The World Cup (W.C.), officially known as the FIFA World Cup, is an association soccer tournament for FIFA-affiliated national teams. That FIFA's quadrennial event can just be called The World Cup (in spite of there being similar tournaments for other sporting disciplines) demonstrates its immense popularity. It is an amalgam of a qualification phase and the finals phase. Naturally, the finals phase is the main event, taking place in a host country or host countries over a period of about four weeks.
Global scope
The FIFA World Cup is a truly global event. National teams from all seven continents participate in the qualification phase just over two years before the finals phase. In 2006, the Finals contained teams from each of the seven continents, due to the participation of Australia. The six continental zones include Europe, Oceania, Asia, Africa, South America and CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean).
Currently 32 teams participate in the W.C. Finals. Zones are currently allocated spots as follows: Europe-14, South America-4.5, Africa-5, Asia-4.5, CONCACAF-3.5 and Oceania-0.5
The spots are allocated based primarily on the comparative strength of the confederations. For e.g. South America has four and a half spots, but only has 10 members. The half-berths are settled by intercontinental play-offs.
Brief history
World Cup soccer was first organised in 1930 as an invitation-only event. Prior to 1930, international tournament soccer was only available at the Olympics. A total of 19 Finals occurred between 1930 and 2010. There were no tournaments in the 1942 or 1946 because of World War II. The first W.C. tournament contained only 8 invited teams. Qualification was only introduced after the 1934 tournament.
There were 16 teams in the tournaments between 1934 and 1978, except for 1938 (15 due to Austria being annexed by Germany). The tournament expanded to 24 teams in 1982 and then 32 teams in 1998. Early tournaments consisted mainly of teams from Europe and South America. However, the expansion of teams ensured greater participation from African, Asian and North American teams.
World Cup Format
In the finals phase, the teams are split into eight groups of four teams each. The group stage is played in a round-robin format where the top two teams qualify for the second round. From the second round onwards, the tournament adopts a single-elimination knock-out format. Following the second round are the quarter-finals, semi-finals, third-place play-off and the final.
The qualification phases are under the auspices of individual confederations. To ensure fairness, the matches are usually played on a home-and-away basis. This was not always the case, however. The structure of qualifying rounds would differ based largely on confederation size and logistics.
World Cup Hosting
Uruguay was the first host in 1930. Choosing the W.C. host was always a significant event, especially after there was initial controversy over which continent the tournament was hosted on. Since 1958, FIFA decided to alternate hosting between the Americas and Europe. Hosts were decided several years beforehand by a voting at the FIFA Congress.
So far, the only countries that have hosted the event outside of Europe and South America are Mexico (1970 & 1986), USA (1994), Japan and South Korea (2002), and South Africa (2010). Japan and South Korea were the first nations to jointly host the quadrennial FIFA tournament. South Africa will become the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. Currently, allocation takes place on a rotation basis between confederations with the FIFA Executive voting to determine which country hosts the World Cup.
World Cup Draw
Currently, the draw takes place with 8 seeded teams selected to head each group from A to H. The seeding is based on FIFA Rankings and past performance at World Cups. The hosts automatically become a seeded team as well. The other teams are placed into pots, but they are not assigned randomly. Since 1998, FIFA has ensured that two teams from the same confederation are not in the same group. The draw also ensures that there are not more than two European teams per group.
Even though the W.C. is a global event, it is the preserve of European and South American teams. Apart from the hosting of the tournament being dominated by the two confederations, they have monopolised the win column and appearances in the semi-finals and finals. Of the 18 tournaments held between 1930 and 2006, South American teams have won 9 to Europe's 9. Individually, Brazil leads with 5, Italy (4), Germany (3), Argentina and Uruguay (2), England and France (1).
Of the 36 possible final appearances since 1930, the final has included a team outside winners' row only 7 times (four European countries). Even though the title contenders are few, the individual skill, team character and passion displayed on the global stage makes this the most anticipated and watched sporting event. After all, the World Cup has been the playground of soccer legends like Pele, Maradona and Beckenbauer.
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