Teams that no longer exist: World Cup sides from vanished nations
Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the USSR, East Germany and Zaire left their mark on the World Cup before the political map erased their names.
The World Cup's records are full of teams that no longer exist: countries that competed with distinction before history redrew their borders.
Yugoslavia is the best example. They were semi-finalists and fourth at the first World Cup in 1930 and repeated that finish in 1962. Czechoslovakia, for their part, were world runners-up twice, in 1934 and 1962, losing the final on both occasions.
The Soviet Union posted their best result in 1966, reaching fourth place. And East Germany (the GDR) wrote an unforgettable page in their only World Cup, in 1974: on 22 June they beat West Germany 1-0 in Hamburg, through a Jürgen Sparwasser goal, in the only official match in history between the two Germanys.
At that same 1974 World Cup, Zaire — today the Democratic Republic of the Congo — made their debut and suffered a crushing 0-9 defeat to Yugoslavia, one of the heaviest scorelines in the tournament's history.
Flags that no longer fly, anthems no longer heard: those teams are proof that the map of the world, and of football, never stops changing. Their feats still stand, under the names of countries that today exist only in history books.
Source: Wikipedia (Yugoslavia national football team; Czechoslovakia national football team; Soviet Union national football team; East Germany v West Germany 1974; 1974 FIFA World Cup Group 2).