The Elegant Ball Assume
↑ Debut of Oleksandr Zinchenko (Ufa) for Ukraine. ↑ Debut of Joško Gvardiol (GNK Dinamo Zagreb) for Croatia. How many Ligue 1 clubs qualify for European football? They are divided into eight groups of four teams, with the first two qualifying for the eighth finals. This game was also won by the Russians, now 2-0. The Russians had to continue with ten men deep into the second half, because a rough tackle from a Yugoslavian resulted in a broken leg, the first signal for an excessively hard tournament. That was not the case in this tournament. Jashin was alert again against the old world champion Uruguay and the Russians won 2-1. The Yugoslavs also qualified for the next round with clear victories over Colombia and the once strong Uruguay, which clearly had a lesser generation in the early sixties. He signed a two-year contract with the Chinese Beijing Guoan.
The match between the Netherlands and Brazil was in fact a semi-final, but in the event of a draw, the Netherlands would play the final. Like the Fla-Flu between Flamengo and Fluminense or the Clássico Bavi between Bahia and Vitória. West Germany (and West Berlin) hosted the final round of the championship, as decided by FIFA on 6 July 1966 at a convention in London. FIFA announced on May 13 that the slogan of the Colombian national team, visible on the team bus, "Aqui no viaja un equipo, ¡viaja todo un paìs!" is, that "Here travels a country, not just a team!" means. On 29 May 2012, then national coach Slaven Bilić announced his final and 23-man squad to represent Croatia at the 2012 European Football Championship in Poland and Ukraine, including Šimunić who was assigned shirt number three. Total football was born, football where all players rotated in different places during the matches under the inspiring leadership of captain Johan Cruijff and Wim van Hanegem. In the second round, the Netherlands rumbled on, Argentina got away well with a 4-0 defeat by goals from Ruud Krol, Johnny Rep and twice Johan Cruijff. Cruijff in particular played unparalleled against Sweden, but they got stuck at 0-0. In this match there was one change compared to the first match: Piet Keizer replaced Rob Rensenbrink, but the old master could not convince.
The draw for the final round took place on January 18, 1962 in Santiago. Only West Germany and Brazil managed to qualify again, England was eliminated by Poland, Italy by both Poland and Argentina, Yugoslavia, Uruguay by both the Netherlands and Sweden, East Germany took the place of the Soviet Union, Peru and Mexico. The team was Olympic champion, surprisingly beat England in qualifying and turned out to be a tastemaker at the World Cup. Hulk quickly became FC Porto's taste maker and this led to interest from Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and FK Zenit, among others. Brazil extended its world title without the injured Pelé and with seasoning Garrincha. However, in the second game against Czechoslovakia, disaster struck, Pelé shot on the crossbar, but strained his muscle. The whole world was amazed in advance at a renewed acquaintance with Brazil's samba football, but that was disappointing. The velvet midfielder was voted the best player in the world no less than three times. Vatican Radio broadcasts all over the world via satellite, while in FM it is only received on a regional level. The referee did not see the incident and it was probably the first time in history that a decision was made through the referee's "earpiece".
It would be the first (and last) time that the two blood relatives would play an international match against each other. It went completely wrong against Yugoslavia, 9-0 after a halftime score of 6-0. After more than half an hour, the keeper was changed at a 3-0 score, the first action of the new keeper was to get the ball out of the net. Beckenbauer called a meeting for his team without coach Helmut Schön to bring the team together over drinks and cigars, in retrospect a decisive moment in the championship. The new format was maintained at the 1978 World Cup; in 1982 the number of participating countries was expanded to 24 and a different set-up became necessary. 51 countries took part in the preliminary rounds, nine of which were debutants. He still participated in the entire match, but had no input at all, Brazil was upset and the Czechs thought it was fine: 0-0. Pelé would not play another match this tournament, a big loss for Brazil and the tournament.