On This Day – 13th July
The first ever World Cup matches were played on this day back in 1930, with France playing Mexico and later USA beating Belgium.
France beat Mexico 4-1 in front of only 4,444 fans at the Estadio Pochitos in Montevideo. This was the smallest of the three venues that were used, all three were based in the Uruguayan capital. With a capacity at the time of 10,000, it was only just under half-full for this historic match.
Lucien Laurent was the man to be the first scorer of a World Cup goal, netting France’s opener on 19 minutes.
Marcel Langiller and Andre Maschinot both scored to give France a 3-0 lead at the break before Juan Carreno got one back for Mexico on 70 minutes. Maschinot added a fourth for France with three minutes remaining.
In the later game, USA beat Belgium 3-0 and went on to top their group. They too played in Montevideo, but in the second stadium in the capital city. A near-capacity crowd of 18,436 decided that this game would be worth their admission fee.
The 1930 World Cup was held in Uruguay and many teams decided against travelling out to South America to compete. There were still 13 competing nations and they were:
Argentina, Chile France, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Romania, Peru, USA, Paraguay and Belgium.
USA were the only team from the sides who played on the opening day to qualify for the next round, only to lose 6-1 to Argentina. This round was the Semi Final of the tournament owing to the low number of participants.
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