The anniversary tournament in 1954 was to take place in Switzerland to celebrate the 50th anniversary of FIFA, which had headquarters in Zurich since 1932. 36 national teams took part in the World Cup qualifiers and 16 made the finals. Sweden and Spain, 1950's finalists surprisingly didn't make it this time. Argentina, the World Cup boycotter didn't show up again, and neither did the strong USSR team. First time participants were teams from Korea Republic, Scotland and Turkey (the last two teams chose not to participate in the previous competition).

The rules of the tournament changed again: the first round was played in groups, but in a new way: each group was made up of two seeded and two drawn teams, and they were to play "weaker with stronger". The stronger teams were Uruguay, Hungary, Austria, England, Italy, France, Turkey, and Brazil. A revelation of the games was the West Germany team, that wasn't given any chance for getting out of the group after a loss to Hungary. West Germany got better and better with each match: they crushed Turkey twice (4:1 and 7:1) and defeated Yugoslavia and Austria to face favoured Hungary once again in the finals. The Hungarian team made the final game after heated matches with Brazil and Uruguay (both games 4:2 wins). In the last game of the competition Hungary dominated as expected, but for most of the game the score was tied. The decisive goal came suddenly after a counterattack of the German team and gave West Germany the Rimet Cup. Austria was the 3. place winner.

Top players of the tournament: Ocwirk (Austria), D. Santos, Bauer, Julinho (Brazil), Bozsik, Czibor, Hidegkuti, Kocsis, Puskás (Hungary), Turek, Rahn, F. Walter (West Germany), Varela, Schiaffino (Uruguay).