As football grew in popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, there was an appetite to not only prove the dominance of a team against their domestic rivals, but also to test themselves against the best of the European neighbours. For some, this meant leaving their home country to embark on tours; for the most successful teams, invited to tour in the Western hemisphere, it sometimes even meant withdrawing from a league campaign for a season to accommodate what were usually very lucrative playing schedules. But the friendlies played in these tours conferred only dubious bragging rights. There was a need for something bigger, something more official, where the best of the best would play against each other for more than bragging rights.
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