|
|
If ever
you wanted to settle a World Cup argument down the pub – or start one, you now
have all the ammunition you need. Enjoy
the SoccerLotto World Cup trivia selection. A major source of the facts is “The
Complete Book of the World Cup” by Cris Freddi, published by Harper Collins. I
assume that it will be republished for the 2002 finals. It contains match
reports on every World Cup Finals game and is brilliantly researched. It is
well written too. Amongst his comments on the infamous episode during the 1966
Final when Hurst’s extra time header appeared not to have crossed the line
until a Russian linesman decided otherwise is, “They think it’s all over. It is
now!” Anyone interest in football history should buy this book. So here
we go….. The scorer
of the very first goal in World Cup Finals history was Lucien Laurent, who
scored after 19 minutes in France’s 4-1 win over Mexico in Montevideo on July
13th, 1930. The captain of the French team in the first ever Finals
was Alex Villaplane – later executed for collaborating with the Nazis. The
Yugoslavian captain in these first Finals was Milutin Ivkovic, a massive
defender, and he was killed by the Gestapo in 1943. The only player to have scored a hat-trick on his debut in
the World Cup Finals is Guillermo Stabille, who netted three for Argentina in
their 6-3 win over Mexico in Montevideo on July 19th 1930. There
were three penalties in this game, all for handball. Stabille only broke into
the team because his captain Ferreira had to go home and sit an exam. The
fastest Finals hat-trick was scored by Laszlo Kiss for Hungary in their 10-1
demolition of El Salvador in 1982. Kiss
scored in the 69th, 73rd and 79th minutes. I don’t
know why England are worried about blooding youngsters in the World Cup this
summer. The record new caps in any one team in the Finals is TEN. Brazil
fielded that number when they began their first ever Finals game against
Yugoslavia in Montevideo on July 14th, 1930, losing 2-1, but then
the Brazilians had not played a full international for five years before the
game. Argentina also fielded ten newcomers in their 1934 game against Sweden. Bolivia’s 4-0 defeat against Yugoslavia in Montevideo on
July 17th, 1930 was only their eighth international and their only
game against a European team before 1977. They lost 4-0 but had four goals
disallowed! When
Brazil met Bolivia in the 1930 tournament, winning 4-0, three players on each
side wore berets! Frank Spencer Utd. Presumably the first blow in any dispute
was the grabbing of your opponent’s beret before stamping on and flinging it
into the crowd. Perhaps Zidane could use one to cover his bald patch. John Langenus, the Belgian who refereed the very first
Final in 1930, wore plus-fours to do so. The new (and incomplete) stadium used
for those first Finals in Montevideo had a moat round it for security reasons.
Langenus was so worried for his own safety, he had planned a quick escape route
home. Luckily for him perhaps, the hosts won, so he lived to ref. another day
and officiated at the 1934 Finals in Italy as well. The USA
played in the first Finals of 1930 and were the surprise package, beating both
Belgium and Paraguay 3-0. Amongst the clubs their players came from were
Wieboldt Wonderbolts, Detroit Holley Carburettor, and the Providence Gold Bugs
(previously Providence Clamdiggers). Their centre-forward, the 20-y-o
Patenaude, scored the first hat-trick in World Cup Finals history in the win
over Paraguay on July 17th. When American trainer Jack Coll came on to the pitch at
one stage of the USA’s 6-1 Semi-Final defeat against Argentina on July 26th,
1930, he dropped a bottle of chloroform out of his bag and had to be helped off
the pitch in a semi-conscious state. In the other Semi-Final that year, when
hosts Uruguay beat Yugoslavia 6-1, one of the Uruguayan goals came after a
policeman had kicked the ball back on to the pitch from the other side of the
touchline. In the very first final, where Uruguay came from behind to beat
Argentina 4-2 (as England did Germany in 1966), it is reckoned that the
Argentinian defender Monti had a quiet game because he had received a death
threat beforehand. The
Charlton brothers who played for England in 1966 were not the first to play
together in a Final: the Evaristos did so for Argentina in 1930. The leading scorer in the 1930 Finals was the Argentinian
Guillermo Stabile with eight goals in four games. Those were the only games he
played for his country and he scored in all of them. It is
thought by some that the notorious Vittorio Pozzo, the Italian Manager who
masterminded their success in both 1934 and 1938, gave his name to the
fascistic tyrant in Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot”. Just as in the
80’s the Eire Manager Jack Charlton was notorious for finding Irishmen when
previously none knew they existed – not even the players themselves in some
cases if they’d forgotten that long lost Granny in County Sligo or wherever, so
Pozzo recruited a number of South Americans to his cause, his excuse being that
if you could die for Italy on National Service, you could play for Italy. His
Italians therefore included the Brazilian international Filo, plus Demaria who
had played for Argentina in the 1930 Finals and Orsi who had played for the
Argentines in the 1932 Olympic final. Luis Monti presumably risked death
threats from his own country this time because he was another Argentinian
stalwart who became Italian. FIFA should have stopped this of course, but
Mussolini was of course lurking in the background. Current Brighton fans may be interested to know the name of the goalkeeper who played for Spain in the 1934 Finals: Ricardo Zamora. He was Captain, too, and one of the greats, conceding only 42 goals in 46 games at a time when soccer was far more attack minded and goalkeepers got little protection from referees. The Spanish playmaker in their abysmal 1982 campaign in their own country was also one Jesus Zamora. The fuss
made in England about the appointment of a Swede as their international coach
in 2001 seems odd in a historical context. The Swedes who played in the 1934
Finals were managed by the Hungarian Jozsef Nagy, while the Argentines they
played in their first game on May 27th were managed by the Italian
Felipe Pascucci. Old habits die hard. When Italy won in 1934, they were the
only side to keep a clean sheet and managed that twice. There
were no draws in the 18 games making up the 1930 Finals, but three after 90
mins in the 17 games making up the 1934 tournament. There were no real shock
results in any of those games. The first big surprise came when Cuba beat
Romania 2-1 in Toulouse in 1938 on June 9th, five days after the
first real mis-match: Hungary 6 Dutch East Indies 0. The DEI captain Achmad
Nawir was a doctor who wore his glasses while playing. The pitch for the 1938 Brazil-Poland game in Strasbourg
was so muddy that the Brazilian forward Leonidas started the game wearing only
his socks. He was eventually persuaded to don his boots and scored a hat-trick
in a 6-5 extra time win after the scores were 4-4 at 90 minutes. India withdrew
from the 1950 tournament because FIFA insisted they wear boots. When
Italy retained their title in 1938, only Giuseppe Meazza and Giovanni Ferrari
of the 1934 winners featured again. People now often think of Ardiles and Villa as the first foreign
internationals to sign for an English side (Tottenham in this case) after a
great World Cup (1978). Ricky Villa scored the famous FA Cup winning goal in
1981 against Manchester City. However, George Robledo, who played for Chile
against England in the 1950 Finals, played for Newcastle in both the 1951 and
1952 Cup Finals, scoring the winner in the second. In
England, we all remember the 1957 Munich air crash which decimated Man Utd’s
Busby Babes, but 17 of the 1948 Torino squad were killed in a 1948 air crash
and this ripped the heart out of the Italian World Cup side in the 1950 Finals.
They had gone through nine World Cup games without defeat prior to the crash,
but lost the tenth 3-2 against Sweden fielding many reserves. Before Brazil kicked off the 1950 Finals, there were fireworks and a 21 gun salute in the Maracana Stadium – which had not been completed so the explosions meant parts of the crowd were showered with small bits of concrete. Even so, the four biggest World Cup Finals crowds ever – 138,886, 142,429, 152,772 and 205,000 were all at the Maracana in this year. The 1950
game between Yugoslavia and Switzerland was the first Finals game in which
floodlights were used. The first English scorer in World Cup Finals was Stan
Mortensen, who headed in after 39 minutes of England’s game against Chile on
June 25th, 1950. England’s
1-0 defeat by the USA four days later was the second real World Cup Finals
shock. One London Editor thought it was a misprint and that the real score was
10-1 to the English. The 1966 Manager Alf Ramsey played in this game as a full
back and had to kick the ball off the line to prevent the score being 2-0 near
the end. On the very same day, England lost to the West Indies at cricket for
the very first time. The scorer of the USA’s winner, Joe Gaetjens, was murdered
in 1964. Arthur Ellis, founder member of the Pools Panel in 1963,
was the referee when Brazil beat Sweden 7-1 in the Maracana on July 9th,
1950. It contained the goal he later described as the best he had ever seen:
Ademir scored with an overhead kick after flicking the ball up with his other
foot. On another occasion the same player trapped the ball between his ankles
and jumped over the keeper. The
record lowest crowd in the World Cup Finals is the 300 who watched Romania play
Peru in Montevideo on July 14th, 1930. When Brazil played Uruguay in
Rio on July 16th, 1950, the crowd was an estimated 205,000, which is
the biggest assembly ever to watch a football match. An Englishman, George
Reader refereed that game, where Uruguay came from behind to win 2-1, and he
was the oldest ever World Cup Finals referee – aged 53. The Brazilian Danilo
attempted suicide afterwards, and two Brazilian fans actually did kill
themselves. Their team had fired in 30 goal attempts but scored just the one. The oldest player in both the 1950 and 1954 tournaments was Stanley Matthews – then aged 35 and 39 respectively. People forget he was already 38 in “his” Cup Final. He was listed as St. Matthews in the program for the 4-2 quarter final defeat by Uruguay. The six
games it took Germany to win the Finals in 1954 involved 39 goals, of which
Germany scored 25 – they had only just been allowed back into FIFA after the
war. When Italy won in 1982, they scored 12 and conceded six in seven games. Only two teams from Asia competed for a Finals place in 1954 – Japan and South Korea. Little did they imagine that 48 years on they would be hosting them. South
Korea made their Finals debut in Switzerland that year, losing their first
match 9-0 to Hungary. That remains the biggest ever losing margin, matched by
Yugoslavia 9 Zaire 0 in 1974 and Hungary 10 El Salvador 1 in 1982. El Salvador
has lost all six games that they have played in World Cup Finals. In the 1954 quarter finals, the Austrians came back from
three goals down to beat the Swiss 7-5 – the most ever goals in a World Cup
Finals game. In the
1954 final, West Germany were two down after eight minutes but came back to
beat a Hungarian side that had beaten them 8-3 in an earlier Group game. In the
latter, their keeper was Kwiatkowski and that was his only game for them in
1954. His only game for them in the 1958 Finals was in the 6-3 defeat by
France. There’s one for the pub: “Bet you can’t name the German goalkeeper who
let in 14 goals in his two World Cup Finals games…” The 1954 Finals averaged over five goals per game. If it had
not been for the Munich air crash in 1957, Scotland would have been managed by
Matt Busby in the 1958 Finals, because he had been doing the job part time. Several records were set in the 1958 Finals in Sweden which remain unbroken. Just Fontaine’s 13 goals for France is still the record Golden Boot total, though four of them came in the meaningless game to settle third place when France beat Germany 6-3. Mexico’s three defeats extended their losing run in the Finals to nine, which is still the worst sequence. Pele was 17 years and 249 days old when he played for Brazil in the Final, and he remains the youngest to have done so. He is still the youngest player to have score a hat-trick in the Finals too – in the 5-2 win over France in the Semi-Final and the youngest to score a goal. The first
ever 0-0 draw occurred in the 1958 Finals too, and guess who was involved.
England of course, though they were playing eventual winners Brazil. It was the
first time Brazil had failed to score in a World Cup match. Four days later,
Wales and Sweden played the second 0-0. Newcastle Manager Bobby Robson played for England in these Finals, along with Johnny Haynes, Tom Finney and Don Howe, but this England did not get beyond the Group stage, unlike Northern Ireland and Wales who both lost in the Quarters. The
Brazilians had brought a psychiatrist to assist them in Sweden and their
Manager Vicente Feola asked him what he thought of a plan to introduce two
young players. The first is “too young and infantile”, the doctor replied,
while the second was so naïve that “including him in the team would be a
disaster.” Feola ignored this advice and so Pele and Garrincha played, making
their World Cup Finals debut against Russia. Garrincha hit the bar in the first
minute and Pele hit the bar in the second minute. Brazil won 2-0 and didn’t
look back. Chile was hit by an earthquake two years before hosting the 1962 Finals. It destroyed one third of the country’s buildings. These were first Finals in which teams level on points in the Group stage did not have to go through a play off to settle matters. Goal Average was introduced instead. Masek
scored for Czechoslovakia after 15 seconds on June 7th 1962 in their
Group game against Mexico, but they went on to lose 3-1. It was Mexico’s first
Finals win at the 14th attempt. No player scored more than 4 in the 1962 Finals, but six players managed that total. Fathers
and Sons: the only coach to have played his son in the Finals is Uruguay’s
Ondino Viera who played his son Milton in the opener against England on July 11th,
1966 at Wembley but dropped him for the other three games. Manual Junior, the
son of Manuel Sanchis, Spanish full back in 1966, played for Spain in the 1990
Finals. Ademir de Guia played for Brazil against Poland in the Third Place
Final of 1974, his father Domingos having played against Sweden in the
equivalent 1938 game. Juan Manuel Asensi, a member of Spain’s unsuccessful 1938
team, was the son of Vicente who played for them in 1950. The biggest shock in 1966 was North Korea 1 Italy 0, though the Italians were down to ten men after half an hour because of an injury to Bulgarelli. All African countries and many Asian withdrew from the 1966 competition because FIFA refused to all Africa a qualifier of its own. The North Korean scorer, Park Doo-ik, later became a dentist. This was the first Asian win in the Finals and it was 18 years before the second when Saudi Arabia beat Morocco 2-1 – the first Finals game between two Asian countries. Alf
Ramsey was so disgusted by the Argentinian fouling in their 1966 quarter final
against England (Rattin was famously sent off but took about ten minutes to
make it to the dressing room) that he stopped any exchange of shirts at the
end. The main stadium in Baku, Azerbaijan, is the Tofik Bakhramov Stadium, named after the Russian linesman who awarded the goal that wasn’t to England in the 1966 Final. Hurst scored one with his head and one with each foot to make up his hat-trick. While
many remember Nobby Stiles little jig of celebration at the end, the prettiest
movement he managed in the whole tournament, he also jumped on George Cohen’s
back: “It looked like copulation. I don’t know what he was doing, but I didn’t
enjoy it very much.” Brazil went 13 games unbeaten in World Cup Finals from 1958 through to 1966. They went 11 unbeaten in 1970 through to 1974 and against in 1978 through to 1982. The first
substitute in World Cup Finals was Russian Vitaly Khlemnitsky, who replaced
Givi Nodia after 66 minutes of the
their opener against hosts Mexico at the Aztec Stadium on May 31st,
1970. That year, Italy became the first team to win a Group
despite scoring only one goal – and in 1982, they qualified from Group 1
without winning a game before going on to collect the Cup, beating West Germany
in the Final after the Germans had opened by famously losing to Algeria. The name
of Victor Esparrago, who played for Uruguay in the 1970 Finals, means
“asparagus” in English. De Sisti, who played for Italy, was known as Picchio,
which means “\woodpecker.” The Swedish team in the 1970 Finals included both a Grip (Roland) and an Eriksson (Leif). The shop
assistant who accused Bobby Moore of stealing a bracelet in Bogota before the
1970 Finals ended up fleeing to the USA, while the owner of the shop lost the
business after it emerged he claimed £6,000 for a £600 bracelet. While Moore
was under house arrest in Bogota, his old mucker Jimmy Greaves just happened to
be passing through as a rally driver. He managed to break into the house, find
Moore and have a chat. When discovered he was asked to leave but immediately
re-admitted after knocking on the front door and announcing himself as a friend
of Moore’s. When England lost 3-2 to Germany in 1970 Quarter Finals, it was only the fourth time in their history that they had lost after leading 2-0, the previous occasion being back in 1929. Gerson,
who played for Brazil in the 1966 and 1970 Finals, is reckoned to have smoked
60 a day. Paul Breitner scored the first goal in the 1974 World Cup
Finals, helping West Germany to beat Chile 1-0. In 1982 he scored the last goal
of the tournament when notching a consolation for Germany during their 3-1
defeat in the Final against Italy. East
Germany’s 1-0 Group win over West Germany in the 1974 Holland Finals was the
only occasion the two Germany’s met in an international. These Finals were also
the first where the hair of some players looked longer than their shorts. When Yugoslavia beat Zaire 9-0 in the 1974 Finals, seven different players scored for them – a Finals record. That year, Scotland became the first team to be eliminated without losing a match, a feat repeated by England in Spain in 1982. The team
which ended Italian keeper Dino Zoff’s record international run of 1,143
minutes without conceding a goal on June 15th. 1974 was Haiti,
though Italy won 3-1. Haiti’s Ernst Jean-Joseph was the first player to be
caught taking drugs in the Finals. Scotland’s Willie Johnston was sent home for
drugs in 1978, though he was only taking a substance prescribed by his club
doctor at West Brom. Hungarian Ferenc Puskas and Germany’s Gerd Muller both
scored in the Finals of four major tournaments, including a World Cup Final,
European Cup Final and World Club Championship. Puskas also scored in an
Olympic Final and Muller in the European Championship Final. Muller scored 68
goals in 62 games for Germany, and the last – the winner in the 1974 Final
against Holland was his 14th in two World Cup Finals, setting a
record for the competition. Germany won 45 of his 62 games, losing only 8. English
referee Jack Taylor awarded a penalty to Holland in the 1974 Final before their
opponents Germany had touched the ball. It was the first penalty to be awarded
in a Final. Germany still won 2-1. In 1978, Welshman Clive Thomas
controversially blew for time just as Brazil scored against Sweden – after
eight seconds of injury time. A military junta had taken power in Argentina before the 1978 Finals were played there. The first man to be President of the organising committee, General Actis, was blown up, as was a policeman trying to remove a bomb from the press centre. The first
African team to win a Finals game was Tunisia, who overcame Mexico 3-1 on June
2nd 1978 at the Cordiviola Stadium in Rosario. Robbie Rensenbrink’s penalty against Scotland in 1978 was
the 1,000th goal in World Cup Final history. There
were 17 fouls in the first ten minutes of the 0-0 between Argentina and Brazil
in 1978. Brazil failed to make the Final that year despite remaining unbeaten
in every game – in 1974 and 1978 there was a second Group stage for the last
eight qualifiers, with the two Group winners playing the Final. Golden Boot winner in 1978, Mario Kempes, a kind of Ronaldo with hair, was the only European-based player in Cesar Menotti’s winning Argentinian squad. World Cup
winners from 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970 and 1978 played together in 1980 – in the
film about footballers escaping from a game against the Nazis in Paris, “Escape
to Victory.” When Norman Whiteside played for Northern Ireland against
Yugoslavia in Saragossa on June 17th, 1982, he became the youngest
player ever to feature in the Finals at the age of 17 years and 41 days,
beating Pele by 194 days. Algeria became the first African side to win two games in the Finals with wins against West Germany and Chile in 1982. Cameroon were the first African team to reach the Quarters, beating Columbia 2-1 after extra time in the first knock out round of 1990 to do so. Cameroon made their first appearance at the Finals in 1982 but were eliminated without losing a game. The 1982
German Manager Jupp Derwall did not keep his promise to go home if his team
lost to Algeria, even though an Algerian newspaper ran the headline “Bon
Voyage, Mr. Derwall” and offered to pay for his ticket. The first World Cup Finals game to be settled by penalties was the Semi-Final in 1982 between France and West Germany which was 1-1 at 90 minutes and 3-3 after Extra Time when the Germans came back from 1-3. They were helped by arguably the worst ever Finals foul by Harald Scumacher, the German keeper who smashed into Battiston when the Frenchman was through on goal, leaving him with concussion and broken teeth and in need of oxygen. Schumacher should not have stayed on the pitch to help his team win the shoot-out. The 1982
Golden Boot winner, Italy’s Paolo Rossi, was banned for three years in 1980 for
being playing a part in a betting scandal. His sentence was cut to two years
though and he cleared to play in Spain only six weeks before the tournament
started. Italy’s Dino Zoff was the first goalkeeper to captain a Final winning side in 1982. When
Uruguay’s Jose Batista was sent off against Scotland in 1986, he had been on
the pitch a mere 55 seconds. Alex (now Sir Alex) Ferguson was the Scottish
Manager. They have had just seven shots on target in their three Group games. Ray Wilkins was the first English player to be sent off in
the Finals after throwing the ball towards the referee. He lasted 42 minutes of
the awful 0-0 with Morocco on June 6th, 1986. Morocco became the
first African side to qualify for the second stage and the first to win a
Group. When England beat Poland 3-0 in their last Group game to go through as
well, it was the first time they had won a Finals game by more than two goals.
It was their 32nd attempt. Peter
Shilton kept ten clean sheets for England in the ’82, ’86 and 90 Finals – a
record. The 1990 hosts, Italy, won six and drew one of their games, yet finished third behind Argentina, who won and lost two of theirs – including the Final, one of the worst ever, which West Germany won 1-0 with a penalty. Argentina were first team to fail to score in a Final, though both finalists (Brazil and Italy) managed the feat in 1994 and Brazil again in 1998. Cameroon’s
coach for the 1990 Finals was Russian and he only ever spoke to them through an
interpreter. 1994 was the first time that none of the home countries qualified for the Finals. It was also the first time that three points for a win were awarded in Group games. Argentina’s
Claudio Caniggia was able to play in the 1994 Finals because his drug ban for
taking cocaine ended one month before they started. Maradona was sent home
before the Group stages were complete this time though because his samples each
contained a little matter of FIVE banned substances. No-one had played in more
Finals games as captain. The 1994 game between Switzerland and the USA at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit was the first Finals tie to be staged indoors. Italy’s
Pagliuca was the first goalkeeper to be sent off in the Finals after he brought
down Leonhardsen in Italy’s Group game with Norway in 1994. Italy still won 1-0
even though they had ten men, Roberto Baggio in goal, Maldini limping on the
wing, and Massaro at full back. One of the 1994 personalities was the Mexican goalkeeper Jorge Campos who had been allowed to design his own kit and consequently looked as though he had emerged from some kind of swamp or green lagoon and then caught fire. Only one
team failed to score in the 1994 Finals: Greece. As a result of his own goal in the 34th minute
of Columbia’s 2-1 defeat by the USA on June 22nd, 1994, Andres
Escobar was shot dead ten days later in Medellin, the capital of Columbia’s
drug trade. Someone had lost a bet because of the defeat. Makes you proud to be
human, doesn’t it? When
Roger Milla came on for Cameroon after 65 minutes of their Group game with
Brazil in 1994, he became the oldest player to have featured in the Finals at
the age of 42 years and 39 days. Two minutes earlier, his colleague Rigobert
Song had become the oldest player to be sent off in the Finals, a week short of
his 18th birthday. The three
that follow Milla in the oldest players list are all goalkeepers – Pat Jennings
(41 when he played for Northern Ireland) , Peter Shilton and Dino Zoff (both
40). Milla was originally “Miller” but he changed the spelling so he sounded
more African. Milla scored within two minutes of coming on in Cameroon’s next game, the fastest goals scored by a sub. in the Finals. In the same game, which Russia won 6-1, Olag Salenko scored five, the record tally for any individual in a Finals game. German
striker Oliver Bierhoff trained as an opera singer before choosing football as
his career. In order to qualify for the 1998 Finals, Jamaica had to
play 20 games. The day after the draw with Mexico (which secured their place)
was declared a national holiday. Brazil is
the only country to have appeared in all World Cup Finals. They won the 1962
Cup using only twelve players, too. In 1990, they made 56 chances in their four
games, but scored from only four of them. The only player to have appeared in five different Finals is the Mexico keeper Antonio Carbajal. He played in the 1950, 1954, 1958, 1962 and 1966 finals. The
rising tide of reds: in the 1970 Finals there no red cards; in 1974 – 5; in
1978 – 3; in 1982 – 5; in 1986 – 8; in 1990 – 13; in 1994 – 15 and in 1998 –
22. Sobering thought: the Irish Republic have played nine games in World Cup Finals, winning one and scoring only four goals. England
have beaten every other country they have ever played at least once. Except
Iceland and Saudi Arabia. Now there’s a fact that might enable you to win a pint
or two. THOSE
NATIONAL ANTHEMS Some edited highlights… If you are a kareoke king or queen, Soccerlotto thought you might like to sing along with some of the anthems. It might be more enjoyable than listening to them. Don’t expect too much post-modernist irony though. And remember George Bernard Shaw’s quip that if anything is too silly to say, we should try singing it. ARGENTINA:
The
United Provinces of the South Have now
displayed their worthy throne And the
free peoples of the world reply We salute
the great people of Argentina! BELGIUM:
Flourish
O country in unbreakable unity Always be
yourself and free Trust in
the word that, undaunted, you can speak For King,
our freedom and the law… BRAZIL:
The image
of the Southern Cross shines resplendent A giant
by nature, you are beautiful, Strong, a
fearless colossus, And your
future mirrors this grandeur. CAMEROON: You are
the tomb where our fathers are resting, You are
the garden they prepared and conceived. We strive
so that you may become beautiful and prosperous And one
day at last we shall see it all achieved. CROATIA: Flow
Drava, Sava flow Nor you,
Danube, lose your power Azure
sea, tell to the world That a
Croat loves his nation As long
as sun warms his ploughed land As long
as storms lash his oak trees As long
as the grave hides his dead As long
as his living heart beats DENMARK: There is
a lovely land Whose
pretty woods of beeches Grow near
the Baltic strand Grow near
the Baltic strand. It waves
from the valley up to the hills, Its name
is ancient Denmark And here
lives Freya still And here
lives Freya still. ENGLAND: O Lord
our God arise, Scatter
her enemies And make
them fall. Confound
their politics, Frustrate
their knavish tricks, On thee
our hopes we fix - God save
us all. (second verse
– where God is more of a democrat.) FRANCE: Against
us the blood-stained banner Of
tyranny is raised The
banner of tyranny is raised Hear in
the fields the roar Of her
fierce soldiers They come
right into our arms To slaughter
our sons and our consorts… GERMANY: Bloom in
the splendour of this happiness Bloom my
German fatherland… ITALY: Italian
brothers Italy has
woken up She has
wreathed her With the
helmet of Scipio… JAPAN: May thy
peaceful reign last long! May it
last for thousands of years Until
this tiny stone will grow into a massive rock And the
moss will cover it all deep and thick… MEXICO: But
should a foreign enemy Dare to
profane your soil with his tread, Know,
beloved fatherland, that heaven gave you A soldier
in each of your sons… NIGERIA: The
labour of our heroes past Shall
never be in vain To serve
with courage and strength One
nation bound in freedom, peace and unity… PARAGUAY: Paraguayians!
Rebublic or Death! It was
our strength that gave us our final freedom Neither
tyrants nor slaves can continue Where
unity and equality reign… SAUDI
ARABIA: Hasten to
Glory and Supremacy! Glorify
the Creator of the Heavens And raise
the green fluttering flag Carrying
the emblem of light SOUTH
AFRICA: Descend O
Spirit Descend
Holy Spirit Lord
bless us Your
family… SOUTH
KOREA: Eternally
Naamsaam’s pine trees stand like armour secure Through
whatever tempest or danger as our symbol of strength… SPAIN: There are
no official words to the Spanish national anthem. Bit like Irish dancing really, where they forgot the arm
movements. USA: And the
rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air Gave
proof through the night that our flag was still there O say,
does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave O’er the
land of the free and the home of the brave? |