Regular World Cup participants both before and after the war, Switzerland had the honour of hosting the tournament in 1954 and hoped to advance further than the Quarter Final stage they had reached in both 1934 and 1938.Records would be broken by the hosts, though not necessarily in the way they might have expected. After progressing from the group stage Switzerland faced near neighbours Austria in the Quarter Final. Josef Hügi scored a hat-trick and Robert Ballaman managed a double but those five goals still weren't enough to prevent the Austrians advancing with a 7-5 victory. This remains the highest scoring game in World Cup history to this day.