History of the FIFA World Cup by FIFA to the regions of Asia, Oceania and Africa. The eventual qualifiers from the zone, North Korea, became the first Asian team to reach the quarter-finals, eliminating Italy in the process. England won the tournament, although João Havelange (former FIFA president from 1974 to 1998) claimed that the 1966 and 1974 World Cups were fixed so that England and Germany would win respectively. Geoff Hurst became the first and to this day the only player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup Final and Eusébio, whose team Portugal were taking part in their first World Cup, was the
1966 FIFA World Cup place on 30 July 1966, the 36th anniversary of the first final. This remains the latest date that any tournament has concluded. The reason for the unusually late scheduling of the tournament appears to lie with the outside broadcast commitments of the BBC, which also had commitments to cover Wimbledon (which ran between 20 June and 2 July) and the Open Golf Championship (6 to 9 July). 1966 was a World Cup with few goals as the teams began to play much more tactically and defensively. This was exemplified by Alf Ramsey's England as they finished top of Group 1