History of the FIFA World Cup as earning the Bronze Ball award. He led Bulgaria to a shock 2-1 win over defending champions Germany in the quarter-finals, before losing 2–1 to Italy and losing the third place play-off to Sweden, 4–0. The 1998 World Cup was held in France, and had an expanded format featuring 32 teams. Iran beat the Maldives in qualification by the widest margin in World Cup history – 17–0. In the finals, the second round match between France and Paraguay witnessed the first golden goal in World Cup history, as Laurent Blanc scored to give the hosts a 1–0 victory. Hosts France
Germany at the FIFA World Cup Germany played the favoured Hungarian Golden Team in the first round of the tournament and suffered a 3-8 loss, their highest World Cup defeat to this day. In the final, Hungary was up by two goals after only eight minutes, so it came as a surprise that the German team not only quickly equalized but turned the game around in the 84th minute with a goal scored by Helmut Rahn. The strongly contested game between Germany and host nation England went into extra time after a score of 2-2 after 90 minutes. Geoff Hurst's goal in the 101st minute is