification via their own continental zone, since Egypt had to play against the British-occupied Palestine to qualify for the 1934 tournament.
The draw for the qualifying stages was conducted on 1 February 1968, with matches beginning in May 1968 and the final fixtures being concluded in December 1969. North Korea, quarter-finalists at the previous tournament, were disqualified during the process after refusing to play in Israel for political reasons. El Salvador qualified for the finals after beating Honduras in a play-off match, which was the catalyst for a four-day conflict in July 1969 known as the Football War.
Half of the eventual qualifying teams had also been present at the previous World Cup, but three teams qualified for the first time: El Salvador, Israel and Morocco, while Peru, Romania, Belgium and Sweden made their first World Cup appearances since 1930, 1938, 1954 and 1958 respectively. Czechoslovakia returned to the World Cup stage after missing out in 1966.

List of qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.
;AFC

;CAF

;OFC

None qualified

;CONCACAF

;CONMEBOL

;UEFA

Venues

Five stadiums in five cities were selected to host the World Cup matches. Alternative venues in Hidalgo state and the port city of Veracruz were also considered. Each group was based solely in one city with exception of Group 2, which was staged in both Puebla and Toluca. Aside from the Estadio Luis Dosal, all the stadia had only been constructed during the 1960s, as Mexico prepared to host both the World Cup and the 1968 Summer Olympics. The stadium construction cost for the four smaller venues were around US$11 million, while the final stadium in Mexico City cost US$20 million.
The altitude of the venues varied and the importance of acclimatisation was strongly considered by all the participating teams. As a result, in contrast to the previous tournament staged in England, most teams arrived in the region well in advance of their opening fixtures to prepare for this factor. Some teams had already experienced the local conditions when competing in the football competition at 1968 Summer Olympics. At an elevation in excess of above sea level, Toluca was the highest of the venues; Guadalajara was the lowest at. In addition to the altitude, all five locations had hot and rainy weather where temperatures would regularly go past 32 °C.
Of the five stadia used for the 32 matches played, the largest and most utilised venue was the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, which hosted 10 total matches including the final and third place matches, and all of Group 1's matches. The Jalisco Stadium in Guadalajara hosted eight matches including all of Group 3's matches and a semi-final. The Nou Camp Stadium in Leon hosted seven matches, which consisted of all of Group 4's matches and a quarter-final match. The Luis Dosal stadium in Toluca hosted four matches, and Cuauhtémoc stadium in Puebla hosted three matches and was the only stadium of the five used for this tournament not to host any knockout rounds.

Format

The 16 qualified teams were divided into four groups of four. Each group was played as a single round-robin in which each team would play each of the others in their group once. Teams were ranked by the number of points earned from their matches, and goal difference was used as the primary tie-breaker; if two teams finished level on both points and goal difference, lots were drawn to separate them. This method was used to separate the top two teams in Group 1, but it was not used to separate Bulgaria and Morocco in Group 4, despite them finishing level on points and goal difference, as their final positions did not have any implications for the knockout stage.
The top two teams from each group progressed to the knockout stage. In all knockout matches, extra time was played if the teams were drawn after 90 minutes. If teams were still tied after extra-time, drawing of lots would have been used in all matches other than the final. FIFA did not announce in advance what would happen if the final itself were to be drawn after extra time. In the event, all knockout matches were decided in either regular time or extra time.

Final draw

Although it was reported in the build-up to the final draw that seedings would be used, as had been the case at the previous two World Cup Finals, the FIFA Organising Committee ultimately announced on the same day of the draw, that there would be no seeding of teams due to failed attempts to reach a compromise for the seeding criteria. Instead, the 16 qualified teams were divided into four pots comprising 'geographical groupings' decided by a vote of the FIFA Organising Committee, which for the composition of pot 1, 3 and 4 also took into account the teams' strengths and even political considerations. The tournament structure ensured that teams grouped within the same pot would not meet each other before the quarter-finals at the earliest. The system of politically decided pots hereby ensured that Israel and Morocco would not be drawn to face each other after Morocco had earlier threatened to withdraw from the tournament, as they had done from the Olympic football tournament two years earlier, if that were the case.

Pot 1: European I

Pot 2: Americas

Pot 3: European II

Pot 4: Rest of the World

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The draw was staged in Mexico City, Mexico on 10 January 1970 in the Maria Isabel Hotel, which served as FIFA's headquarters during the competition. The teams were drawn into the four groups, which had their locations defined in advance: Group 1 being staged in Mexico City, Group 2 in Puebla and Toluca, Group 3 in Guadalajara and Group 4 in León. Ahead of the draw, the FIFA regulations had predetermined that the hosts Mexico would be in Group 1 and so based in the capital city, and that England as holders would be based together with Group 3 in Guadalajara, the tournament's second largest stadium. Keeping the defending champion apart from meeting the hosts in the group stage either by seeding or predetermined group positions, was a practiced tradition throughout the history of the FIFA World Cup, with 1934 and 1954 being the only two exceptions.
The 10-year-old daughter of Guillermo Cañedo, president of the Mexican Football Federation and chief of the FIFA Organising Committee, drew out the teams from four silver cups, so that each of the four groups featured one drawn team respectively from pot 1, pot 2, pot 3 and pot 4.