Spain hosted an expanded 1982 World Cup which featured 24 teams, the first expansion since 1934. The teams were divided into six groups of four, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the second round, where they split into four groups of three. The winners of each group advanced to the semi-finals. Cameroon, Algeria, Honduras, New Zealand and Kuwait were the debutants . The group match between Kuwait and France was stage of a farcical incident.
As the French were leading 3-1, the Kuwaiti team stopped playing after hearing a whistle from the stands which they thought had come from referee, as French defender Maxime Bossis scored. As the Kuwaiti team were protesting the goal, Sheikh Fahid Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, president of the Kuwaiti Football Association, rushed onto the pitch and gave the referee a piece of his mind, who proceeded to disallow the goal. Bossis scored another valid goal a few minutes later and France won 4-1.
Also during the group stages Hungary beat El Salvador 10-1, which has been the only occasion to this day that a team scored 10 goals in a World Cup match. The group match between West Germany and Austria later resulted in a change of World Cup rules, after both teams visibly aimed to keep the qualification ensuring 1-0 scoreline over 80 minutes. The semi-final between West Germany and France saw another controversy when German keeper Harald Schumacher's challenge took out Patrick Battiston, with the score at 1-1. Schumacher escaped a red card, and Germany won in a penalty shoot-out, after coming back to level from having gone 1-3 down.
The final was won by Italy, making Italian captain Dino Zoff the oldest player to win the World Cup and Alessandro Altobelli to become the first substitute player to score in the final. Italian striker Paolo Rossi, who was making his comeback after a match-fixing scandal and the ensuing ban, was the tournament top-scorer with six goals including a classic hat-trick against Brazil.
Mexico was again considered to hold the world cup as the host country in 1986. In the year of 1986, the format was changed again to select the only 16 teams. In that time, It was also decided that the final two matches in all groups would kick off simultaneously, to ensure complete fairness. Canada, Denmark and Iraq made their first finals. José Batista of Uruguay set a World Cup record being sent off after a mere 56 seconds into the game against Scotland.
The quarterfinal match between England and Argentina is remembered for two remarkable Diego Maradona goals, later regarded as player of the tournament, the first, the controversial Hand of God goal, and the second, considered to be the Goal of the Century, in which he dribbled half the length of the field past five English players before scoring. In the final, Argentina bit West Germany 3-2, inspired by Diego Maradona, who set up Jorge Burruchaga for the winner.
The 1990 World Cup was held in Italy. Cameroon reached the quarter-finals, a first for an African team. In that year of 1990, Mexico was unable to compete in the 1990 World Cup preliminary competition because of lack of form but in that time, the United States qualified for the first time since 1950. An unpleasant episode marred the South American preliminaries: during the match between Brazil and Chile, a firework landed close to the Chilean goalkeeper Rojas, who then feigned injury by cutting his own face with a razor blade he had hidden in his glove.
In that time, his team refused to continue the match because of which Rojas was suspended for 12 years and Chile was banned from the next World Cup in 1994. After finishing runners-up in the two previous tournaments, West Germany won their third World Cup under the head coach Franz Beckenbauer by the captain Lothar Matthäus. The best performer of the tournament was Salvatore Schillaci one of the best player of Italy scoring 6 goals.
The 1994 World Cup was held for the first time as the host country in the USA. In that time, Yugoslavia was excluded due to UN sanctions in connection with the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Russia played their first World Cup competition as a new country, with Greece, Nigeria, Norway and Saudi Arabia as the other first-timers.
In that time, Diego Mara Dona was banned mid-tournament after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs — the tournament also saw tragedy when Colombian defender Andrés Escobar was murdered 10 days after his own-goal against the hosts in their first round match that eliminated Colombia. The total attendance for the final tournament of nearly 3.6 million remains the greatest in World Cup history.
Oleg Salenko of Russia became the first player to score five goals in a single World Cup finals game in his country's 6-1 group stage win over Cameroon. The same match, 42-year old Roger Milla scored the only goal for Cameroon, becoming the oldest player ever to score in a World Cup match. In the year of 1994 world cup, Brazil defeated Italy over penalty shoots in the final. Brazil won the tournament scoring 3 goals under the head coach Carlos Alberto Parreira by the captain Dunga when Italy scored 2 goals. The best performer of the tournament was Hristo Stoichkov and Oleg Salenko. Both the player scored 6 goals.
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