World Cup: 1974

The four years between 1970 and 1974 were a time of great change in international football.

England did not qualify for the 1974 World Cup, and manager Alf Ramsey lost his job. Pele had retired from international football, and the new Brazil team had only three players from World Cup winning team in Mexico.

Holland and West Germany were now the strongest teams in world football


Despite dominating European club football, Holland were a little fortunate to qualify for the 1974 World Cup, which was held in West Germany. In their group they were level on points with Belgium and only qualified on goal difference. Belgium were also unlucky to have a 'good' goal disallowed for offside in their final game against the Dutch qualifiers.

New format

The format for the competition changed. Instead of qualifying rounds there were two group phases and then a final. In the first group phase, Holland beat Uruguay and Bulgaria. They then drew against Sweden

In the second phase they began to play the superb football. Cruyff performed brilliantly in the 4-0 victory over Argentina. He scored the first goal with a piece of superb skill.

In the other half of the draw, West Germany lost to East Germany in a first round group game. They still qualified for the second phase, where they beat Yugoslavia and Sweden. Their final group game was against Poland. Needing a draw to qualify for the final, they won with a late Gerd Müller goal.

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