Football fans will be well aware that in 1930 Uruguay both hosted and won the first World Cup, but less well known is the diplomatic backstory of the country’s entry on to the international sporting stage. In the 1920s, Uruguay’s foreign minister, who led one of the country’s two rival football associations, coordinated with a diplomat serving in Switzerland to give his federation legitimacy by joining Fifa. The diplomat also entered Uruguay into the 1924 Olympic football tournament in Paris – which was emerging as the premier venue for global football. That provoked panic back in Uruguay: nobody had expected him to do that and nobody quite knew how they would afford it; a federation official ended up having to use his own house as collateral on a loan to pay for the team’s passage across the Atlantic.
Once they got to Europe, Uruguay quickly won admiration. First in nine friendlies as they travelled through Spain and then at the Olympic Games itself, where they became by far the biggest draw. The great novelist Colette was even dispatched to the villa where Uruguay were staying to record her impressions for the newspaper Le Matin. Playing brilliant, coherent passing football, Uruguay took gold at the Games.
