HOSTS

The 1934 FIFA World Cup was hosted by Italy and the matches were scheduled between 27th May to 10th June 1934. After the success of inaugural World Cup, there had tough competitions to host the matches. FIFA had to make eight decision making meetings for the host selection. The Final decision on hosts was made by the executive committee and there was no ballot members. The Italy's bid was chosen due to the huge bid of 3.5 millions when the world was in under recession. The matches played at 8 different cities namely,Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Turin, Naples, Rome and Trieste.

Total Number of Teams Participated

Unlike the previous tournament, 1934 World Cup had qualifying rounds. It was mainly due to huge positive response of the first World Cup. There was 36 countries applied for the participation. Defending Champions, Uruguay rejected the joining offer in order to show protest in lesser number of European countries participation in the Uruguay hosted World Cup. Hosts, Italy also had to take participation in the qualifying matches. Argentina and Brazil were directly qualified for the tournament due to the withdrawals of their group mates Chile and Peru. After the qualifying rounds, 16 teams were eligible to play the FIFA World Cup. The qualified teams were Italy, USA, Spain, Brazil, Austria, France, Hungry, Egypt, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Argentina.

Tournament Summary

Contrary to the previous World Cup, FIFA made the tournament format as a straight knockout tournament. The 16 teams qualified for the tournament had to play 8 matches and the winners will get the token for quarter finals and the losers will be eliminated from the World Cups.

 After the first round Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary qualified for the quarter finals. In the first match of the quarter finals, Italy defeated Spain at a 2-1 goal difference with the courtesy of the extra time. Austria qualified for the semifinals in their match against Hungary. Czechoslovakia's win was for 3 goals against the 2 goals of Switzerland. Germany was victorious against Sweden for 2-1 goal difference.

Germany faced Czechoslovakia and Austria faced Italy in the semi finals. Hosts, Italy qualified for the finals beating Austria for a 1-0 goal difference. Czechoslovakia's win was for 3 goals against the 1 goal from Germany.  Germany and Italy competed for the third place and Germany secured the win with a 3-2 goal difference.    

Champions

Hosts Italy faced Czechoslovakia in the 1934 World Cup finals. The match referee was Ivan Eklind of Sweden. The final match was held at the Stadium of the National Facist Party. The final clash witnessed almost 55000 attendance. In the match, Czechoslovakia had a 1-0 lead till the 80 minutes. But Raimundo Orsi's goal in the last minute helped the Italian team to extend the match for extra time. In the extra time Angelo Schiavio scored the winning goal for Italy.

Goals

Out of 17 matches, 1934 FIFA World Cup witnessed 70 goals. Oldrich Nejedly of Czechoslovakia scored the highest with 5 goals from his boots. Edmond Conen of Germany and Angelo Schiavi of Italy scored 4 goals each. There was no self goals in the tournament and 45 players shaken the net. Italian team conceded just 3 goals against their 12 goals. Angelo Schiavio of Italy scored the first hat-trick of the tournament in their first round match against United States. Edmund Conen of Germany scored the second hat trick in their 1st round match against Austria. Oldrich Nejedly of Czechoslovakia made the same achievement against Germany in the semifinals.

Specials

• 1934 World Cup is the only edition in which the defending Champions(Uruguay) not participated.
• This is the first tournament to have a losers final match.
• This is also the first tournament to select the team on the basis of qualifying matches.
• Even hosts Italy had to take the qualification match. 
• In case of a draw in the allotted extra time, both team had to continue the match in the next day.