The FIFA World Cup was the inaugurated in 1930 It took place in Uruguay from 13 to 30 July 1930.
FIFA, football’s international governing body, selected Uruguay as host nation, as the country would be celebrating the centenary of its first constitution, and the Uruguay national football team had successfully retained their football title at the 1928 Summer Olympics.
All matches were played in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, the majority at the Estadio Centenario, which was built for the tournament.
Thirteen teams (seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America) entered the tournament. Only a few European teams chose to participate because of the difficulty of travelling to South America.
The teams were divided into four groups, with the winner of each group progressing to the semi-finals. The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously, and were won by France and the United States, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0, respectively.
Lucien Laurent of France scored the first goal in World Cup history, while US goalkeeper Jimmy Douglas posted the first official “clean sheet” in the tournament.
Argentina, Uruguay, the United States and Yugoslavia each won their respective groups to qualify for the semi-finals.
In the final, hosts and pre-tournament favourites Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 68,346 people, and became the first nation to win the World Cup.
The 13 teams were drawn into four groups, with Group 1 containing four teams, and the others containing only three. Each group played a round-robin format, with two points awarded for a win and one point for a draw.
If two teams had tied on points to win a group, a play-off would have been used to decide the group winner; however, this was not necessary. The four group winners progressed to the knockout semi-final stage. Extra time was available in the knockout matches if the two teams were level after ninety minutes, but it was not required.
Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and the United States were seeded, and were kept apart in the draw,Bwhich took place in Montevideo once all the teams arrived.
Since there were no qualifying games, the opening two matches of the tournament were the first World Cup games ever played, taking place simultaneously on 13 July 1930; France beat Mexico 4–1 at the Estadio Pocitos, while the United States defeated Belgium 3–0 at the same time at the Estadio Gran Parque Central. France’s Lucien Laurent was the scorer of the first World Cup goal.