The Greatest World Cup Matches of All Time

Three things, and quality of play is not reliably one of them. The first is stakes: the match has to be able to end something. Knockout and decisive group games dominate every list because elimination gives each mistake a permanent consequence. A brilliant 4-0 in the opening round is entertainment; a scrappy 1-0 that sends a country home for four years is drama.

The second is swing. The matches people rewatch change their own story at least twice — a lead built and lost, a comeback answered, a game that looks finished three times and is not. The third is individual brilliance under exactly that pressure, which is rarer than it sounds.

5

goals in the extra time of Italy vs West Germany, 1970

7-1

Germany over the hosts in a 2014 semifinal

3-3

the 2022 final, before penalties settled it

Notice what is missing: technical polish, even competent defending. Several of the greatest soccer matches ever played were defensively terrible. What they had was consequence.

Italy 4-3 West Germany, the 1970 semifinal at the Estadio Azteca, is the match that got a plaque on the stadium wall. It did not look like a classic for most of its length. Roberto Boninsegna put Italy ahead inside ten minutes, and Italy then did what Italian teams of that era did best: dropped deep, killed the tempo, and sat on the lead.

It nearly worked. In the last seconds of stoppage time Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, a defender who had spent his club career in Italy and almost never scored, arrived at the far post for 1-1. Everything after that was chaos: five goals in about twenty minutes of extra time, from Gerd Müller, Tarcisio Burgnich, Gigi Riva, Müller again, and finally Gianni Rivera. Franz Beckenbauer played much of it with his arm strapped to his chest after dislocating a shoulder, because West Germany had used both substitutions.

The Azteca sits above 2,200 metres, and by the end both teams were visibly walking. That is the honest verdict: not a masterpiece, but two exhausted sides trading punches with a World Cup final at stake.

Brazil 4-1 Italy is the match people mean when they say the sport peaked in 1970. Brazil arrived with a forward line built out of players who were each the creative hub of their own club, and refused to compromise it. Italy arrived with the tightest defense in the tournament and the best system for suffocating that kind of team.

Pelé opened the scoring with a header, hanging in the air off a cross from the left. Boninsegna equalized after a loose backheel in the Brazilian half. Then Gérson hit a low shot from distance, Jairzinho added a third — he had by then scored in every round — and the fourth became the most replayed passage of football ever filmed.

Watch that goal once for the ball and once for the shape. Clodoaldo beats several Italians in his own half, in a sequence that would be reckless in any other match. The move goes left, comes inside, and reaches Pelé at the edge of the box, where he does the least spectacular and most difficult thing available: lays the ball flat into empty space to his right without looking, because he already knows his right back is running. Carlos Alberto hits it first time.

The goals you remember are the ones you saw coming a second before they happened, and could do nothing about.

Argentina 2-1 England, the 1986 quarterfinal, is the strangest entry on any list of great matches, because the football either side of a four-minute window is ordinary. The context was not: the two countries had fought a war over the Falkland Islands four years earlier, and both squads spent the buildup insisting the match was only football.

Early in the second half a sliced clearance looped back toward the England goalkeeper, and Diego Maradona rose with him and punched the ball in. The referee gave it. Four minutes later Maradona collected the ball inside his own half, turned away from two players in one movement, and ran most of the length of the pitch past four more before rounding the keeper. Gary Lineker headed one back late, and England found nothing else.

The same player, in the same half, produced the most cynical goal in World Cup history and the one voted the greatest. That is why the match endures: it refuses to let you hold a clean opinion about him.

• Watch the second goal on the wide camera: Jorge Valdano runs the whole way in support and never gets the ball.
• Count how many England players get a clean chance to foul him and decline — the professional foul was not yet a red card.
• Note the surface. The Azteca pitch in 1986 was patchy and slow, which makes the run harder, not easier.

Some of the best world cup matches are great because of what they destroyed. The United States beating England 1-0 in 1950 at Belo Horizonte is the founding example. England were playing their first World Cup and were among the favorites; the American side was part-timers, and Joe Gaetjens scored the only goal with a diving header.

Italy 3-2 Brazil in 1982, at the small Sarrià stadium in Barcelona, killed the most loved team that never won anything. Brazil needed only a draw and, being that Brazil, kept attacking anyway. Paolo Rossi scored all three Italian goals; Sócrates and Falcão twice pulled Brazil level; Dino Zoff smothered a shot on his line late.

Then Germany 7-1 Brazil, the 2014 semifinal, back in Belo Horizonte sixty-four years after Gaetjens. Brazil were hosting, without their injured best player and their suspended captain. Germany scored five goals in roughly eighteen minutes of the first half, after which the match stopped being a contest. Miroslav Klose became the World Cup all-time leading scorer with the second of them. It is not a good match. It is an unforgettable one.

England 4-2 West Germany at Wembley in 1966 is the original never-ending final. West Germany scored first, Geoff Hurst headed an equalizer, Martin Peters put England ahead late, and Wolfgang Weber forced extra time with a scrambled goal in the last minute. In extra time Hurst hit a shot that came down off the underside of the bar and was given — an argument now six decades old — then completed his hat-trick in the final seconds.

Fifty-six years later, Argentina and France produced the only final that stands beside it. Argentina led 2-0 at halftime through a Lionel Messi penalty and an Ángel Di María goal, and France had barely had a shot. Then Kylian Mbappé scored a penalty and a volley inside about ninety seconds. Messi scored again in extra time, Mbappé answered from the spot for a hat-trick, and Emiliano Martínez saved a one-on-one at the death. Argentina won the shootout 4-2.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup final is the rare modern match that beats its own hype, and the best starting point for anyone new to this. It needs no historical context, and the footage is pristine.

• Both were pulled level only in the closing minutes of normal time.
• Both produced a hat-trick in a World Cup final — Hurst in 1966, Mbappé in 2022.
• Both needed extra time, and 2022 needed penalties on top of that.

Most people meet these matches as a four-minute highlight package, the worst possible format for them. Highlights show you goals; these games are about the twenty minutes between goals, when you can feel a team starting to break. The two-hour commitment is the point.

1. 1

   Find the full match

   Search the teams and year plus "full match" rather than "highlights." Official tournament archives carry complete broadcasts of most finals and famous knockout games.

2. 2

   Read the team sheets first

   Old broadcasts rarely put names on screen and the camera is far away. Five minutes learning who wears which number turns a blur into a readable match.

3. 3

   Adjust for the era rules

   Before 1992 a keeper could pick up a back-pass, so time-wasting looks different. Tackles from behind were legal for decades, and only two substitutions were allowed until 1995.

4. 4

   Treat the wide shot as a gift

   The single distant camera that makes old footage look primitive also shows all twenty-two players at once. Modern coverage rarely lets you read shape.

5. 5

   Do not skip the crowd

   The Azteca in 1970, Wembley in 1966, and Lusail in 2022 sound nothing alike, and the noise tells you a match has turned before the picture does.

Watch two or three of these properly and the modern game reads differently — why an overlapping full back in 1970 was radical, why one extra touch in 1982 cost a country a tournament. It is also the fastest way to want to play again, which is what Pickup Soccer is for.