Paul Rouse

So the Coppa del Duce would be presented to the winners alongside.

So that's a bit like Donald Trump's FIFA Peace Prize.

I think that it would be a fool who would argue that there wasn't a certain element of insularity and arrogance in it.

There was a belief in the power still of British football, of the importance of the home international championship played every year.

And there was a certain arrogance involved in that.

But I don't think that's the defining reason.

I don't think that's the beginning and end of the conversation because it's that classic thing that we do in history.

We see an event the way it is now and we project its importance backwards.

But in 1930, 1934, and the 1930s in general, the World Cup was very much in the making.

FIFA was an organisation which was still, relatively speaking, an amateur organisation, which was only beginning to gather power.

It wasn't clear who else was going to play, what really was involved in qualifying, or were you just invited to come?

So I think it's wrong to say that this is simply a mark of arrogance and insularity.

Some good teams do go.

One of the, I suppose, enduring threads of the World Cup and its history is the claim that almost every country who got there did so by either having accommodating referees on their side, having opponents who'd been bought off, or having kicked the tower out of anyone who got in their way.

And

of course the truth of it is that every successful international team has a really good administrative people beside them who make sure or push to get a game played in a particular place with a particular referee that's understood

It is also the case that physical fitness and physical strength was absolutely, it is not possible to win a World Cup without being physically ready.

And we'll see that when it comes to the Brazilian teams of the 60s and 70s and the Argentinian teams later on.

So what was it particularly that allowed Italy win?

There is no doubt that Austria and Hungary were more technically capable than Italy.