BRAZIL 6-5 POLAND

When Poland lined up for their World Cup debut against Brazil in Strasbourg, few gave them a chance against one of the tournament favourites. However, a match that was expected to be a routine win for the South Americans turned into a World Cup classic, which finished up with the only examples in tournament history of two players scoring four goals in the same match and a player scoring four times but still finishing on the losing side.

It was the Brazilians who got off to the faster start. Star striker Leónidas opened the scoring in the 18th minute, but Poland soon settled into their first experience of World Cup football and were level within five minutes, Ernest Wilimowski scoring the equaliser. That goal seemed to be just a brief ray of hope for Poland however as Brazil took complete control of the match through the remainder of the first half. Leónidas was dominant and he restored the lead just minutes after Poland's equaliser, and added a third goal on the stroke of half-time to complete his hat-trick. There seemed to be no way back for the Poles.

Poland were not finished though, and within a quarter of an hour of the restart they were level at 3-3. Leonard Piontek pulled one goal back on 50 minutes, and ten minutes later Wilimowski scored the equaliser. Even Peració's goal on 72 minutes would not prove to be enough for Brazil as Wilimowski struck again in the dying minutes of the match to level the scores again. Poland had somehow forced the tie into extra-time.

Having been kept quiet for most of the second half by Wilimowski's heroics, extra-time saw Leónidas return to centre-stage. Brazil recovered from the disappointment of conceding the late equaliser to retake the lead in just the third minute of the extra period, Leónidas scoring his fourth goal of the game, and when Romeu scored midway through extra-time to give Brazil a 6-4 lead they seemed to have finally broken the Polish resistance. Wilimowski would not give up, and scored his fourth goal a couple of minutes from the end to give Brazil more anxious moments, but there was no time for another late equaliser and Poland were beaten.

Having eventually got past Poland, Brazil went on to reach the semi-finals where they would lose out to defending champions Italy, and finished in third place with Leónidas as the tournament's leading goalscorer. Poland, on the other hand, would not return to the World Cup Finals for 36 years, but the contribution they and particularly Ernest Wilimowski made to the 1938 tournament would never be forgotten.