BERLIN, GERMANY - JULY 15: Bastian Schweinsteiger, Per Mertersacker, Manuel Neuer and Kevin Grosskreutz celebrate during the German team victory ceremony on July 15, 2014 in Berlin, Germany. Germany won the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil match against Argentina in Rio de Janeiro on July 13. (Photo by Markus Gilliar - Pool /Getty Images)
Ranking All Twenty World Cup Winners
The captain of the 1954 World Cup winners, Fritz Walter of West Germany (seated, centre) holding a replica of the Jules Rimet trophy, during a visit to meet the Spanish team at their training camp in Birmingham before their 1st round match against West Germany at Villa Park during the FIFA World Cup in England, circa July 1966. (Photo by Gerry Armes/Birmingham Mail/Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Top World Cup Winners All-Time: Number Twenty – West Germany, 1954
The 1954 World Cup would mark the second time that the best team truly did not win. While it was the West Germans who fought out a nasty 2-1 win in the rain and the mud in the final, it was their opponents, the Hungarians, who had proven to be the top team in the tournament.
They were on a 32-match unbeaten streak and had even toppled the eventual champions of West Germany 8-2 in the Group Stages.
In fact, the Hungarians scored 17 goals in two matches in the group stages before scoring another eight in the two matches before losing to West Germany. They would end up scoring 27 in the entire competition across just five matches.
It may have been the rain that defeated the Hungarians, but the Germans had to play in the same conditions. So while we may wonder if the result would have been switched in better weather, the fact of the matter is that the West German defense had learned from the scolding initial loss to Hungary and dug in their heels in the second go-around.
