ABSTRACT
Early in 1933 a Hungarian newspaper, Pesti Naplo (Budapest), published a ranking list of national football teams (Table 6.1). 1 England and Scotland, along with Austria and Italy, were placed in the ‘super class’ category, wherein Austria was assigned first place. This is not the appropriate place to assess the validity of a ranking scheme seemingly inspired by those employed for boxing and tennis. 2 Nor is there time to consider the resulting controversy concerning, say, the assignment of first place to a non-British team or the exclusion of the other home countries, especially as Wales went on to win both the 1932-33 and 1933-34 home international championships. To some extent, exclusion might be rationalised by their failure hitherto to play full internationals against non-British teams; in fact, Wales’ first such match did not take place until later in 1933. The Republic of Ireland’s omission seems more difficult to explain, since recent results against Belgium, Holland and Spain clearly warranted inclusion with at least a second class ranking. Finally, the listing’s Eurocentrism, viewed alongside the results of the 1930 World Cup, emphasises the need to take full account of Latin American football.
