4. The 1990 FIFA World Cup was the 14th FIFA
WorldCup,the quadrennilinternational football world championship tournament. It was held from 8 June
to 8 July 1990 in Italy, the second country to host the event twice (the first being Mexico
in 1986). Teams representing 116 national football associations entered, and qualification began in April
1988. A total of 22 teams qualified from this process, along with host nation Italy and defending
champion Argentina.
The tournament was won by West Germany, their third World Cup title. They beat Argentina 1–0 at
the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, a rematch of the previous final four years earlier. Italy finished third,
and England fourth, after both lost their semi-finals in penalty shootous. This was the last tournament to
feature a team from the divided Germany, with the country being reunified later in 1990, as well as teams
from the Eastern Bloc prior to the end of the Cold War in 1991, as the Soviet
Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslaviateams made appearances. Costa Ric, Ireland and the UAE made their
first appearances in the finals. The official match ball was the Adidas Etrusco Unico.
The 1990 World Cup is widely regarded as one of the poorest World Cups.It generated an average 2.21
goals per game – a record low that still stands– and a then-record 16 red cards, including the first ever
dismissal in a final. This World Cup saw the introduction of the pre-match Fair Play Flag (then inscribed
with "Fair Play Please") to encourage fair play. Defensive tactics led to the introduction of the back-pass
rule in 1992, and three points for a win instead of two at future World Cups.
Nonetheless, the 1990 World Cup stands as one of the most watched events in television history,
garnering an estimated 26.69 million non-unique viewers over the course of the tournament.] This was
the first World Cup to be officially recorded and transmitted in HDTV by the Italian broadcaster RAIin
association with Japan's NHK At the time it was the most watched World Cup in history in non-unique
viewers, but was bettered by the 1994 and 2002 World Cups.
