The FIFA World Cup (also referred to as the Football World Cup, the Soccer World Cup, or simply the World Cup) is an worldwide association football competition contested by the senior men’s national teams of the realtors of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport’s global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the earliest tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War.
The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams contending for the title at venues within the duration of the host nation(s) over a cycle of about a month – this stage is often dubbed the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding 3 years, is used to determine that teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).
The 18 tournaments that experience been concluded have been won by seven weird national teams. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and properties are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy have won four titles, and Germany are coming up surrounded by three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, surrounded by two titles each. England and France have won a single title each, both at home, while Spain or the Netherlands will win the first World Cup in South Africa, that will in addition be the first win for a European team in a finals tournament held outside of Europe.
The World Cup is the world’s most widely viewed sporting event; an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.[1] The latest World Cup is being held in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup should be held in Brazil.
Previous international competitions
The world’s first international football equate was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England,with the first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, taking place in 1884.At this stage the sport was rarely played outside the United Kingdom. As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics (however, the IOC has retroactively upgraded their status to official events), and at the 1906 Intercalated Games.
After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been a failure.
At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official competition. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England’s football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat in 1912 in Stockholm, where the tournament was organised by the Swedish Football Association.
With the Olympic event continuous to be contested only between amateur teams, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between precise clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each one of that represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup,and featured the a multitude of prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the end up with to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur portion from County Durham, to speak for England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. They were considering the trophy to stay forever, as per the rules of the competition.
In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a “world football championship for amateurs”, and took responsibility for managing the event.This paved the way for the world’s first foreign football competition, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, disproved by Egypt and thirteen European teams, and won by Belgium.Uruguay won the approaching two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928.
Estadio Centenario, the location of the first World Cup final in 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay
Due to the deed of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, through President Jules Rimet the driving force, again began looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam reached the conclusion to stage a world championship organised by FIFA. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions (as 1924 was the start of FIFA’s proficient era) and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host earth of the inaugural World Cup tournament.
The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and pricey trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams based on what i read in Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to cause the trip. In total thirteen nations took part: seven from South America, four from Europe and two from what i read in North America.
The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July 1930, and were won by France and USA, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first task in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France.[10] In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and in working at so became the first world to win the World Cup.
World Cups before World War II
After the creation of the World Cup, the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not rules to include football as part of the schedule due to the low popularity of the sport in the United States, as American football had been growing in popularity. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was moderated out of the Games.Olympic football returned at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup.
The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments got the issues of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams got prepared to travel to Europe for the 1934 and 1938 tournaments, with Brazil the only South American collection to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions were cancelled due to World War II and its aftermath.
World Cups after World War II
The 1950 World Cup, held in Brazil, was the first to include British participants. British teams withdrew based on data from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football,[13] but rejoined in 1946 following FIFA’s invitation.[14] The tournament too saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay, who had boycotted the earliest two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament once again in the wake of defeating the host nation Brazil in one of the most famous matches in World Cup history, which was later called the “Maracanazo” (Portuguese: Maracanaço).
Map of countries’ best results
In the tournaments between 1934 and 1978, 16 teams competed in every tournament, except in 1938, when Austria was absorbed into Germany after qualifying, quitting the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when India, Scotland and Turkey withdrew, quitting the tournament with 13 teams.[15] Most of the participating nations were based on what i read in Europe and South America, in on a minute minority from North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were: USA, semi-finalists in 1930; Cuba, quarter-finalists in 1938; Korea DPR, quarter-finalists in 1966; and Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1970.
Expansion to 32 teams
The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982,[16] and then to 32 in 1998,allowing more teams of Africa, Asia and North America to take part. In recent years, teams out of these regions own enjoyed more success, and folks who have obtained the quarter-finals include: Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1986; Cameroon, quarter-finalists in 1990; Korea Republic, finishing in fourth place in 2002; Senegal, along with USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002; and Ghana as quarter-finalists in 2010. Nevertheless, European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g., the quarter-finalists in 1998 and 2006 were all for Europe or South America.
Two hundred teams entered the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds; 198 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, additonally a record 204 countries entered qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Other FIFA tournaments
An equivalent tournament for women’s football, the FIFA Women’s World Cup, was first held in 1991 in the People’s Republic of China.[19] The women’s tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men’s, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.
Football has continued included in every Summer Olympic Games except 1896 and 1932. Unlike many other sports, the men’s football tournament at the Olympics is not a top-level tournament, and since 1992, an under-23 tournament with each team allowed three over-age players.Women’s football made its Olympic debut in 1996, and is proven false between full national sides with no age restrictions.
The FIFA Confederations Cup is a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress-rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by the winners of every of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country.
FIFA also organises global tournaments for youth football (FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup), club football (FIFA Club World Cup), and football variants such as futsal (FIFA Futsal World Cup) and beach soccer (FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup)..
Trophy
From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winner. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, but in 1946 it was renamed after the FIFA president Jules Rimet who set up the earliest tournament. In 1970, Brazil’s third victory in the tournament privy them to keep the trophy permanently. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983, and has never been recovered, apparently melted down by the thieves.
After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. The professionals of FIFA, next from seven multitude of countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, at length opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm (14.2 in) high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg (13.6 lb). The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the foot side of the trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974. The description of the trophy by Gazzaniga was: “The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact person of the sculpture inflate the figures of two athletes at the stirring second of victory.
This new trophy is not awarded to the thriving nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy until the coming up tournament and are awarded a gold-plated replica rather as opposed to the solid gold original.
At the present, all workforces (players and coaches) of the top three teams receive winners’ (gold), runner-ups’ (silver), and third-place medals (bronze). Prior to the 1978 tournament, medals were merely awarded to the eleven players on the pitch at the end of the final and the third-place match. In November 2007, FIFA announced which all workers of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners’ medals.
Format
Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been heard apprehended to thin the field for the concluding tournament.They are held through the six FIFA continental zones (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, and Europe), overseen by their respective confederations. For every tournament, FIFA decides the number of units awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally established on the relative strength of the confederations’ teams.
The qualification procedure can start as the first part of as nearly 3 years before the final tournament and last within the duration of a two-year period. The formats of the qualification tournaments vary between confederations. Usually, one or two real estate are awarded to winners of foreign play-offs. For example, the winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed committe from the Asian zone entered a play-off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup. From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host nations obtained automatic qualification to the final tournament. This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify. Brazil, winners in 2002, got the mainly defending champions to play in a qualifying match.
Final tournament
For the many formats used in previous tournaments, see History of the FIFA World Cup#Format of each ultimate tournament.
The current ultimate tournament features 32 countrywide teams contending over a month in the host nation(s). There are two stages: the group step tracked by the knockout stage.
In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, through the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings and/or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups.The other teams are assigned to different “pots”, usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in every pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints suffer been applied to the allure to ensure that no group contains greater number of as opposed to two European teams or a good deal more than one team from any further confederation.
Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. The go on round of matches of each team is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams.The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, 3 points have been awarded for a win, one for a appeal to and none for a reduction (before, winners received two points).
The ranking of each bunch in each group is determined as follows:
1. Greatest number of points in assembly matches
2. Greatest goal difference in group matches
3. Greatest number of goals scored in commission matches
4. If more than one team remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined as follows:
1. Greatest number of points in head-to-head matches among those teams
2. Greatest intention difference in head-to-head matches among people teams
3. Greatest number of goals scored in head-to-head matches surrounded by persons teams
5. If any of the teams above continue rate after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined by the drawing of lots
The knockout evolution is a single-elimination tournament in that teams play each other in one-off matches, with supplementary time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the “eigth-finals” (aka “round of 16″ or the time round) in which the winner of each team plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.
Hosts
Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA’s congress. The choice of location gave appreciation to controversies, a consequence of the three-week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football. The decision to hold the first World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to sole four European nations competing.The next two World Cups got both held in Europe. The decision to have the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had continued led to understand that the World Cup can rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament.
Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, to avoid times ahead boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, that kept on until the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one seized in Asia, and the only tournament with multiple hosts. South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. The 2014 FIFA World Cup plans to be hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America from the time of 1978, and will be the primarily occasion at which consecutive World Cups are held outside Europe.
2022 World Cups
The host country is now specific in a vote by FIFA’s Executive Committee. This is wrapped up under a single transferable vote system. The national football association of a globe desiring to host the event receives a “Hosting Agreement” from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a firm bid. The bidding establishment also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a projection on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. However, there have been occasions at which the hosts of a large amount of coming years tournaments got announced at the same time, as will be the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament is rotated between confederations, allowing simply countries out of the selected confederation (Africa in 2010, South America in 2014) to bid to host the tournament. The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany’s victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament. However, the policy of continental rotation will not continue past 2014, so any country, not including those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018.This is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding approach for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder.
Performances
See also: Results of host nations in the FIFA World Cup
Six of the seven champions have won one of such a titles additonally playing in the own homeland, the exception being Brazil, who ended as runners-up subsequent to losing the deciding match on home soil in 1950. England (1966) and France (1998) won their merely titles while trifling as host nations. Uruguay (1930), Italy (1934) and Argentina (1978) won their first titles as host nations but suffer gone on to win again, while Germany (1974) won their time title on residential structure soil.
Other nations have additionally carried on successful when hosting the tournament. Sweden (runners-up in 1958), Chile (third place in 1962), Korea Republic (fourth place in 2002), and Mexico (quarter-finals in 1970 and 1986) all have their best possible outcome when serving as hosts. So far, South Africa (2010) was the only host nation to fail to advance beyond the first and foremost round.
Organisation and media coverage
The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely viewed and trailed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is predicted to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million lendees watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, that decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.
Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own mascot or logo. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the 1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot.[42] Recent World Cups have furthermore featured official meet balls specially intended for each World Cup.
Records
Two players share the key in for playing in the a good number of World Cups; Mexico’s Antonio Carbajal (1950–1966) and Germany’s Lothar Matthäus (1982–1998) both played in five tournaments.Matthäus has played the most World Cup matches overall, amongst 25 appearances.Brazil’s Pelé is the only player to undergo won 3 World Cup winners’ medals (1958, 1962, and 1970),[56] with 20 other players who have won two World Cup medals.Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer (1966-74) is the only player to be named to three Finals All-Star Teams, and is also the only player to collect all three sorts of medals (gold, silver, bronze).
The overall top goalscorer in World Cups is Brazil’s Ronaldo, scorer of 15 goals (1998–2006). Germany’s Miroslav Klose (2002–2010) and Gerd Müller (1970–1974) are second, amid 14 goals.[58] The fourth placed goalscorer, France’s Just Fontaine, holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup, as all his 13 goals were scored in the 1958 tournament.
Brazil’s Mário Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer are the only those of us to date to win the World Cup as both player and operated coach. Zagallo won in 1958 and 1962 as a player and in 1970 as head coach.[60] Beckenbauer won in 1974 as captain and in 1990 as head coach.Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo is the easily head coach to ever win two World Cups (1934 and 1938).All World Cup winning head coaches were natives of the country properties coached to victory.
Among the national teams, Germany have played the numerous World Cup matches, with 99[63], while Brazil have scored the most World Cup goals, with 210.[64] The two teams hold played each other only after in the World Cup, in the 2002 final.
Ten players experience been short-listed for the Golden Ball as top player at the World Cup. Chances are it will come lowered to Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands and Xavi Hernandez of Spain. The 5-7 midfielders are towering figures today in the uppermost game of their lives.
Xavi, whose corner kick set up Carles Puyol’s lucrative header in the 1-0 semifinal win for the duration of Germany, personifies Spain’s patient, high- purchase offense. No player at the World Cup has passed additionally often or wrapped up more passes. He has yet to score, but the Spanish attack flows with him.
Sneijder has been more spectacular. His five goals are linked for tops in the tournament, and they include game-winners against Japan in the first round, Slovakia in the second sweet and Brazil in the quarterfinals. He was voted man of the match for the 3-2 semifinal win over Uruguay, as Xavi was for Spain in the victory through Germany.
Having spent three seasons providing Real Madrid, Sneijder is a familiar foil for Xavi and Spain’s other Barcelona-based players. He left before last season for Inter Milan, where he won the Italian league and cup championships as good as the European Champions League, helping knock off Barcelona along the way. He would become the primarily player to celebrate league, domestic cup, European and World Cup titles in the same year.
Sneijder and Xavi rather still personify what we have seen from their teams in South Africa. Xavi is all grace, skill and efficiency; Sneijder is cunning, surprise and opportunism. Xavi has designed frequent patches of brilliance but can’t match Sneijder when it comes to thrills.
Against Brazil, Sneijder delivered a cross based on information from the right side that eluded goalkeeper Julio Cesar, whose path was blocked by teammate Felipe Melo, and sailed into the net. Three minutes later, he scored what he claimed was the first went goal of his life.
Today, the two difference- makers meet with a chance for each to put his imprint on this World Cup. More than one trophy may be at stake.
The FIFA World Cup (also called the Football World Cup, the Soccer World Cup, or simply the World Cup) is an international association football competition contested by the senior men’s national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport’s global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War.
The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).
The 18 tournaments that have been concluded have been won by seven different national teams. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each. England and France have won a single title each, both at home, while Spain or the Netherlands will win their first World Cup in South Africa, which will also be the first win for a European team in a finals tournament held outside of Europe.
The World Cup is the world’s most widely viewed sporting event; an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.[1] The current World Cup is being held in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.
Previous international competitions
The world’s first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England,with the first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, taking place in 1884.At this stage the sport was rarely played outside the United Kingdom. As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics (however, the IOC has retroactively upgraded their status to official events), and at the 1906 Intercalated Games.
After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been a failure.
At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official competition. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England’s football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat in 1912 in Stockholm, where the tournament was organised by the Swedish Football Association.
With the Olympic event continuing to be contested only between amateur teams, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each one of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup,and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. They were given the trophy to keep forever, as per the rules of the competition.
In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a “world football championship for amateurs”, and took responsibility for managing the event.This paved the way for the world’s first intercontinental football competition, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and thirteen European teams, and won by Belgium.Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928.
Estadio Centenario, the location of the first World Cup final in 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay
Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship organised by FIFA. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions (as 1924 was the start of FIFA’s professional era) and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.
The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total thirteen nations took part: seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America.
The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July 1930, and were won by France and USA, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France.[10] In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and in doing so became the first nation to win the World Cup.
World Cups before World War II
After the creation of the World Cup, the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the schedule due to the low popularity of the sport in the United States, as American football had been growing in popularity. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Games.Olympic football returned at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup.
The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 and 1938 tournaments, with Brazil the only South American team to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions were cancelled due to World War II and its aftermath.
World Cups after World War II
The 1950 World Cup, held in Brazil, was the first to include British participants. British teams withdrew from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football,[13] but rejoined in 1946 following FIFA’s invitation.[14] The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay, who had boycotted the previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again after defeating the host nation Brazil in one of the most famous matches in World Cup history, which was later called the “Maracanazo” (Portuguese: Maracanaço).
Map of countries’ best results
In the tournaments between 1934 and 1978, 16 teams competed in each tournament, except in 1938, when Austria was absorbed into Germany after qualifying, leaving the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when India, Scotland and Turkey withdrew, leaving the tournament with 13 teams.[15] Most of the participating nations were from Europe and South America, with a small minority from North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were: USA, semi-finalists in 1930; Cuba, quarter-finalists in 1938; Korea DPR, quarter-finalists in 1966; and Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1970.
Expansion to 32 teams
The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982,[16] and then to 32 in 1998,allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. In recent years, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, and those who have reached the quarter-finals include: Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1986; Cameroon, quarter-finalists in 1990; Korea Republic, finishing in fourth place in 2002; Senegal, along with USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002; and Ghana as quarter-finalists in 2010. Nevertheless, European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g., the quarter-finalists in 1998 and 2006 were all from Europe or South America.
Two hundred teams entered the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds; 198 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, while a record 204 countries entered qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Other FIFA tournaments
An equivalent tournament for women’s football, the FIFA Women’s World Cup, was first held in 1991 in the People’s Republic of China.[19] The women’s tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men’s, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.
Football has been included in every Summer Olympic Games except 1896 and 1932. Unlike many other sports, the men’s football tournament at the Olympics is not a top-level tournament, and since 1992, an under-23 tournament with each team allowed three over-age players.Women’s football made its Olympic debut in 1996, and is contested between full national sides with no age restrictions.
The FIFA Confederations Cup is a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress-rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by the winners of each of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country.
FIFA also organises international tournaments for youth football (FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup), club football (FIFA Club World Cup), and football variants such as futsal (FIFA Futsal World Cup) and beach soccer (FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup)..
Trophy
From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winner. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, but in 1946 it was renamed after the FIFA president Jules Rimet who set up the first tournament. In 1970, Brazil’s third victory in the tournament entitled them to keep the trophy permanently. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983, and has never been recovered, apparently melted down by the thieves.
After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. The experts of FIFA, coming from seven different countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm (14.2 in) high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg (13.6 lb). The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the bottom side of the trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974. The description of the trophy by Gazzaniga was: “The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory.
This new trophy is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy until the next tournament and are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original.
At the present, all members (players and coaches) of the top three teams receive winners’ (gold), runner-ups’ (silver), and third-place medals (bronze). Prior to the 1978 tournament, medals were only awarded to the eleven players on the pitch at the end of the final and the third-place match. In November 2007, FIFA announced that all members of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners’ medals.
Format
Main article: FIFA World Cup qualification
Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been held to thin the field for the final tournament.They are held within the six FIFA continental zones (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, and Europe), overseen by their respective confederations. For each tournament, FIFA decides the number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations’ teams.
The qualification process can start as early as almost three years before the final tournament and last over a two-year period. The formats of the qualification tournaments differ between confederations. Usually, one or two places are awarded to winners of intercontinental play-offs. For example, the winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed team from the Asian zone entered a play-off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup. From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host nations received automatic qualification to the final tournament. This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify. Brazil, winners in 2002, were the first defending champions to play in a qualifying match.
Final tournament
For the various formats used in previous tournaments, see History of the FIFA World Cup#Format of each final tournament.
The current final tournament features 32 national teams competing over a month in the host nation(s). There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage.
In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings and/or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups.The other teams are assigned to different “pots”, usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation.
Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams.The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (before, winners received two points).
The FIFA World Cup (also called the Football World Cup, the Soccer World Cup, or simply the World Cup) is an international association football competition contested by the senior men’s national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport’s global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War.
The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).
The 18 tournaments that have been concluded have been won by seven different national teams. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each. England and France have won a single title each, both at home, while Spain or the Netherlands will win their first World Cup in South Africa, which will also be the first win for a European team in a finals tournament held outside of Europe.
The World Cup is the world’s most widely viewed sporting event; an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.[1] The current World Cup is being held in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.
Previous international competitions
The world’s first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England,with the first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, taking place in 1884.At this stage the sport was rarely played outside the United Kingdom. As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics (however, the IOC has retroactively upgraded their status to official events), and at the 1906 Intercalated Games.
After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been a failure.
At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official competition. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England’s football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat in 1912 in Stockholm, where the tournament was organised by the Swedish Football Association.
With the Olympic event continuing to be contested only between amateur teams, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each one of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup,and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. They were given the trophy to keep forever, as per the rules of the competition.
In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a “world football championship for amateurs”, and took responsibility for managing the event.This paved the way for the world’s first intercontinental football competition, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and thirteen European teams, and won by Belgium.Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928.
Estadio Centenario, the location of the first World Cup final in 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay
Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship organised by FIFA. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions (as 1924 was the start of FIFA’s professional era) and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.
The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total thirteen nations took part: seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America.
The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July 1930, and were won by France and USA, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France.[10] In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and in doing so became the first nation to win the World Cup.
World Cups before World War II
After the creation of the World Cup, the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the schedule due to the low popularity of the sport in the United States, as American football had been growing in popularity. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Games.Olympic football returned at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup.
The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 and 1938 tournaments, with Brazil the only South American team to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions were cancelled due to World War II and its aftermath.
World Cups after World War II
The 1950 World Cup, held in Brazil, was the first to include British participants. British teams withdrew from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football,[13] but rejoined in 1946 following FIFA’s invitation.[14] The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay, who had boycotted the previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again after defeating the host nation Brazil in one of the most famous matches in World Cup history, which was later called the “Maracanazo” (Portuguese: Maracanaço).
Map of countries’ best results
In the tournaments between 1934 and 1978, 16 teams competed in each tournament, except in 1938, when Austria was absorbed into Germany after qualifying, leaving the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when India, Scotland and Turkey withdrew, leaving the tournament with 13 teams.[15] Most of the participating nations were from Europe and South America, with a small minority from North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were: USA, semi-finalists in 1930; Cuba, quarter-finalists in 1938; Korea DPR, quarter-finalists in 1966; and Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1970.
Expansion to 32 teams
The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982,[16] and then to 32 in 1998,allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. In recent years, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, and those who have reached the quarter-finals include: Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1986; Cameroon, quarter-finalists in 1990; Korea Republic, finishing in fourth place in 2002; Senegal, along with USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002; and Ghana as quarter-finalists in 2010. Nevertheless, European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g., the quarter-finalists in 1998 and 2006 were all from Europe or South America.
Two hundred teams entered the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds; 198 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, while a record 204 countries entered qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Other FIFA tournaments
An equivalent tournament for women’s football, the FIFA Women’s World Cup, was first held in 1991 in the People’s Republic of China.[19] The women’s tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men’s, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.
Football has been included in every Summer Olympic Games except 1896 and 1932. Unlike many other sports, the men’s football tournament at the Olympics is not a top-level tournament, and since 1992, an under-23 tournament with each team allowed three over-age players.Women’s football made its Olympic debut in 1996, and is contested between full national sides with no age restrictions.
The FIFA Confederations Cup is a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress-rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by the winners of each of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country.
FIFA also organises international tournaments for youth football (FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup), club football (FIFA Club World Cup), and football variants such as futsal (FIFA Futsal World Cup) and beach soccer (FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup)..
Trophy
From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winner. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, but in 1946 it was renamed after the FIFA president Jules Rimet who set up the first tournament. In 1970, Brazil’s third victory in the tournament entitled them to keep the trophy permanently. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983, and has never been recovered, apparently melted down by the thieves.
After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. The experts of FIFA, coming from seven different countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm (14.2 in) high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg (13.6 lb). The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the bottom side of the trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974. The description of the trophy by Gazzaniga was: “The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory.
This new trophy is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy until the next tournament and are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original.
At the present, all members (players and coaches) of the top three teams receive winners’ (gold), runner-ups’ (silver), and third-place medals (bronze). Prior to the 1978 tournament, medals were only awarded to the eleven players on the pitch at the end of the final and the third-place match. In November 2007, FIFA announced that all members of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners’ medals.
Format
Main article: FIFA World Cup qualification
Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been held to thin the field for the final tournament.They are held within the six FIFA continental zones (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, and Europe), overseen by their respective confederations. For each tournament, FIFA decides the number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations’ teams.
The qualification process can start as early as almost three years before the final tournament and last over a two-year period. The formats of the qualification tournaments differ between confederations. Usually, one or two places are awarded to winners of intercontinental play-offs. For example, the winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed team from the Asian zone entered a play-off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup. From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host nations received automatic qualification to the final tournament. This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify. Brazil, winners in 2002, were the first defending champions to play in a qualifying match.
Final tournament
For the various formats used in previous tournaments, see History of the FIFA World Cup#Format of each final tournament.
The current final tournament features 32 national teams competing over a month in the host nation(s). There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage.
In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings and/or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups.The other teams are assigned to different “pots”, usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation.
Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams.The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (before, winners received two points).
The ranking of each team in each group is determined as follows:
1. Greatest number of points in group matches
2. Greatest goal difference in group matches
3. Greatest number of goals scored in group matches
4. If more than one team remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined as follows:
1. Greatest number of points in head-to-head matches among those teams
2. Greatest goal difference in head-to-head matches among those teams
3. Greatest number of goals scored in head-to-head matches among those teams
5. If any of the teams above remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined by the drawing of lots
The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the “eigth-finals” (aka “round of 16″ or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.
Hosts
Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA’s congress. The choice of location gave rise to controversies, a consequence of the three-week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football. The decision to hold the first World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing.The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament.
Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, to avoid future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one held in Asia, and the only tournament with multiple hosts. South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since 1978, and will be the first occasion where consecutive World Cups are held outside Europe.
2022 World Cups
The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA’s Executive Committee. This is done under a single transferable vote system. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a “Hosting Agreement” from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. However, there have been occasions where the hosts of multiple future tournaments were announced at the same time, as will be the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament is rotated between confederations, allowing only countries from the chosen confederation (Africa in 2010, South America in 2014) to bid to host the tournament. The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany’s victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament. However, the policy of continental rotation will not continue beyond 2014, so any country, except those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018.This is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding process for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder.
Performances
See also: Results of host nations in the FIFA World Cup
Six of the seven champions have won one of their titles while playing in their own homeland, the exception being Brazil, who finished as runners-up after losing the deciding match on home soil in 1950. England (1966) and France (1998) won their only titles while playing as host nations. Uruguay (1930), Italy (1934) and Argentina (1978) won their first titles as host nations but have gone on to win again, while Germany (1974) won their second title on home soil.
Other nations have also been successful when hosting the tournament. Sweden (runners-up in 1958), Chile (third place in 1962), Korea Republic (fourth place in 2002), and Mexico (quarter-finals in 1970 and 1986) all have their best results when serving as hosts. So far, South Africa (2010) was the only host nation to fail to advance beyond the first round.
Organisation and media coverage
The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.
Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own mascot or logo. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the 1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot.[42] Recent World Cups have also featured official match balls specially designed for each World Cup.
Records
Two players share the record for playing in the most World Cups; Mexico’s Antonio Carbajal (1950–1966) and Germany’s Lothar Matthäus (1982–1998) both played in five tournaments.Matthäus has played the most World Cup matches overall, with 25 appearances.Brazil’s Pelé is the only player to have won three World Cup winners’ medals (1958, 1962, and 1970),[56] with 20 other players who have won two World Cup medals.Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer (1966-74) is the only player to be named to three Finals All-Star Teams, and is also the only player to collect all three types of medals (gold, silver, bronze).
The overall top goalscorer in World Cups is Brazil’s Ronaldo, scorer of 15 goals (1998–2006). Germany’s Miroslav Klose (2002–2010) and Gerd Müller (1970–1974) are second, with 14 goals.[58] The fourth placed goalscorer, France’s Just Fontaine, holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup, as all his 13 goals were scored in the 1958 tournament.
Brazil’s Mário Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer are the only people to date to win the World Cup as both player and head coach. Zagallo won in 1958 and 1962 as a player and in 1970 as head coach.[60] Beckenbauer won in 1974 as captain and in 1990 as head coach.Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo is the only head coach to ever win two World Cups (1934 and 1938).All World Cup winning head coaches were natives of the country they coached to victory.
Among the national teams, Germany have played the most World Cup matches, with 99, while Brazil have scored the most World Cup goals, with 210. The two teams have played each other only once in the World Cup, in the 2002 final.
1. Greatest number of points in group matches
2. Greatest goal difference in group matches
3. Greatest number of goals scored in group matches
4. If more than one team remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined as follows:
1. Greatest number of points in head-to-head matches among those teams
2. Greatest goal difference in head-to-head matches among those teams
3. Greatest number of goals scored in head-to-head matches among those teams
5. If any of the teams above remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined by the drawing of lots
The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the “eigth-finals” (aka “round of 16″ or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.
Hosts
Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA’s congress. The choice of location gave rise to controversies, a consequence of the three-week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football. The decision to hold the first World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing.The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament.
Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, to avoid future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one held in Asia, and the only tournament with multiple hosts. South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since 1978, and will be the first occasion where consecutive World Cups are held outside Europe.
2022 World Cups
The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA’s Executive Committee. This is done under a single transferable vote system. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a “Hosting Agreement” from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. However, there have been occasions where the hosts of multiple future tournaments were announced at the same time, as will be the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament is rotated between confederations, allowing only countries from the chosen confederation (Africa in 2010, South America in 2014) to bid to host the tournament. The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany’s victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament. However, the policy of continental rotation will not continue beyond 2014, so any country, except those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018.This is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding process for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder. Performances
Six of the seven champions have won one of their titles while playing in their own homeland, the exception being Brazil, who finished as runners-up after losing the deciding match on home soil in 1950. England (1966) and France (1998) won their only titles while playing as host nations. Uruguay (1930), Italy (1934) and Argentina (1978) won their first titles as host nations but have gone on to win again, while Germany (1974) won their second title on home soil.
Other nations have also been successful when hosting the tournament. Sweden (runners-up in 1958), Chile (third place in 1962), Korea Republic (fourth place in 2002), and Mexico (quarter-finals in 1970 and 1986) all have their best results when serving as hosts. So far, South Africa (2010) was the only host nation to fail to advance beyond the first round.
Organisation and media coverage
The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.
Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own mascot or logo. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the 1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot.Recent World Cups have also featured official match balls specially designed for each World Cup.
Records
Two players share the record for playing in the most World Cups; Mexico’s Antonio Carbajal (1950–1966) and Germany’s Lothar Matthäus (1982–1998) both played in five tournaments.Matthäus has played the most World Cup matches overall, with 25 appearances.Brazil’s Pelé is the only player to have won three World Cup winners’ medals (1958, 1962, and 1970),[56] with 20 other players who have won two World Cup medals.Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer (1966-74) is the only player to be named to three Finals All-Star Teams, and is also the only player to collect all three types of medals (gold, silver, bronze).
The overall top goalscorer in World Cups is Brazil’s Ronaldo, scorer of 15 goals (1998–2006). Germany’s Miroslav Klose (2002–2010) and Gerd Müller (1970–1974) are second, with 14 goals.[58] The fourth placed goalscorer, France’s Just Fontaine, holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup, as all his 13 goals were scored in the 1958 tournament.
Brazil’s Mário Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer are the only people to date to win the World Cup as both player and head coach. Zagallo won in 1958 and 1962 as a player and in 1970 as head coach.[60] Beckenbauer won in 1974 as captain and in 1990 as head coach.Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo is the only head coach to ever win two World Cups (1934 and 1938).All World Cup winning head coaches were natives of the country they coached to victory.
Among the national teams, Germany have played the most World Cup matches, with 9, while Brazil have scored the most World Cup goals, with 210.The two teams have played each other only once in the World Cup, in the 2002 final.
Chasing a second successive title, Australia face a tricky task against a resurgent rivals New Zealand in the Champions Trophy final in Centurion on Monday.
Ricky PontingRicky Ponting’s men have been in red-hot form and they have not lost a single match in the eight-nation ICC event.
A rejuvenated New Zealand, however, will not let a rare chance of an ICC event triumph go by so easily as they finally broke the semi-final jinx having made it to the final of the Champions Trophy for the second time.
Though without a major ICC event triumph, except for the 2000-01 edition of the Champions Trophy, New Zealand have always been tough opponents.
The Australians have been in fine form with the bat with skipper Ricky Ponting leading the chart of most prolific batsman in Champions Trophy with 287 runs at an average of nearly 96.
And Shane Watson’s return to form at the top order with a blistering unbeaten 136 against England in the first semi-final will only add to the concerns of Kiwis.
The timely return to form of Michael Hussey has also filled the void left by vice-captain Michael Clarke’s absence in the middle-order.
Australia’s quick bowling department comprising Peter Siddle , Brett Lee [ Images ], Watson and Mitchell Johnson has been among wickets too.
The good form of the pacers has also compensated the few concerns Ponting had in the slow-bowling department with only off-spinner Nathan Hauritz [ Images ] in his armour.
Ponting has already made his intentions clear and said his side will raise their game when it matters the most.
“We are playing at a level which would win us the big games. We look to play best cricket when it matters. We are peaking at the right time for the finals,” Ponting said.
New Zealand, on the other hand, have often been the underdogs in major tournaments, having faltered eight times in the semi-finals of 50-over ICC events.
The Black Caps mainly consists of bits-and-pieces players, mainly all-rounders, who have the capability to turn a match on any day, as was witnessed in Grant Elliot’s 75-run knock against Pakistan.
Skipper Daniel Vettori is determined to see that his side does not lose a chance to win a major tournament.
“There is a real ambition in the side. There’s belief and desire to win tournament instead of just ending up as semi-finalists,” he said.
But with a flat track on offer at Centurion, Vettori will bank on wicket-keeper batsman Brendon McCullum , Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor to give them a good start.
Although Vettori has been multi-tasking with both bat and the ball, the Black Caps cannot afford to leave it to him all the time.
On the bowling front, with support from Kyle Mills and James Franklin at the other end, Shane Bond too is slowly and steadily coming back to his usual hot form sending down fast stuffs.
The charge of middle overs, meanwhile, rests with Vettori, who along with Ian Butler and Elliot, have done a decent job so far in the tournament.
Teams
Australia: Ricky Ponting (Capt), David Hussey , Callum Ferguson, Nathan Hauritz, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Hopes, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Tim Paine, Peter Siddle, Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Cameron White, Brad Haddin, Doug Bollinger.
New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (Capt), Shane Bond, Neil Broom, Ian Butler, Brendon Diamanti, Grant Elliott , Martin Guptill, Gareth Hopkins, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, James Franklin, Jeetan Patel, Aaron Raymond, Ross Taylor, Daryl Tuffey.
Johannesburg—New Zealand found the perfect balance between the defensive and the offensive after having lost the toss on a flat pitch surrounded by an outfield as fast as a highway. They bowled tight lines interspersed with odd effort balls, their fielders made every run hard work, and frustrated Pakistan into giving their wickets away at important junctures. As a result, Pakistan were left to defend 233, that too thanks to a 35-run last-wicket stand between Mohammad Aamer and Saeed Ajmal.
Only the 19-year-old Umar Akmal batted with a free mind, scoring a 62-ball 55 in the middle overs, but just before he could open up in the last 10 a rare ordinary call from Simon Taufel accounted for him. The rest of the batsmen, though, were thrown off their game plan by the hustling New Zealanders. Pakistan once again suggested they had forgotten the batting Powerplay, and played as if the good old 15-over restriction rule was in place.
Mohammad Yousuf and Umar did well to bring Pakistan back from 86 for 4, but did little to unsettle the lesser bowlers. Yousuf, too, fell when the time to accelerate came, having scored 45 off 78. James Franklin and Grant Elliot went for 40 in their 10 overs, and gave Ian Butler and Shane Bond enough scope to attack. Butler ended with career-best figures of 4 for 44.
The innings started with a delightful face-off between two men making their comebacks from ICL. Bond was forever accurate, consistently bowling inswingers headed for the top of off stump. The first such delivery to Imran Nazir showed him a slight bat-pad gap. All through his first spell Bond kept working on that gap. He played on the intelligence and ego of a batsman known for his attacking instinct and dashing stroke play – mixing the inswingers with slower legcutters.
On his part, Nazir played one of his more mature knocks. He didn’t try any expansive shots to Bond. He found release by hitting Butler for three boundaries in his first over, and Pakistan suddenly looked healthy at 43 for 0 after nine overs.
That was when Bond produced a special over. Two accurate bouncers, one a no-ball, and the other one, a jaffa, rising from just short of a length and jagging into Nazir and taking the edge, reminded the cricketing world what it had been missing.
It was then Butler’s turn to make a comeback from an ordinary start. He first induced an edge from Shoaib Malik, and then got an under-pressure Kamran Akmal to hole out to sweeper-cover. At 69 for 3 Pakistan needed a renovation job from Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, but bowling at such times is right up Daniel Vettori’s alley.
In his second over, he got a leading edge from Younis, his third failure in three innings in the tournament. While Yousuf and Umar added 80 runs for the fifth wicket, the intent that their middle order showed against India was missing. It also owed to much smarter bowling and field placements from New Zealand.
When Yousuf fell in the 39th over, with the score on 166, one would have expected Shahid Afridi to call for the Powerplay. He didn’t. But he kept playing risky cricket at the same time, and paid for it. In between those two dismissals, Taufel ruled Umar lbw off Vettori, while replays showed the batsman had hit the ball.
The bowlers were left to give themselves runs to defend, and Aamer and Ajmal did that in uninhibited manner. They managed 233 but will it be too much to do for the most varied and skilled attack of the tournament?
Pakistan: 1 Imran Nazir, 2 Kamran Akmal (wk), 3 Younis Khan (capt), 4 Shoaib Malik, 5 Mohammad Yousuf, 6 Umar Akmal, 7 Shahid Afridi, 8 Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, 9 Mohammad Aamer, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Umar Gul.
New Zealand: 1 Brendon McCullum (wk), 2 Aaron Redmond, 3 Martin Guptill, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Neil Broom, 6 Grant Elliot/Scott Styris, 7 James Franklin, 8 Daniel Vettori (capt), 9 Kyle Mills, 10 Shane Bond, 11 Ian Butler.
Umpire Simon Taufel, five times voted the sport’s best match official, is not permitted to stand in matches featuring Australia because of the International Cricket Council’s neutrality rules.
Taufel’s nationality has prevented him standing in some of cricket’s biggest showpieces, such as the 2007 World Cup final, the Ashes, and last summer’s battle for the number one Test ranking between Ricky Ponting’s side and South Africa.
There have been loud calls from many former players and commentators in recent times to abolish the neutrality rule so the highest-profile matches feature the best umpires.
Taufel was the number one umpire when the 2007 World Cup final descended into farce because five officials did not know how many overs constituted a match, and forced Australia and Sri Lanka to return to the field and play in darkness.
He also could have prevented the Sydney Test of 2008 turning ugly, which nearly resulted in India abandoning their tour.
But ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat is adamant umpires of neutral nationality will stay, as impartiality was the preference over the best.
“You can’t have both sets of issues resolved with the same debate,” he said.
“You’re either going to have neutral umpires or you’re going to have the best irrespective, and the (ICC) cricket committee has supported the view it is better to have neutral umpires.”
Had Pakistan reached the Champions Trophy final instead of New Zealand, the ICC would have had to rule out Aleem Dar, just days after the Pakistani broke Taufel’s five-year stranglehold on the umpire of the year award.
Lorgat said the ICC would retain its position on umpiring neutrality to ward off claims of bias from parochial fans in contentious decisions.
“Simon can make an honest mistake just like any other umpire,” he said.
“But as soon as he’s standing in an Australia game against somebody and he makes that mistake, the majority of spectators will view that not as a mistake.
“That is human nature. The conservative approach is better to keep neutrality.
“It’s worked, it’s not been a failure at all, it’s not been a failure at all, it’s been a success.”
Under ICC rules Test matches must feature two umpires of neutral nationality, while one home umpire is permitted to stand in one-day internationals outside ICC events such as the world cup and Champions Trophy, alongside one official of neutral nationality.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP)-Marek Zidlicky’s teammates were glued to the television replays of his fluke goal from center ice, teasing the Minnesota defenseman about the serendipitous score that sparked the Wild’s biggest comeback victory in years.
“It’s a trick shot,” said left wing Dan Fritsche, laughing. “He works on it in practice all the time.”
Nobody in the opposite dressing room was joking around with San Jose goalie Brian Boucher, who might not live down this humiliating blunder for a good long while.
After Boucher allowed Zidlicky’s backhand from mid-ice to skitter between his legs for the tying goal and an instant blooper-reel lowlight, Mikko Koivu scored his second goal with 13.3 seconds left in overtime to finish the Wild’s 4-3 victory over the Sharks on Thursday night, snapping Minnesota’s four-game winless streak.
Zidlicky had no idea he was about to complete Minnesota’s comeback from a 3-0 deficit with 7:37 left in regulation when he dumped a backhand into San Jose’s zone from just past the center line. The puck somehow bounced sideways between the legs of Boucher, who whiffed with his glove like a nervous shortstop.
“I just threw the puck there,” said Zidlicky, who was just about to leave the ice when the Shark Tank crowd erupted in groans. “I was ready for a change, and I heard the bench saying we scored. It was a surprise for me.”
Boucher made 32 saves in his fourth straight start in place of Evgeni Nabokov, but the San Jose backup goalie couldn’t stop the night’s easiest shot. His mistake was the biggest factor in the Sharks’ fourth loss in five games, although San Jose still moved back into a tie for the overall NHL lead.
“The third one was a bad bounce, and it kicked to the side and snuck through my legs,” Boucher said. “I’m pretty upset about it. As much as the fans don’t like seeing that, you can bet I don’t want to let one like that in. That’s hockey sometimes, and it’s a bad break.”
Boucher, filling in while Nabokov is sidelined with a minor lower-body injury, got neither his pad nor his stick down to block the small space between his legs.
“That happens once a year, once every two years,” Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. “Tough one for the goalie.”
Joe Pavelski scored two goals, and Ryane Clowe had a goal and an assist for the Sharks, who tied Detroit with 94 points and two games in hand on the Red Wings-although San Jose sure doesn’t feel like the league’s best team.
Milan Michalek had three assists for the Sharks, who ruined the third penalty-free game in franchise history by blowing a three-goal lead at home. San Jose dropped to 26-3-4 at the Shark Tank and was outshot for just the fourth time in 28 games.
“We played very well for the first 38 minutes,” McLellan said. “I thought that’s as well as we’ve played in a long time. We executed, and then we let them back in the game, and right now we’re a little bit of a fragile team. You could see what happened after that.”
Pierre-Marc Bouchard also scored, and Niklas Backstrom made 32 saves for the Wild, who snapped their skid with a gritty comeback in the final 23 minutes of regulation. Minnesota hadn’t rallied from a three-goal deficit to win since Nov. 16, 2006, at Nashville.
“What I get from this is the guys never stop,” Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire said. “They kept working and working. We got a break on that (third) goal, and we felt good about that. We just kept playing hard.”
Until Boucher’s mistake changed the game, San Jose controlled play on the strength of its dominant second line of Pavelski, Clowe and Michalek.
Pavelski, who was thrown out of Tuesday’s loss to Dallas for what a linesman thought was a head-butt on Darryl Sydor, scored the Sharks’ first goal midway through the first period. After stopping a Minnesota clearing attempt at the blue line, he circled back toward the net and expertly tipped home a pass from Clowe for his 19th goal of the season.
Clowe scored about 4 minutes later with a shot that hit the supporting post in the back of Backstrom’s net and ricocheted out so quickly that it fooled the goal judge and officials, who had to review it.
Pavelski then scored his 20th goal of the season on a rebound of Marc-Edouard Vlasic’s shot midway through the second period, but the Wild scored twice in the final 2:08 of the period, with Koivu and Bouchard beating Boucher in quick succession.
Notes
The Sharks welcomed Travis Moen and Kent Huskins to their locker room before the game, but neither newcomer suited up. Both were acquired Wednesday in a trade with Anaheim. “I was pretty excited to come here to a great team,” said Moen, who expects to play Saturday. … Longtime Sharks captain Owen Nolan played his second straight game for Minnesota after sitting out three with a broken toe. … The Sharks play five of their next six games on the road, including a visit to Minnesota on Tuesday night. … Clowe had just one goal and one assist in his previous 10 games.
Scott Speed (82), Casey Mears (07), Jeff Gordon (24), David Ragan (6) …
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kevin Harvick used a thrilling last-lap pass to steal a Daytona 500 victory. He’s apparently got the move mastered. Harvick powered past Jamie McMurray on the outside of the last lap Saturday night to grab a come-from-nowhere victory in the exhibition Budweiser Shootout.
“That was some wild racing,” he said from Victory Lane. “What a race. That was wild as heck there at the end.”
Wild indeed.
It was Harvick’s first victory in 71 races, dating to the All-Star race in May 2007. The only other event he won that year was the season-opening 500, when he nipped Mark Martin in a photo finish. Harvick was winless in 2008.
Now he’s got the momentum heading into next weekend’s Daytona 500, and NASCAR has the start to the season it desperately needed after an offseason filled with layoffs, sponsorship troubles and constant concern about the economic crisis.
“With the economy the way it is and the amount of layoffs – it’s almost depressing right now to turn the news on,” second-place finisher McMurray said. “I get up at 6 a.m., I turn the news on and headline is how many people are getting laid off from major corporations. I think it will be a tough year for us to sell tickets.”
Harvick started 23rd in the Shootout, spent most of the race in the back dodging wrecks, then slowly worked his way up toward the front. McMurray seemed headed for the win until a late wreck between Greg Biffle and David Stremme set up a two-lap overtime sprint to the finish.
Harvick was in fourth on the restart, and didn’t seem to have anything for McMurray.
But as they closed in on the finish line, he used a huge push from Denny Hamlin to slide past McMurray on the outside.
“It will be a long night,” McMurray said. “I’ll think about what maybe I should have done different.”
Harvick coasted to the win as Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch all crashed behind him.
McMurray knew holding on for the win would be difficult when he restarted in the lead for the final two laps.
“It’s just honestly the leader is kind of a sitting duck,” McMurray said. “It’s cool because you can pass him.”
Tony Stewart was third in his first race as owner of his race team. He left Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of last year to take over Stewart Haas Racing.
“Yeah, I’ll take that for a debut night,” Stewart said. “It wasn’t the prettiest third-place spot, but we were in the right spot at the right time.”
Jeff Gordon was fourth and was followed by AJ Allmendinger, Kasey Kahne and Carl Edwards. Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch and Kyle Busch rounded out the top 10.
The race used to be for the previous year pole winners and past champions of the event, but NASCAR overhauled the format and opened Saturday night’s exhibition to the top six teams from each manufacturer. Then last month, NASCAR passed “The Tony Stewart Rule” and allowed each manufacturer one wild-car entry.
The joke around the garage was the caveat was added so Stewart, a three-time Shootout winner, could get his new team into the race despite switching from Toyota to Chevrolet this season.
In all, a record 28 cars competed in the race, which also was expanded five laps to 75.
Some of the participants were eliminated early: A six-car wreck just four laps into the race knocked out rookies Scott Speed and Joey Logano. For Speed, it was his second wreck in as many days.
“The guys in front of me wrecked and the rest is just history. Kind of a thing that happens around here,” said Speed, a former Formula One driver who wrecked with Paul Menard during Friday’s practice.
Logano finished second in Saturday afternoon’s ARCA race, then sprinted to NASCAR’s driver meeting – only to get there as it was wrapping up. His punishment was being sent to the back of the starting field – right where the accident occurred.
“You start in the back and that’s kind of what happens,” Logano said.
Gordon proved why he’s a four-time series champion during that first accident, deftly weaving through the wrecking cars to escape unscathed.
Defending race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. contended at times for the victory until his night ended 11 laps from the end in a four-car accident.
BEIJING (AP)-The area around Beijing’s massive Bird’s Nest stadium will be turned into a shopping and entertainment complex in three to five years, a state news agency said Friday.
Officially known as Beijing National Stadium, the showpiece of the Beijing Olympics has fallen into disuse since the end of the games. Paint is already peeling in some areas, and the only visitors these days are tourists who pay about $7 to walk on the stadium floor and browse a pricey souvenir shop.
Plans call for the $450 million stadium to anchor a complex of shops and entertainment outlets in three to five years, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing operator Citic Group. The company will continue to develop tourism as a major draw for the Bird’s Nest, while seeking sports and entertainment events.
The only confirmed event at the 91,000-seat stadium this year is Puccini’s opera “Turandot,” set for Aug. 8-the one-year anniversary of the Olympics’ opening ceremony. The stadium has no permanent tenant after Beijing’s top soccer club, Guo’an, backed out of a deal to play there.
Details about the development plans were not available. A person who answered the phone at Citic Group on Friday said offices were closed for the Chinese New Year holiday.
A symbol of China’s rising power and confidence, the stadium, whose nickname described its lattice of exterior steel beams, may never recoup its hefty construction cost, particularly amid a global economic slump. Maintenance of the structure alone costs about $8.8 million annually, making it difficult to turn a profit, Xinhua said.