The FIFA World Cup, often simply called 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 inaugural tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War. The current champion is Germany, which won its fourth title at the 2014 tournament in Brazil.
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FIFA World Cup[/caption]
The current format of the competition involves a qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase, which is often called the World Cup Finals. 32 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation(s), compete in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month.
The 20 World Cup tournaments have been won by eight different national teams. Brazil have won five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. The other World Cup winners are Germany and Italy, with four titles each; Argentina and inaugural winner Uruguay, with two titles each; and England, France and Spain, with one title each.
The World Cup is the most prestigious association football tournament in the world as well as 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 FIFA World Cup was estimated to be 26.29 billion with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the final match, a ninth of the entire population of the planet.
The FIFA World Cup in Russia has ended, and many agree that this has been one of the best tournaments of the modern game, as well as one of the highest scoring. Many of the best players play in the English Premier League (EPL). They have been instrumental in their team’s success in the World […]
With talks about Chelsea signing Russian World Cup star Aleksandr Golovin this summer looks bleak, the Blues could consider the singing of France international and Lyon star Nabil Fekir. However, this will only be happening if either Willian or Eden Hazard leave the club this summer window of which seems likely that the duo will […]
Betting data from Betfair has reveals that 62.19% of UK punters have backed England to defeat Croatia in tonight’s semi-final despite almost 2 out of 3 British People think the Three Lions will make it to the final. Should Gareth Southgate’s men progress against Croatia, they’ll be faced with the task of beating the 1998 […]
Croatia and England are both on the brink of making history. But who end up making this remains to be seen in their semi-final clash of the FIFA World Cup 2018 on Wednesday. The former were not even considered one of the underdogs coming into the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Despite a group of world-class […]
Newly-promoted Premier League club Fulham FC are reportedly eyeing move for Celtic’s and Belgium international defender Dedryck Boyata who is still on international duties with the Red Devils. Boyata has started in all three of Belgium’s group matches in Russia, but is entering the final year of his contract with Celtic and said prior to […]
The favourites to win each group have been known from the very moment of the group stage draw’s completion. Yet, as the old adage goes, the beautiful game is played on grass, not paper. Though it is early days yet, there are still several potential shocks that could come to fruition. Egypt – wins by […]
The World Cup 2018 in Russia is set to be the most watched event on the globe and it’s not hard to see why as it will feature some of the best players on the planet such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar Jr. All 3 players will be hoping to win their first […]
The 2018 World Cup in Russia is around the corner, with national team coaches having released their 23-man squads for the tournament. Some managers had a provisional list of names that featured back-up players who would go on to be cut when the squad was trimmed to 23. There have been some high-profile omissions this […]
We’re now less than a month away from the finals of the world’s biggest football competition, which means squad announcements are coming thick and fast as managers decide on the final 23 players who make the cut. We’re also at the point where bookmakers are pricing up the favourites for the World Cup, so here […]
Joe Hart might be surplus to requirements at Manchester City under Pep Guardiola, but he is still a wanted man, with The Times reporting that Southampton and Wolverhampton Wanderers are both keen on the 31-year-old. It’s been a bad season for Hart, with the experienced goalkeeper left out of Gareth Southgate‘s England squad for the […]