Sports
Nearly a century ago, the first World Cup went off with many hitches
Next summer’s World Cup will be the largest, most complex and most lucrative sporting event in history, with 48 teams playing 104 games in three countries. The tournament is expected to draw a global TV audience of nearly 5 billion and FIFA, the event’s organizer, is hoping for revenues of between $10 billion-$14 billion — which is why lower-bowl tickets for Iran-New Zealand at SoFi Stadium cost nearly $700.
All that seemed unlikely after the first tournament in 1930, when the idea of a soccer World Cup was nearly killed in the cradle, the victim from lack of planning, lack of money and lack of interest. That the competition survived, much less thrived, is nothing short of a miracle, says English writer and podcaster Jonathan Wilson, author of the deeply researched “The Power and Glory: The History of the World Cup.”
“1930, it’s incredibly amateurish in many ways,” Wilson said. “It’s got that sort of almost like a school sports day feel to it.”
Only 13 countries took part in the first tournament; it was supposed to be 16 but the Egyptian team missed its boat to Uruguay while Japan and Siam (now Thailand) couldn’t afford the travel costs and pulled out. England, meanwhile, not only refused to play, but the British press ignored the event, as did much of Europe.
That seemed like a wise decision at the time since the first two matches of the inaugural tournament were affected by snow, with one of the opening games drawing just 4,444 fans. The smallest crowd in World Cup history, estimated at about 300, showed up for another first-round game between Romania and Peru and the TV audience … well, there was none since TV had yet to be invented.
The officiating was beyond suspect — Romania’s manager, Constantin Radulescu, also worked two games as a linesman — and the U.S. trainer, Jack Coll, had to be stretchered off the field during his team’s semifinal — yes, the U.S. made the semifinals! — with Argentina when he lost consciousness after inhaling the fumes from a bottle of chloroform that shattered in his pocket.
In another game, the penalty spots were mistakenly marked 16 yards from goal instead of the regulation 12 — and nobody noticed.
“Some of the details don’t make sense,” Wilson said. “The whole thing is so sort of low grade compared to today.”
When Argentine captain Nolo Ferreira left the tournament and returned home to take his law exams his replacement, Guillermo Stábile, scored a tournament-high eight goals in four games — then never played for the national team again (although he did coach it, leading the La Albiceleste to six South American titles and the 1958 World Cup).
Given the farcical nature of the 1930 World Cup, the tournament probably should have ended right there. Instead, 1930 has become the foundation on which next year’s competition was built.
The origins of the tournament, however, actually make sense. Before 1930, FIFA recognized the winner of the Olympic competition as the world champion. But that event was for amateurs, a point on which the International Olympic Committee would not budge.
With professional soccer growing in popularity, FIFA decided to stage its own breakaway event and play it in Uruguay, the country that had won the last two Olympic titles.
Argentina’s goalkeeper can’t stop a shot by Uruguay during the 1930 World Cup final against Argentina in Montevideo, Uruguay.
(Associated Press)
That quickly proved to be a big mistake. The growing effects of the Great Depression left many countries unable to afford the long, slow steamship trip to South America. The first tournament was open to any country that wanted to play, yet two months before the first game no European teams had agreed to come.
“It was taken very seriously by Uruguay and Argentina,” Wilson said, but not by many others.
That changed shortly after Romania’s King Carol II, who ascended to the throne in a coup that deposed his son, personally selected his country’s World Cup roster and sent it on its way. France quickly agreed to go too, entering a makeshift team under pressure from FIFA president Jules Rimet, a Frenchman. Belgium also buckled under FIFA pressure and all three teams boarded the same ship for the trip to Uruguay, working out together on the 15-day voyage aboard the SS Conte Verde, an Italian ocean liner.
“Even the four European nations who go it’s not entirely clear how seriously they took it,” Wilson said. “The French and Romanians, they kept diaries. They seem to have regarded this as a laugh. We’ll try to win but it doesn’t really matter.”
Things didn’t really get loony until the tournament began. The Bolivian team, for example, played in berets, as did an Argentine midfielder, while the 15 referees who worked the games, some of whom had traveled and socialized with the players on the long boat ride from Europe, dressed formally in knickers, long-sleeve shirts, blazers and ties.
The well-dressed officials spent much of the tournament working with police to break up fights; play was so violent at least two players sustained broken legs and the U.S.-Argentina semifinal descended into a full-out brawl, with one American having four teeth knocked out and another hospitalized with injuries to his stomach.
The tournament finally finished with the hosts beating Argentina 4-2, after which the Argentines broke off diplomatic relations with their neighbor and an angry mob in Buenos Aires stoned the Uruguayan embassy.
Uraguay’s team before the 1930 World Cup final against Argentina.
(Keystone / Getty Images)
Argentina’s soccer team before preparing for the 1930 World Cup final.
(Associated Press)
“It ended,” Wilson said of the tournament, “with everybody sort of fighting each other.”
Few disagreed with the Argentine magazine El Gráfico, which seemed to predict there was little future for the fledgling event. “The World Cup is over,” it wrote. “The development of this competition brought not only an unpleasant atmosphere, but also an ungrateful one.”
Yet nearly a century later, the World Cup is still here. And that, too, was foretold in 1930 in the story of Romanian midfielder Alfred Eisenbeisser (who was also known as Fredi Fieraru because, why not?).
On the journey home from the first World Cup, Eisenbeisser contracted pneumonia and a priest was called to administer the last rites. The ship eventually docked in Genoa and he was taken to a sanatorium while the rest of the team continued on to Romania.
Assuming her son had perished in Italy, Eisenbeisser’s mother arranged a wake — only to have her son stroll into the ceremony very much alive, causing the woman to faint. Eisenbeisser would play 12 more years of professional soccer and compete in figure skating in the 1936 Winter Olympics, where he finished 13th in the pairs competition.
Turns out the reports of Eisenbeisser’s demise, like those of the World Cup, were greatly exaggerated.
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Jorge Messi, the father of soccer star and Argentina captain Lionel Messi, died Saturday at a hospital in the central Argentina city of Rosario. He was 68.
The Rosario-based Club Atlético Newell’s Old Boys announced his death in a social media post that said he had undergone treatment in recent months for an unspecified illness. The post described him as “the pillar and the person who, with vision, rigor and affection, supported the career of the best player of all time, alongside his wife, Celia Cuccittini.”
The South American Football Confederation, CONMEBOL, in a statement also offered its condolences “with respect and affection for Lionel.”
Lionel Messi led Argentina to a runner-up finish in this year’s World Cup. In the team’s first match, against Algeria, he was visibly emotional after scoring the first of his three goals. He said later that he wept for “a reason unrelated to sports.”
“I went through some difficult, complicated days,” he said. “I am grateful to the delegation, to all my teammates, because they were always by my side wishing me strength so that I would be OK.”
Media reports at the time outraged the Messi family, which days later released a statement confirming that “Jorge is experiencing a health issue,” without specifying the nature of his condition.
“A person’s health and the peace of mind of their loved ones should not be the subject of speculation or irresponsible media interest,” according to the statement, which also expressed “discomfort at the lack of sensitivity, respect and scruples with which some people have treated a strictly private and family matter.”
Jorge Messi was a chemical technician and worked as a steelworker. He played soccer as a midfielder and reached the youth ranks of Newell’s Old Boys but had to abandon the sport to complete his mandatory military service in Argentina.
He played a fundamental role in his third son’s career, serving as his agent and managing his business affairs. He was the one who traveled with a young Messi to Barcelona in the early 2000s for the trial that would open the doors to La Masia, the club’s youth academy. Lionel Messi made his professional debut in 2005 and went on to win eight Ballon d’Or awards. He led Argentina to the 2022 World Cup title.
“My dad was always by my side,” Lionel Messi said in a 2007 interview with Radio del Plata. “Sometimes I would lock myself in my room to cry when we arrived in Barcelona, or my dad would do the same without me seeing him, or thinking I didn’t see him. We pretended we were both OK, but we weren’t. My dad even asked me what I wanted to do when we were feeling down, if I wanted to stay or go back, and I wanted to stay, and he stayed with me.”
His father negotiated the contracts with Barça and later his transfers to Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Miami, while also managing the use of his famous son’s image rights and his numerous investments in real estate, hotels, and restaurants.
Jorge Messi (right) served as Lionel Messi’s agent. (Photo by Emma Garcia/picture alliance via Getty Images)
In 2013, father and son were accused by a Spanish prosecutor of trying to conceal earnings from the player’s image rights. Jorge Messi paid more than 5 million euros ($6.6 million) on Aug. 14 to cover alleged back taxes and interest.
The president of Argentina’s soccer federation, Claudio Tapia, on Saturday issued a lengthy statement in which he recognized Jorge Messi “for having raised a person of values: humble, respectful, and deeply committed to others.”
The organization ordered a moment of silence to be observed at all matches across all categories of Argentine soccer and mandated that players, referees and coaching staff wear black armbands.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
PHOENIX — Dodgers reliever Jack Dreyer let loose a shout, balling his hands into fists as he released the tension of the last several minutes — or, from a team perspective, over a week.
The Dodgers had just pulled off a 2-1 win against the Diamondbacks in the 10th inning, and, mercifully, snapped a seven-game losing streak. It was their longest such streak since July 2025. They haven’t had a losing streak longer than seven games since September 2017 (11).
“I think that was the most emotion I’ve ever showed,” said Dreyer, who picked up his first save of the season. “It was nice because I knew I wouldn’t go back out for the next inning. … The game was over. So kind of let the emotions take over for a little bit.”
Before this latest streak, the Dodgers had done an admirable job of not piling up losses. They hadn’t lost more than four straight games until this week. But the Dodgers were swept in two straight series, against the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs heading into the weekend against Arizona (62-56).
The Dodgers’ National League West lead over the second-place Diamondbacks moved up to 8½ games.
Many of the Dodgers’ recent problems still flared. The offense is slumping, and the back end of the bullpen has been shaky. But at least the streak was finally over.
“Man, that was a tough one,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We’ll take it.”
The Dodgers’ offense has been all but silenced in two games against Arizona. A day after Merrill Kelly kept the Dodgers hitless through his first five innings, Arizona starter Brandon Pfaadt gave up only a pair of infield hits to Andy Pages through seven innings.
“I think each individual, there’s a different component,” Roberts said. “But I think collectively, we just gotta come together. We’re just better than this. As we always say, it’s not a try league. We gotta get it done. We gotta be better, and again, to score one or two runs to win, it’s just a hard quality of life. I understand hitting is hard. I did it, but we’ve got a lot of talent in the room.”
Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto was nearly as effective, holding the Diamondbacks to three hits. But he wasn’t as efficient and exited with two outs in the sixth inning, his pitch count up to 107.
The game remained scoreless until Kyle Tucker, whose bat has been hot this road trip, hit a solo home run to right field off Diamondbacks reliever Jonathan Loáisiga in the eighth.
Teoscar Hernández and Hunter Feduccia followed with singles, but both were left stranded when Shohei Ohtani and Pages struck out.
Dodgers reliever Kyle Hurt retired the first two batters in the eighth before giving up a single and back-to-back walks to load the bases. Tanner Scott replaced him and got out of the jam by inducing Waldschmidt to fly out.
In the ninth, Díaz, who gave up a walk-off home run Friday, blew it again, but he at least managed to keep the score tied.
Díaz gave up back-to-back triples to Geraldo Perdomo and Corbin Carroll to tie the score. He retired three of the next four batters, with an intentional walk in between, to send the game into extra innings.
“You saw once they scored the run, man on third base, nobody out, you saw the intensity pick up, the stuff picked up,” Roberts said. “The fastball got better. The slider got better. Even talking to him after the game, that’s how we have to be from the first pitch. That was the first game I saw this year where he had some real intensity.”
Tucker served as the Dodgers’ automatic runner on second base to start the 10th inning, and with two outs, he advanced to third base on a wild pitch, as Feduccia took first on a walk.
That put runners on the corners for Ohtani. He hit a sharp groundball to the right of Diamondbacks first baseman Tim Tawa, who made a diving stop. But the ball rolled away from him as he went to flip to first, giving Ohtani time to reach first and Tucker time to score the go-ahead run.
“I guess that was the game right there,” Tucker said. “So it was a great at-bat out of him and being able to get down the line was huge.”
Clinging to a narrow lead, the Dodgers turned to Dreyer. He struck out Tawa. And then he got James McCann to hit a soft grounder up the middle, but McCann beat second baseman Tommy Edman’s throw to first by a split second.
With runners on the corners, Waldschmidt hit a bouncing comebacker that Dreyer snagged and threw to second before Edman quickly threw to Freddie Freeman to end the game.
“It helps when you have some of the best defensive players in the game behind you,” Dreyer said. “I knew that all I needed to do was get the ball to Tommy and he would take care of the rest. I don’t know if I had too much velo on the throw to him, but once it got to him, he made the play.
“That was fun to watch.”
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits an RBI single in the 10th inning against the Diamondbacks on Saturday.
(Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)
Ohtani plays catch
Fans consolidated in the right field stands as Ohtani warmed up by throwing a weighted plyo ball against the back wall of the visitor’s bullpen and then returned to the outfield to play catch.
It was the first time Ohtani, who threw on flat ground from about 90 feet, has been spotted playing catch before a game since July 22, when he threw a 31-pitch bullpen in Philadelphia. According to the team, he has been keeping his arm moving with plyo ball drills.
Ohtani declined to comment through a team representative.
“It’s sort of Shohei and the training staff driving it, more Shohei,” Roberts said of Ohtani’s throwing schedule. “So I don’t know if he’s going to come back out there [Sunday] and pick up a baseball, or if it’s going to be Monday, but I do think that him getting out there and playing catch is a step in the right direction.”
Sports
Chris Sale and Gerrit Cole set up a pitching duel as Atlanta Braves host the New York Yankees
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We hit another winner on the diamond yesterday with the Rays and Drew Rasmussen getting the victory over the Mariners. It was a very low-scoring game, but that didn’t matter because we came out on the correct side of it. Unfortunately, I lost the full game bet on the Padres, so it was basically a wash. However, I hit on our Jose Altuve bet, so we did end up profitable for the day, and that’s the ultimate goal. Let’s get some profit here as the Braves take on the Yankees.
The Atlanta Braves are quietly having one of the best seasons of any team in baseball. They are the second team to reach 70 wins and are now 8.5 games ahead of the second-place Phillies. There is a lot to like about this team that just keeps winning. They have really strong hitters up and down the lineup. They can beat you with speed, contact hitting, power, and a fairly strong defense. Their pitching staff has had some concerns, but no team is perfect.
Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Chris Sale pitches during the second inning against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, California, on April 6, 2026. (Caroline Brehman/AP Photo)
They do have one of the best pitchers in baseball on the roster, and he takes the pill tonight. Chris Sale has been as good as it gets since coming over to Atlanta. He had two phenomenal years with them already, and this might be his best. He is 12-6 with a 2.08 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP. He also has 143 strikeouts for the season. His wins, ERA, and WHIP are all in the top-10 in the Majors. He was very good in July, allowing just six runs over 27 innings. He had three starts where he didn’t allow a run, although one was a short, three-inning outing. The Yankees don’t have a ton of experience against him, and they are just 4-for-29.
The New York Yankees were going to catch some heat from their fans unless they added Tarik Skubal to the roster at the trade deadline. That didn’t happen, but the team did do some work to try and address their needs. Their biggest need is filling the shoes of Aaron Judge, who has been out for months. You’re not going to find that on the trade market. Instead, they got Luis Garcia Jr. and Heliot Ramos. Neither of those players will make you overly excited, but this is still a team that has 65 wins and is in a comfortable position to make the postseason. Additionally, Judge is trying to return to action sooner rather than later.
Pitcher Gerrit Cole #45 of the New York Yankees pitches against the Chicago Cubs during the second inning of a spring training game at Sloan Park on March 24, 2026 in Mesa, Arizona. (Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images) (Chris Coduto/Getty Images)
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The team turns to Gerrit Cole this afternoon. Cole started the season on the injured list, but has now been back for two full months and is looking more and more like his old self. He has allowed three or fewer runs in each of his past six outings. Two of those were fewer than six innings of work, but he still hit the five-inning threshold in those. He hasn’t been wildly different on the road or at home so far this season, but he has allowed more homers in Yankee Stadium than he has on the road. Braves hitters are not very successful against him, going just 6-for-52.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA – JULY 3: Matt Olson #28 of the Atlanta Braves hits a home run against the New York Mets in the fifth inning at Truist Park on July 3, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Brett Davis/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
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Today might be a day to give off to Matt Olson, he is 0-for-21 against Cole with just two walks and 14 strikeouts. Ouch. I’ll put a player prop on him to not have a hit today. That’s a +122 payout. I’m also going to take the under here. I think Sale and Cole will battle each other out and post lost of scoreless innings. I expect this to be closer to a 2-1 game than a 7-5 score. Give me the under as well as the Olson prop.
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For more sports betting information and plays, follow David on X/Twitter: @futureprez2024
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