1) The Goddess of Victory

There's nothing particularly wrong with the Fifa World Cup™ Trophy. As five-kilo dods of solid 18-carat gold with two malachite layers go, it's as serviceable as they come. But just look at the name of it again. The Fifa World Cup™ Trophy. A functional and corporate monicker betraying a complete lack of invaluable – and dear God how they'd love to buy some of this – old-school glamour.

By comparison, the original trophy – French sculptor Abel Lafleur's The Goddess of Victory, a solid-silver-with-gold-plate statuette of Greek goddess Nike on a lapis lazuli stand – boasted 14 inches of hopelessly exotic old-time sass. It spent the entire second world war hidden from the fascists in a shoebox under an Italian FA administrator's bed. It was stolen in London in 1966, only to be found under a bush by a mangy dog possessing more brain cells than the entire Met. It looked great. And there it is, an inanimate Zelig, present and compliant at all of football's greatest moments, happy to be cradled in the brave hands of Obdulio Varela, Fritz Walter, Bobby Moore, Carlos Alberto, still gleaming.

But the Fifa World Cup™ Trophy especially can't compete with the mystical beauty of Coupe Jules Rimet – it was renamed after the competition's founder in 1946 – because, well, it's been tragically lost to us for ever, melted down by goons for coins. When the trophy went walkabout pre-Pickles in 1966, a spokesman for the Brazilian FA opined that such larceny "would never have happened in Brazil. Even Brazilian thieves love football and would never commit this sacrilege." Oh dear.

After Brazil received the cup permanently in 1970, only one thing was ever going to happen. It was put on permanent display in a bullet-proof glass-and-wooden case in the foyer of the Brazilian Football Federation's HQ in Rio de Janeiro, where it sat peacefully for 13 years. Until, on the evening of 19 December 1983, burglars entered the building and hacked through the wooden back of the cabinet with a crowbar. This time Pickles, having hung himself by his own lead in 1971 while chasing a cat, was not around to sniff it out. Coupe Jules Rimet was never found, commonly thought to have been melted down. For coins. By goons.

"It is not the fault of the thieves but of the authorities," suggested Pele, who'd gamboled about with the thing three times, practically attached to it. "The people are desperate, without money and without food." For a man often knocked for his relentless corporate shilling, it's a quote worth remembering; a generous – humane and leftist – response from someone who surely felt a solid-silver sliver die inside.

2) Bonkers travel

You could hardly blame Italy for travelling to the 1950 World Cup finals in Brazil by boat. A year earlier, nearly every single one of their top players had been killed in the Superga air disaster, which had wiped out Il Grande Torino. The head of the Azzurri selection committee, Ferruccio Novo, was also president of Torino, only missing the flight by chance; he understandably lobbied for a journey by sea; he understandably got his way.

Problem was, the two-week cruise wasn't particularly conducive to athletic improvement. So with little training done, Italy rolled off the boat onto dry land at São Paolo and, knackered and out of condition, immediately lost their first game to a Sweden side who were without all their best players in Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm. (The Swedes had deliberately not picked them – turnips – as they were playing abroad for Milan. But that's another story.) The result effectively meant Italy fell at the very first hurdle, 90 minutes of red-faced effort ending their 16-year possession of Coupe Jules Rimet. A farce, you would say, though one which could be put down to an unfortunate and unavoidable combination of circumstances. Until you realise the players were then allowed to fly back home.

It wasn't the only organisational fiasco suffered by a visiting team to the 1950 finals. England booked themselves into a tourist hotel right on the Copacabana beach. Tom Finney, Stan Mortensen, Alf Ramsey and co – already knackered after an airborne Paris-Lisbon-Dakar rally – found themselves unable to sleep properly with a constant hubbub developing outside. Never mind, they'd be home quite soon.

3) Kit catastrophes

You would never have aired the opinion around Sir Alf, but anything England could do, the infamous Argentina team of 1966 could do better. If the English travel arrangements in 1950 left a lot to be desired, the ones made for captain and star man Antonio Rattin and his men 16 years later by comparison were a total shambles. Based in Birmingham for the finals, Argentina decided to stage a training session at Lilleshall, 36 miles away. Unfortunately, their bus driver didn't bother to pack a map. He got lost, and the journey took over two hours.

The temperamental Rattin was destined to slip into a wild rage that day, though it wouldn't be the sub-Butler-and-Blakey antics that'd set him off. Because upon finally reaching Lilleshall, manager Juan Carlos Lorenzo found that the route map wasn't the only thing the driver had forgotten to take on the bus; he'd failed to load the team's kit too. As a result, the most talented squad from South America were forced to train for the biggest championship in world football while wearing kit borrowed from a local gymnasium. Rattin – six foot three inches tall in his pumps – was reportedly reduced to squeezing into a tight green children's vest. Fuse lit, on the way back Rattin delivered his views on Lorenzo's managerial methods via the medium of song, his team-mates harmonising in the background. And everyone thinks they went off home raging at Alf Ramsey.

But at least Rattin's PE-lesson embarrassment was played out behind closed doors. No such luck for the French in 1978, who were forced to play their group game against Hungary in Mar del Plata wearing hastily borrowed green-and-white-striped shirts from local club Kimberley. A garish assault on the senses, the shirts clashing with France's blue shorts, it was an early case of TV executives calling the shots – albeit because the only shirts France and Hungary had taken with them were indistinguishable on black-and-white sets.

Ah, the amount of money we'd pay to see the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo running around in tatty hand-me-downs from Pretoria schoolkids. Though we fear Nike and adidas might outbid us regarding this dream.

4) Top-quality official posters

It's heartbreaking how quickly these things have gone downhill. The very first poster, Guillermo Laborde's Art Deco effort for Uruguay in 1930, is probably also the best, the keeper plucking the ball from the air just as it's heading into the top corner, a funky modern angular typeface, and no mention whatsoever of Fifa (tee hee hee). The next two posters were also influenced by the Art Deco school, although there's no avoiding the stench of European fascism: Italy's effort in 1934 is dominated by the fasces, the symbol of Mussolini's Partito Nazionale Fascista, while the proud France 1938 poster serves as an unfortunate and unintentional reminder of the jackboot.

Switzerland's 1954 classic was eerily prescient, a depiction of a ball sailing past a startled goalkeeper and billowing the net. Not bad for a tournament delivering scorelines like 8-3, 7-5, 9-0, 7-2, 4-4, two 7-0s, three 4-2s and a 3-2 final. After that, typography and logos took centre stage, with classics of varying stripes at Mexico 70, West Germany 74, and (a highly under-rated one, this) Argentina 78. Joan Miro's surreal swipes for Espana 1982 rounded off an excellent run – at which point the marketing men and computer designers took over, and the whole thing went to predictable pot.

The decline in standard was almost immediate. Mexico 86 was a rubbish photographic travesty compared to the stone-cold classic of 16 years earlier. The organisers of Italia 90 didn't even bother trying. By the time of the new millennium, this focus-grouped filth was being flung contemptuously in the world's eye. The 2010 effort has at least had a little thought put into it – it's simple, clear and clever enough – but remember how Laborde couldn't bring himself to namecheck the people who commissioned him on his work of art? Well, look along the bottom this time.

5) Top-quality official films

England fans will neither agree nor care, but the 1966 World Cup wasn't much to write home about. The official Fifa film – Goal! – was, though. A real period piece, it's an idiosyncratic ramble through the tournament in the quintessential English style: constant moaning ("lots of effort, organisation, no goals... football today") and a complete refusal to let one's hair down ("Liverpool, en fete," announces the plum-voiced voiceover man in Cholmondley-Warner monotone, over shots of half-deserted streets decorated with a bit of bunting).

The 1970 edition – narrated by Patrick Allen, later the voice of both the heart-attack-inducing Protect and Survive public information films and Vic Reeves' Big Night Out – came from even further leftfield, boasting a plot involving a runaway child cadging a lift from, and being in no way abducted by, a debonair playboy and his glamorous girlfriend. It was like an episode of Ian Oglivy-era The Saint crossed with a particularly grim edition of the news.

Of course, the marketing men have long since got hold of the cameras, rendering each glossy movie totally indistinguishable from the one preceding it; the posters again. Though seeing you could say exactly the same thing about the last few tournaments, it's possibly a bit unfair to lump all the blame on to them.

6) Countries qualifying, then not bothering to turn up

Before the second world war, back in the World Cup's infancy, countries had a much more cavalier attitude to qualifying. In 1934, reigning champions Uruguay didn't travel to Italy, hot with pique after none of Europe's top sides came to its 1930 party. Uruguay didn't travel to France in 1938 either, as all the countries bar one from the Americas bowed out, in a funk over Fifa staging consecutive tournaments in Europe. (Only Cuba travelled, a total shower, losing 8-0 to Sweden after edging past the equally dismal Romania in the first round.) Austria didn't go to France either despite the invite sent to them after qualification, but to be fair they'd just been annexed by the Nazis.

England and Scotland, meanwhile, had spent the decade before hostilities swanning around as though the World Cup was beneath them. Aye. Working outside of Fifa at the time, both nations were technically ineligible to enter, though constant invites were proffered – and pompously rebuffed. After the war, they rejoined the Fifa fold – whereupon the Scots would redefine hubris with a particularly spectacular grand gesture.

With Fifa desperate to get as many European teams as possible over to the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, hoping to avoid a repeat of the 1930 Uruguayan farce, the organisers offered places to the top two finishers in that year's Home Internationals. Incredibly, Scottish FA blazer George Graham announced from the outset that they'd only go if they topped the table; second would be nowhere.

Fate couldn't resist. With only the Scotland-England stramash to play, both countries were already sure of the top two places, both guaranteed trips to Brazil. However, as a result of Graham's golden edict, Scotland needed a draw to claim top spot. With the self-inflicted pressure piled on, the Scots went down to a 1-0 defeat against a side with passports already in their back pockets and not a care in the world. After the game, with reality snapping into cold focus, Graham refused to change his mind, despite Scotland captain George Young, flanked by his opposite number Billy Wright, pleading for reason.

Two other countries also turned down places in 1950: Turkey decided they couldn't afford to compete, while the barefooted players of India didn't want to play with boots on. But it was the Scottish decision – principled, strangely heroic, and clankingly stupid – that really baffled. They'd have to wait until 1954 to play in the finals, where they were summarily skelped 7-0 by Uruguay, the World Cup's karmic angel giving the new boys a rare old toe-poke up the kilt.

Thanks to Jonathan Wilson, whose new book The Anatomy of England is both excellent and out now.