FIFA World Cup
Football World Cup 2006 Germany
FIFA World Cup
1990 copy of the World Cup Trophy awarded to
West Germany.The FIFA World Cup (often called the Football
World Cup or simply the World Cup) is the most
important competition in international
football (soccer), and the world's most representative
team sport event. Organised by
Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA),
the sport's governing body, the World Cup is contested by
the
men's national football teams of FIFA member nations. The
championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in
1930 (except in 1942 and 1946 due to World War II), however it is more of an ongoing event as
the qualifying rounds of the competition take place over the
three years preceding the final rounds.
The final tournament phase (often called the "Finals")
involves 32 national teams competing over a four-week period
in a previously nominated host nation, with these games
making it the most widely-viewed sporting event in the
world.[1]
In the 17 tournaments held, only seven nations have ever won
the World Cup Finals.
Brazil are the current holders, as well as the most
successful World Cup team, having won the tournament five
times, while
Germany and
Italy follow with three titles each. The next football
World Cup Finals will be held in
Germany between June 9 and July 9, 2006.
History
Previous international competitions
The first international football match was played in 1872
between
England and
Scotland, although at this stage the sport was rarely played
outside Great Britain. As football began to increase in
popularity, it was held as a demonstration sport (with no
medals awarded) at the 1900, 1904 and 1906 Summer Olympics
before football became an official competition at the 1908
Summer Olympics. Organised by England's Football
Association, the event was for amateur players only and was
regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition.
The England national amateur football team won the event in
both 1908 and 1912.
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 competition is often described as
The First World Cup,[2]
and featured the most prestigious professional club sides
from
Italy, Germany and Switzerland. The first tournament was won
by West Auckland, an amateur side from north-east England that was invited after the Football Association
refused to be associated with the competition. West Auckland
returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title, and
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"[3],
and took responsibility for organising the event. This led
the way for the world's first intercontinental football
competition, at the 1924 Summer Olympics. Uruguay won the
tournament,[4] before winning the gold medal again in 1928,
with another South American team, Argentina, taking silver.
In 1928 FIFA made the decision to stage their own
international tournament. With Uruguay now two-time official
football world champions and due to celebrate their
centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as
the host country.
The first official World Cup
The
1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to
include football as part of the programme due to the low
popularity of football in the United States. FIFA and the
IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and
so football was dropped from the Games.[5] FIFA president
Jules Rimet thus set about organising the inaugural World
Cup tournament to be held in Uruguay in 1930. 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. [4] Rimet eventually persuaded teams from
Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip.
In total 13 nations took part — seven from South America,
four from Europe and two from North America.
The first two World Cup matches took place
simultaneously, and were won by
France and the
USA, who beat
Mexico 4-1 and
Belgium 3-0, respectively. The first goal in World Cup
history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France. Four days
later, the first World Cup hat-trick was achieved by Bert
Patenaude of the USA in the Americans' 3-0 win
against
Paraguay. In the final,
Uruguay defeated
Argentina 4-2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in
Montevideo, and became the first nation to win a World
Cup.[6]
Growth
The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were
the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war, as
World War II and its aftermath forced the cancellation
of the 1942 and 1946 competitions.
The 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 a foreign
influence to football.[7] They entered the World Cup for the
first time in 1950, following FIFA's invitation.
In the tournaments between
1934 and 1978, 16 teams qualified for each finals tournament
(except in a few cases where teams withdrew after
qualifying). Most were from Europe and Latin America, with a
very small minority from Africa, Asia and Oceania. These
teams were usually defeated easily by the European and Latin
American teams (with the notable exception of North Korea,
who reached the 1966 quarterfinals).
The finals were expanded to 24 teams in
1982, then 32 in 1998, allowing more teams from Africa, Asia
and North America to take part. In recent years, these
comparatively new participants have enjoyed more success,
with Cameroon reaching the quarter-finals in 1990, and
South Korea,
Senegal and
USA all reaching the elimination rounds in
2002. 197 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006
edition, and all but one of the 205 FIFA members have
previously entered the competition, with
Bhutan[8]
the only current member never to have entered.
A spin-off tournament, the
FIFA Women's World Cup, was first held in 1991. It is
similar to the men's tournament in format, but so far has
not generated the same level of interest.
Trophy
FIFA World Cup Trophy on a German Stamp
From 1930 to 1970, the
Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the Cup winner. It was
originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde
but was renamed in 1946 in honour of the FIFA president who
organized 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.[9]
After 1970, a new trophy, known as the
FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. This is not awarded to
the winning nation permanently, irrespective of how many
World Cups they win.[10] Argentina, Germany (as West
Germany) and Brazil have all won the second trophy twice. It
will not be retired until the name plaque has been entirely
filled with the names of winning nations in 2038.
Format
Qualification
- 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, 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, but also
subject to lobbying from the confederations.
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 South American zone entered a
play-off to decide which team would qualify for the 2006
World Cup [11]. From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host
nations have received an automatic berth in the finals. This
privilege also used to be granted to the defending champion,
but from the 2006 finals onwards, this entitlement has been
withdrawn, requiring the champions to qualify as well [12].
Final tournament
The current finals tournament features 32 national teams
competing over a month in the host nation(s). There are two
stages, a group stage and a knockout stage.
In the first stage (the group stage), teams are
drawn into eight groups of four. Eight teams are
seeded at the draw, and assigned a group. The other teams
are drawn at random. Since 1998, constraints have 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,
guaranteeing that every qualifying nation will play at least
three matches. The last round of matches of each group are
held simultaneously to prevent collusion between nations.
Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for
a draw and none for a loss (prior to this, winners only
received two points). The top two teams from each group
advance to the second stage (the knockout stage).
In the knockout stage, teams play each other in
one-off matches, with
extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner, if
necessary. In the Round of 16, the winner of each group
plays against the runner-up from another group. This is
followed by quarterfinals, semifinals and a final. The
losing semifinalists also contest a third place match.
Selection of hosts
At present, the host country of the World Cup is decided
six years before the tournament, as voted by FIFA's
executive committee.
The World Cups between
1930 and 1998 were all held in either Europe, South America,
and North America, with the hosting rights alternating
between them. The 2002 World Cup was the first World Cup
held outside the three continents, when the tournament was
co-hosted in Asia for the first time by South Korea and
Japan. Initially, the two Asian countries were competitors
in the bidding process. But just before the vote, they
agreed with FIFA to co-host the event. However, the rivalry
and distance between them led to organizational and
logistical problems. FIFA has said co-hosting will likely
not happen again, and in 2004 officially stated that its
statutes did not allow co-hosting bids. [13]
The decision to award the
2006 World Cup to Germany was controversial, since it was
widely expected that the tournament would take place in
South Africa. The final tally was 12 votes to 11 in favour
of Germany. New Zealand FIFA member Charles Dempsey, who was
instructed to vote for South Africa by the Oceania Football
Confederation, abstained from voting at the last minute. If
he had voted for the South African bid, the tally would have
been 12-12, giving the decision to FIFA President Sepp
Blatter, who was widely believed then to have voted for
South Africa.[14] Dempsey was among eight members of the
executive committee to receive a fax by editors of the
German satirical magazine Titanic on Wednesday, the night
before the vote, promising a cuckoo clock and Black Forest
ham in exchange for voting for Germany. He argued that the
pressure from all sides including "an attempt to bribe" him
had become too much for him.[15] Consequently, FIFA has
decided to rotate the hosting of the final tournaments
between its constituent confederations.
The first World Cup bidding process under continental
rotation was the
2010 World Cup. FIFA accepted five bids from African
nations, and South Africa won.[13] This will be the first
World Cup held in Africa. It will be the largest sporting
event ever held on that continent, as the Olympics have yet
to visit Africa.
The
2014 World Cup, which FIFA has earmarked for South America, is expected to be held in Brazil since
CONMEBOL, the South American Football Confederation, has
already made it their choice. Chile and Argentina had shown
some interest, hoping to follow the same path as Korea-Japan
2002.
Several nations have expressed interest in hosting the
2018 World Cup. However, FIFA has not decided which
continent will host either tournament,[16] as they have
indicated they might back out of the rotation. Thus it is
possible that the 2014 FIFA World Cup may not be held in
South America (though a bid from the continent is a
"strong favorite").
Media coverage
Willie, the
1966 mascot
The World Cup is the most widely-viewed and followed
sporting event in the world, exceeding even the
Olympic Games.[17] The cumulative audience of the World Cup
2002 event — summing over all matches — is estimated to be
28.8 billion. 1.1 billion individuals have watched the final
match of this tournament. The draw, which decided the
distribution of teams into groups, has been watched by 300
million viewers.[18]
Each Football World Cup usually has its own
mascot. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the
1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot.
Mascots for the forthcoming
World Cup 2006 are
Goleo, a
lion, and
Pille, a
football.
Results
World Cup summaries
1 There was no official World Cup
Third Place match in 1930;
USA and
Yugoslavia lost in the semi-finals.
2 There was no official World Cup
final match in 1950. The tournament was decided in a
final group contested by four teams. However, Uruguay's
2-1 victory over Brazil (match known as
Maracanazo), was the decisive match which put them
ahead on points and ensured that they finished top of
the group as world champions.
Successful national teams
Map of countries' best results
In all, 207 teams have competed to qualify for the World
Cup Finals, but only eleven have made it to the final match.
Of those, only seven have won. This exclusivity inspires
much enthusiasm and national pride amongst the tournament's
fans.
With five victories out of its seven appearances in the
final, Brazil is the most successful World Cup team. It is
also the only nation to have participated in every World Cup
Finals so far.
At the continental level, South America narrowly leads
Europe with nine titles to eight. Brazil and Germany are
tied for most appearances in the final with 7 (Brazil has
won 5; Germany has won 3). Brazil and Italy were finalists
each challenging for their 3rd cup in
1970 and for their 4th cup in 1994. In both matches,
Brazil won.
| Team |
Titles |
Winning years (* as hosts) |
Runners-up (* as hosts) |
Brazil |
5 |
1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002 |
2 (1950*, 1998) |
Germany |
3 |
1954, 1974*, 1990
(all as West Germany) |
4 (1966, 1982, 1986, 2002)
(all but latest as West Germany) |
Italy |
3 |
1934*, 1938, 1982 |
2 (1970, 1994) |
Argentina |
2 |
1978*, 1986 |
2 (1930, 1990) |
Uruguay |
2 |
1930*, 1950 |
- |
England |
1 |
1966* |
- |
France |
1 |
1998* |
- |
Czechoslovakia |
- |
- |
2 (1934, 1962) |
Hungary |
- |
- |
2 (1938, 1954) |
Netherlands |
- |
- |
2 (1974, 1978) |
Sweden |
- |
- |
1 (1958*) |
Six of the seven champions have won at least once while
playing in their own homeland, the exception being
Brazil, who lost the deciding match (known as
Maracanazo) when they hosted the 1950 tournament.
England (1966
World Cup) and
France (1998
World Cup) won their only Cups while playing as host
nations. But it isn't just champions that experience
success, as traditionally "weaker" nations have also been
successful during their spell as hosts.
South Korea made it to the semifinals as a co-host in
2002 despite never previously passing the first round.
The success of the host in the Cup is a major reason why
nations actively lobby to be selected as hosts, leading to
the frequent accusation that FIFA arranges favourable
refereeing and draws for them.
Seventy-eight nations have qualified for the final
tournament at least once. The top 10 national teams in terms
of the number of appearances are (includes appearances in
the upcoming
2006 Football World Cup):
Best performances by continental zones
To date, the final of the World Cup has only been
contested by
European and/or South American teams.
| Continent |
Best performance |
|
South America |
9 titles, won by
Brazil,
Argentina, and
Uruguay |
|
Europe |
8 titles, won by
Italy,
Germany,
England, and
France |
|
North America |
Semifinal (USA,
1930) |
|
Asia |
Semifinal (South
Korea,
2002) |
|
Africa |
Quarterfinal (Cameroon, 1990; Senegal, 2002) |
|
Oceania |
First round (Australia,
1974; New Zealand, 1982) |
Awards
At the end of each World Cup final tournament, six awards
are presented to the players and teams for accomplishments
other than winning the tournament outright.
There are currently six awards:
- The adidas Golden Shoe (formerly called the
Golden Shoe, or, sometimes, the Golden Boot,
first awarded in 1930) for top goal scorer;
- The adidas Golden Ball for best player
(formerly called the Golden Ball, first awarded
in
1982);
- The Yashin Award for best goalkeeper (first
awarded in
1994);
- The FIFA Fair Play Award for the team with
the best record of fair play (first awarded in
1978);
- The Most Entertaining Team award for the team
that has entertained the public the most, during the
World Cup final tournament, as determined by a poll of
the general public, first awarded in
1994;
- The Gillette Best Young Player award for best
player under 21 years of age at the start of the
calendar year, which will be awarded for the first time
in
2006.
Records and statistics
- Largest margin of victory: Hungary 9-0 South
Korea,
1954; Yugoslavia 9-0 Zaire 1974; Hungary 10-1 El
Salvador, 1982
- Fastest goal from kickoff:
Hakan Şükür, 11 seconds, Turkey vs South Korea, 2002
- Most World Cup tournament appearances:
Antonio Carbajal (Mexico, 1950-1966) and Lothar Matthäus (West Germany and Germany,
1982-1998), 5
- Most World Cup match appearances:
Lothar Matthäus, 25
- Most goals scored:
Gerd Müller (West Germany 1970-1974), 14
- Most goals scored in one tournament:
Just Fontaine (France), 13, 1958
- Oldest player to score a goal:
Roger Milla, 42 years and 39 days, Cameroon vs Russia,
1994
References
- ↑
2002 FIFA World Cup TV Coverage. FIFA.com.
URL accessed on
March 24, 2006.
- ↑
'The First World Cup'. The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy.
Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council. Retrieved on
April 11, 2006.
- ↑
Where it all began FIFA official website. Retrieved
on April 10, 2006.
- ↑
a b
Uruguay 1930 FIFA World Cup site. Retrieved on
January 9, 2006.
- ↑
The Football World Cup - An Introduction,
h2g2. Retrieved on March 1, 2006.
- ↑
FIFA World Cup Origin FIFA Media Release. Retrieved
on January 9, 2006.
- ↑
Scotland and the 1950 World Cup, BBC. Retrieved on
March 1, 2006.
- ↑
Bhutan - team profile, fifaworldcup.com. Retrieved
on April 10, 2006.
- ↑
Jules Rimet Cup, FIFA World Cup site. Retrieved on
February 27, 2006.
- ↑
The FIFA World Cup™ Trophy, Official Site of The
2002 FIFA World Cup. Retrieved on February 27, 2006.
-
↑
World Cup 2006 Qualifications Retrieved on April 10,
2006.
-
↑
Brazil's Juan warns against complacency Retrieved on
April 10, 2006.
- ↑
a b
Host nation of 2010 FIFA World Cup™ - South Africa,
FIFA Media Release, May 15, 2004. Retrieved on January
8, 2006.
- ↑
"FIFA president Blatter a big loser with Germany getting
2006 World Cup" by Robert Wagman, SoccerTimes,
July 7, 2000. Retrieved on January 8, 2006.
- ↑
"German magazine takes credit for bribery hoax",
IOL, July 7, 2000. Retrieved on January 8, 2006.
- ↑
"Games win inspires bid to host 2018 World Cup" by
John Goodbody, The Times, November 16, 2005.
Retrieved on January 8, 2006.
- ↑
FIFA Newsletter by Joseph S. Blatter, FIFA General
Secretary, June 1997. Retrieved on January 8, 2006.
- ↑
"Socceroos face major challenge: Hiddink", ABC
Sport, December 10, 2005. Retrieved on January 8, 2006.
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