Another Day, Another DespotThis is one of my all-time favorite, have-to-tell-everyone-I'm-talking-to-about-soccer/football World Cup trivia bits.
Mussolini famously exploited the 1934 World Cup Italy's propaganda value to maximum effect. Knowing that a winning Italy team would unite his country behind the Azzurri, Mussolini used the World Cup to show the power holders of the world the values of fascism and the "support" the leader had from his nation.
Of course, to insure that the Azzurri were to win the World Cup, Mussolini had to fingure out how they would beat sides like Uruguay, who had won the inaugural World Cup of 1930, and pretty much every Olympic and international tournament up to that point. To see to this, Il Duce had a closed-door meeting with the men who would be refeering these games.
Now, of course, anyone with half a brain knew what Mussolini was cooking up, but the tournament was such a farce--and here's the great tidbit I love so much and have been buiding up to--that a referee actually headed the ball the Azzurri in order to keeper their forward momentum going. When Azzurri scored off the header, the ref silenced the opposing team's protestations, stating calmy that he had know idea what they were talking about.
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