The Soccer World Championship, 1958

If one was to list the top-10 largest sport events in Sweden, the SWC in 1958 would place high. Aside from the Olympic Games in 1912 it’s the greatest event Sweden ever has had the honor of hosting. Under usual circumstances every country with a good-enugh-world-rank has to play a qualifying round to reach the main games. However FIFA’s (International Federation of Football Association; Zurich, Switzerland) SWC-rules states that the team of the hosting country is automatically qualified for the group games. Furthermore it should also be mentioned that being the hosting team formally counts as placing first in a qualifying group.

The teams/countries that win their groups have the advantage of getting lower ranked teams (FIFA’s rankings) as their possible opponents in the drawings. Hence Sweden got Wales, Hungary and Mexico in their group (group 3). No disrespect for those countries, but it’s definitely better than standing against Brazil as an example. Sweden reached the final but was unfortunately, for the Swedes, beaten by Brazil with 5-2. However it was a public success with over 50, 000 watching the final and millions of viewers catching the game on the telly.

A lot of players got their breakthrough in the 1958 WC. Including the infamous “Grenoli-trio”; Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm. Another player who got his career started was the even more famous PelÐ"© (though not back then), at the time being only 17 years old. Though he didn’t get to play much it’s always a good experience for young players to come along and simply learn from watching.

The SWC in 1958 was the start of something big. It got more of the Swedes interested in soccer and therefore the Swedish football clubs got more contributions from their sponsors. In other words this started the growth of Swedish football and also overall involvement in