1958 FIFA World Cup qualification

Qualification Process

The qualification rounds for the four previous World Cups differed widely, with controversial rules and many withdrawals. From this tournament onwards, FIFA divided the teams into several continental zones, assigned a pre-determined number of places in the final tournament to each zone, and delegated the organisation of the qualifying tournaments to its confederations: UEFA of Europe, CONMEBOL of South America, NAFC of North America, CCCF of Central America and Caribbean, CAF of Africa and AFC of Asia (and OFC of Oceania after it was formed later).

The 16 spots available in the 1958 World Cup would be distributed among the continental zones as follows:

• Europe (UEFA): 11 places, 2 of them went to automatic qualifiers Sweden and West Germany, while the other 9 places were contested by 27 teams.
• South America (CONMEBOL): 3 places, contested by 9 teams.
• North, Central America and Caribbean (NAFC/CCCF): 1 place, contested by 6 teams.
• Africa (CAF) and Asia (AFC): 1 place, contested by 11 teams (including Israel, Cyprus and Turkey). However, FIFA also imposed a rule that no team would qualify without playing at least one match because many teams qualified for previous World Cups without playing due to withdrawals of their opponents. Because Israel won the African and Asian zone under this circumstance, FIFA required them to enter a play-off against a team from Europe who initially did not qualify, with the winner of this play-off qualifying. Therefore, effectively in the end, a total of 11.5 places were granted to Europe while only 0.5 places were granted to Africa and Asia.

A total of 46 teams played at least one qualifying match. A total of 89 qualifying matches were played, and 341 goals were scored (an average of 3.83 per match).

Listed below are the dates and results of the qualification rounds.

Confederation qualification

AFC and CAF

Main article: 1958 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC and CAF)

CCCF and NAFC

Main article: 1958 FIFA World Cup qualification (CCCF and NAFC)

The 6 teams were divided into 2 groups with 3 teams each (Group 1 with teams from North America and Group 2 with teams from Central America and Caribbean). The teams played each other on a home-and-away basis. The group winners advanced to the Final Round. The two teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis with the winner qualifying for the final tournament.

CONMEBOL

Main article: 1958 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONMEBOL)

The 9 teams were divided into 3 groups of 3 teams each. The teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis. The group winners would qualify.

UEFA

Main article: 1958 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)

The 27 teams were divided into 9 groups, each featuring 3 teams. The teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis. The group winners would qualify. Denmark, East Germany, Iceland and the Soviet Union made their debuts in World Cup qualification.

Inter-confederation play-offs: AFC/CAF v UEFA

Main article: 1958 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC/CAF–UEFA play-off)

A special play-off was created between Israel and the runner-up of one of the UEFA/CONMEBOL/CCCF/NAFC Groups, where the teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis, with the winner qualifying. Two-time champions Uruguay withdrew, while Northern Ireland and Italy had one final match yet to play, so all three were left out. Belgium, Bulgaria, Wales, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Peru, Bolivia and Costa Rica were left to draw. After Belgium refused, Wales, the runner-up of UEFA Group 4, was the team drawn from the UEFA group runners-up.

Qualified teams

Goalscorers

;8 goals

• ENG Tommy Taylor

;7 goals

• FRA Thadée Cisowski

;5 goals

• MEX Crescencio Gutiérrez
• SCO Jackie Mudie

;4 goals

• BEL Paul Vandenberg
• TCH Tadeusz Kraus
• ENG John Atyeo
• HUN Ferenc Machos
• IDN Rusli Ramang
• POL Edward Jankowski
• URS Nikita Simonyan
• ESP Ladislao Kubala

;3 goals

• ARG Omar Oreste Corbatta
• ARG Norberto Menéndez
• AUT Gerhard Hanappi
• BEL Maurice Willems
• BOL Máximo Alcócer
• BUL Hristo Iliev
• CRC Jorge Hernán Monge
• CRC Rodolfo Herrera González
• CRC Álvaro Murillo
• FRA Jean Vincent
• IRL Dermot Curtis
• MEX Alfredo Hernández
• MEX Héctor Hernández
• MEX Salvador Reyes Monteón
• NED Abe Lenstra
• NED Noud van Melis
• NIR Jimmy McIlroy
• PAR Juan Bautista Agüero
• PAR Florencio Amarilla
• URS Anatoli Ilyin
• URS Eduard Streltsov
• WAL Des Palmer
• YUG Muhamed Mujić

;2 goals

• ARG Roberto Zárate
• AUT Hans Buzek
• AUT Theodor Wagner
• BEL Henri Coppens
• BEL Victor Mees
• BEL Richard Orlans
• BUL Georgi Dimitrov
• BUL Panayot Panayotov
• CAN Art Hughes
• CAN Brian Philley
• CAN Gogie Stewart
• CHI Jaime Ramírez
• CRC Mario Cordero
• CRC Rubén Jiménez Rodríguez
• CRC Danilo Montero Campos
• Territory of Curaçao Wilfred de Lanoy
• DEN Ove Bech Nielsen
• GDR Günther Wirth
• ENG Duncan Edwards
• FRA Célestin Oliver
• FRA Roger Piantoni
• FRA Joseph Ujlaki
• GUA Francisco López Contreras
• HUN Lajos Csordás
• HUN Nándor Hidegkuti
• ISL Ríkharður Jónsson
• ISL Þórður Jónsson
• ISL Þórður Þórðarson
• ITA Guido Gratton
• MEX Carlos González
• MEX Héctor Hernández
• MEX Ligorio López
• MEX Enrique Sesma
• NED Cor van der Gijp
• NOR Harald Hennum
• PAR Ángel Jara Saguier
• PAR Enrique Jara Saguier
• POL Lucjan Brychczy
• POL Gerard Cieślik
• POR Manuel Vasques
• ROU Alexandru Ene
• URS Anatoli Isayev
• URS Igor Netto
• ESP Estanislao Basora
• ESP Alfredo di Stéfano
• ESP Luis Suárez Miramontes
• SUI Josef Hügi
• SUI Roger Vonlanthen
• USA Ed Murphy
• WAL Ivor Allchurch
• WAL Cliff Jones
• YUG Miloš Milutinović

;1 goal

• ARG Norberto Conde
• ARG Eliseo Prado
• AUT Robert Dienst
• AUT Walter Haummer
• AUT Karl Koller
• AUT Ernst Kozlicek
• AUT Helmut Senekowitsch
• AUT Karl Stotz
• AUT Otto Walzhofer
• BEL André Van Herpe
• BEL Denis Houf
• BEL André Piters
• BOL Ricardo Alcón
• BOL Ausberto García
• BRA Didi
• BRA Índio
• BUL Spiro Debarski
• BUL Todor Diev
• BUL Ivan Petkov Kolev
• BUL Krum Yanev
• CAN Norm McLeod
• CAN Ostap Steckiw
• CHI Guillermo Díaz
• CHN Nian Weisi
• CHN Sun Fucheng
• CHN Wang Lu
• CHN Zhang Honggen
• COL Carlos Arango
• COL Ricardo Díaz
• COL Jaime Gutiérrez
• CRC Juan Soto Quiros
• Territory of Curaçao Edgard Meulens
• Territory of Curaçao Hubert Sambo
• TCH Vlastimil Bubník
• TCH Pavol Molnár
• TCH Anton Moravčík
• TCH Ladislav Novák
• DEN Aage Rou Jensen
• DEN John Jensen
• GDR Manfred Kaiser
• GDR Helmut Müller
• GDR Willy Tröger
• ENG Johnny Haynes
• FIN Olavi Lahtinen
• FIN Mauri Vanhanen
• FRA Said Brahimi
• FRA René Dereuddre
• FRA Maryan Wisnieski
• GRE Kostas Nestoridis
• GRE Vaggelis Panakis
• GUA Augusto Espinoza
• GUA Jorge Vickers
• HUN József Bozsik
• HUN Károly Sándor
• HUN Lajos Tichy
• IDN Eddang Witarsa
• IRL George Cummins
• IRL Johnny Gavin
• IRL Alf Ringstead
• ITA Sergio Cervato
• ITA Dino da Costa
• ITA Gino Pivatelli
• LUX Jean-Pierre Fiedler
• LUX Johnny Halsdorf
• LUX Léon Letsch
• MEX Jaime Belmonte
• NED Toon Brusselers
• NED Coen Dillen
• NED Kees Rijvers
• NED Servaas Wilkes
• NIR Billy Bingham
• NIR Tommy Casey
• NIR Wilbur Cush
• NIR Billy Simpson
• NOR Kjell Kristiansen
• PAR Óscar Aguilera
• PER Alberto Terry
• POL Ginter Gawlik
• POR Matateu
• POR António Dias Teixeira
• ROU Cornel Cacoveanu
• ROU Titus Ozon
• ROU Iosif Petschovsky
• ROU Nicolae Tătaru
• SCO John Hewie
• SCO Tommy Ring
• SCO Archie Robertson
• SCO Alex Scott
• SCO Gordon Smith
• URS Genrich Fedosov
• URS Valentin Kozmich Ivanov
• URS Boris Tatushin
• URS Yuri Voinov
• ESP Miguel González
• ESP Enrique Mateos
• SDN Suleiman Faris
• SDN Siddiq Manzul
• SUI Robert Ballaman
• SUI Ferdinando Riva
• SYR Jabra Al-Zarqa
• USA Harry Keough
• USA Ruben Mendoza
• USA James Murphy
• URU Javier Ambrois
• URU Eladio Benítez
• URU William Martínez
• URU Óscar Míguez
• WAL Dave Bowen
• WAL Mel Charles
• WAL Roy Vernon
• YUG Dobrosav Krstić
• YUG Aleksandar Petaković

;1 own goal

• NOR Edgar Falch (playing against Hungary)
• WAL Ray Daniel (playing against Czechoslovakia)

Notes

• Wales is the only team to ever qualify after having been eliminated and then reinstated. Their qualification meant that all four Home Nations qualified (the only time in history), and that no team from the separate African and Asian zone qualified. This remained Wales' only appearance in the finals until 2022, when they qualified through the European zone for the first time.
• Two-time former champions Uruguay, who in their three previous appearances had always benefited from direct qualifications or withdrawals, now failed in what was the first time they actually had to play qualifying games.
• Italy were eliminated in qualifying for the first time.

Footnotes

References

1. "The Joy of Six: international football play-offs". The Guardian.