Cameroon's epic encounter with Serbia is arguably the best game we've seen so far at Qatar 2022 – but does it make our all-time list?
If there's one thing the World Cup guarantees, it's drama.
Cameroon's dramatic draw with Serbia at Qatar 2022 is yet another case in point.
The tournament never fails to generate tension, which is wholly unsurprising given we're talking about the pinnacle of professional football. The stakes are never as high as they are at a World Cup.
Some games, though, have been elevated above all others, renowned for their quality, or perhaps even their notoriety. And sometimes both.
Below, GOAL runs through the most memorable matches in World Cup history…
Getty ImagesBrazil 1-2 Uruguay | 1950
The legendary Brazilian playwright Nelson Rodrigues infamously opined, "Everywhere has its irremediable national catastrophe, something like a Hiroshima. Our catastrophe, our Hiroshima, was the defeat by Uruguay in 1950."
It was an offensively hyperbolic statement but one which provides an insight into the effect 'Maracanazo' ('The Maracana Blow') had on the national psyche.
Brazilians had been supremely confident that the Selecao would win the World Cup on home soil. A celebratory song had been prepared, while one newspaper proclaimed the Selecao 'champions of the world' on the morning of their meeting with Uruguay, which was effectively the final, given only the Celeste could overtake Brazil with a victory in the last match of the round-robin mini-league which concluded the 1950 World Cup.
Brazil, who had beaten Uruguay 5-1 during their Copa America triumph the previous year, only needed a draw to claim the trophy for the first time, and took the lead in the 47th minute through Friaca.
However, Juan Alberto Schiaffino levelled midway through the second half before Alcides Ghiggia scored the most infamous goal in Brazilian football history to win the World Cup for Uruguay.
There were approximately 220,000 people inside the Maracana that day and yet, at the full-time whistle, only the victors' joyous shouts and screams could be heard.
Brazil, as a nation, went into a state of shock. At least two people at the ground took their own lives, while there were a spate of reported suicides across the country.
The Selecao effectively started over, even changing the colour of their kit to the famous yellow shirt and blue shorts combo which we know today. The pain of the ‘Maracanazo’ never truly went away, though. Certainly, some players never recovered.
Augusto, Juvenal, Bigode and Chico never played for the national team again, while Brazil goalkeeper Moacir Barbosa was made a scapegoat for the defeat, as the press felt he should have kept out Ghiggia’s decisive strike.
Zizinho even blamed the media's incessant criticism and ongoing obsession with Maracanazo for his team-mate's death from a heart attack 50 years later.
AdvertisementGettyHungary 2-3 West Germany | 1954
The Wankdorf Stadium was meant to be the venue for a coronation on July 4, 1954. It instead provided the setting for 'The Miracle of Bern'.
Hungary had gone into the World Cup final as the heaviest of favourites. The Mighty Magyars were considered the finest football team the game had ever seen. They were the reigning Olympic champions and on a 32-game unbeaten run. What's more, they had hammered their final opponents, West Germany, in the group stage, with Sandor Kocsis scoring four times in an 8-3 win.
Another rout appeared on the cards when they went 2-0 up after just eight minutes in Bern though Ferenc Puskas, who was carrying an injury, and Zoltan Czibor. However, West Germany had drawn level by the midway point of the first half thanks to Max Worlock and Helmut Rahn.
The underdogs appeared to be revelling in the rain which had descended upon Bern – 'Fritz Walter weather' as it was known because of the German captain's fondness for playing in wet conditions – and they pulled off the biggest of upsets thanks to a second Rahn goal with just six minutes to go.
The game was shrouded in controversy, though, with Hungary adamant that there had been a foul in the lead-up to Germany's second goal, and that a Puskas equaliser had been wrongly ruled out for offside.
There were also subsequent, unverified allegations that the German players had been given, with or without their knowledge, performance-enhancing substances (even though there were no doping regulations at the time).
Others claimed that the victors had merely benefited from wearing revolutionary new adidas boots with screw-in studs that could be adapted to different playing surfaces.
Whatever the truth, Germany's players were feted as heroes and lauded for restoring the confidence of a nation still coming to terms with the fallout from World War II. A film was even made about ‘The Miracle of Bern’.
In Hungary, meanwhile, it was claimed that the shock and anger caused by the defeat sewed the seeds of dissatisfaction with the communist regime of the time that led to the 1956 uprising.
Fair to say, then, that the 1954 World Cup final was one of the most dramatic, and influential, games ever played.
GettyChile 2-0 Italy | 1962
David Coleman famously introduced highlights of Chile's meeting with Italy at the 1962 World Cup as "the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game."
It was difficult to disagree. There had only been two red cards in the game in Santiago – both for Italy – but police had to intervene on four separate occasions in a desperate bid to keep the peace.
The bad blood began before the game, with two Italian journalists provoking uproar in the host nation with their description of Chile as a country of "malnutrition, illiteracy, alcoholism and poverty".
Their Chilean counterparts countered by claiming that Italians were fascists, gangsters and dopers.
There was always a chance, then, that the group game would have an edge to it. What followed, though, was truly shocking.
The first foul was committed after 12 seconds of play, while Giorgio Ferrini was dismissed just eight minutes in. He vehemently contested the decision, though, and had to be escorted from the field by police.
Mario David was shown a red card just before the break and, once again, all hell broke loose, with Leonel Sanchez breaking Humberto Maschio's nose with one of the numerous punches thrown during the ensuing melee.
Chile unsurprisingly went on to win the game, with late goals from Jaime Ramirez and Jorge Toro, but they were mere footnotes in what became known as 'The Battle of Santiago'.
GettyEngland 4-2 West Germany | 1966
For England fans, Kenneth Wolstenholme's commentary on the dying seconds of the 1966 World Cup have long since passed into footballing folklore. "And here comes Hurst. He's got… some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over! It is now!"
Geoff Hurst's thumping finish in the famous 4-2 win over West Germany was historic for a couple of reasons. Firstly, no player had ever previously scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final, and it's a feat that remains unrepeated. Secondly, it saw England crowned world champions for the first – and still only – time in the nation's history.
However, for most neutrals, the game's most memorable moment was not Hurst's third goal, but his second.
With the game delicately poised at 2-2, Hurst unleashed a shot that crashed off the crossbar. The ball bounced back down into the turf before being cleared. Referee Gottfried Dienst was unsure if it had crossed the line, so consulted linesman Tofiq Bahramov, who instructed him to give the goal.
It remains one of football's most controversial calls, as it effectively decided the final in England's favour (the Germans were pouring forward desperately searching for an equaliser when Hurst struck again in the dying seconds).
England fans will tell you that Bahramov had a clear view of the ball crossing the line, and that Roger Hunt's reaction was telling, with the nearby forward immediately raising his hands to celebrate the 'goal' rather than trying to score from the rebound.
Some scientists disagree, though. An experiment carried out at the University of Oxford decades later claimed that video technology showed that 'only' 97 per cent of the ball had crossed the line.
How the Germans must wish they'd had VAR in 1966…