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Brazil 1950 World Cup Team

The final pool took the form of a final group stage, involving all teams who won their group stage: Brazil, Spain, Sweden, and Uruguay. The World Cup winner would be the team that managed to finish on top of this group. The final group's six matches were shared between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Brazil played all its final group matches at the Estádio do Maracanã in Rio while the games that didn't involve the host nation were played in São Paulo. Brazil won their first two matches with a 7-1 thrashing of Sweden and 6-1 rout of Spain. Before the decisive match, Brazil were sitting on top of the final group and had one game left to play Uruguay who were just behind in second and only a point behind. On July 16th, before a huge home crowd of 174,000 (some estimated as 205,000) in the Estádio do Maracanã, the host nation only had to draw against Uruguay and the trophy would be theirs.

After such crushing victories over Spain and Sweden, it looked certain they would take the title, especially as the home nation went ahead in the second minute of the second half, thanks to a goal from Friaça. However, Uruguay equalized and then with just over 11 minutes left to play, went ahead 2-1 and Uruguay were crowned World Cup winners for a second time. The stunning defeat of Brazil is referred to as the "Maracanazo".

The 1950 FIFA World Cup, held in Brazil, was the fourth staging of the FIFA World Cup, and the first staged in 12 years due to World War II. It was also the first tournament that the trophy itself would be referred to as the Jules Rimet Cup, to mark the 25th anniversary of Rimet's presidency of FIFA. It was won by Uruguay, who had won the inaugural competition in 1930, clinching the cup by beating the hosts Brazil 2-1 in the deciding match of the four-team final group (this was the only tournament not decided by a one-match final).

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