Alcides Ghiggia

Alcides Edgardo Ghiggia was born on December 22, 1926. He is an Uruguayan former footballer. Alcides Ghiggia played in the right forward position for the Uruguayan national team in the 1950 FIFA World Cup. For the Uruguayan people, Alcides Ghiggia, was one of the light-blue heroes that disputed the match played on July 16, 1950 in the Maracaná Stadium. He is best remembered for scoring the decisive goal in that final match against Brazil just ten minutes before the end of the match. Uruguay won that match with a final score of 2-1, and won the World Cup.

Thanks to the goal Alcides Ghiggia scored, Uruguay was crowned as champion of the World Cup for the second time (Brazil was the favorite team for that World Cup and would have been crowned if there was a tie). On every match of the World Cup in 1950, Ghiggia scored, making four goals in four games, but these turned out to be his only international goals as he represented Uruguay only 12 times between 1950 and 1952. Later on, he played for the Italian national team from 1957-1959 where he played 5 games and scored one goal. Ghiggia was the oldest living player to attend the opening ceremony of World Cup 2006 of Germany in Munich on June 9, 2006.