In which country was the 2006 FIFA World Cup held?
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2006 FIFA World Cup FIFA World Cup
The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six populated continents participated in the qualification process which began in September 2003. Thirty-one teams qualified from this process, along with the host nation, Germany, for the finals tournament. It was the second time that Germany staged the competition (the first was in 1974 as West Germany and also a re-FIFA World Cup), and the tenth time that it was held in Europe.

Italy won the tournament, claiming their fourth World Cup title. They defeated France 5–3 in a penalty shootout in the final, after extra time had finished in a 1–1 draw. Germany defeated Portugal 3–1 to finish in third place.  Angola, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Serbia & Montenegro, Trinidad & Tobago and Togo made their first appearances in the finals.

The 2006 World Cup stands as one of the most watched events in television history, garnering an estimated 26.29 billion non-unique viewers, compiled over the course of the tournament. The final attracted an estimated audience of 715.1 million people. The 2006 World Cup ranks fourth in non-unique viewers, behind the World Cup in 1994, 2002, and 1990. As the winner, Italy represented the World in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Host selection

The vote to choose the hosts of the 2006 tournament was held in July 2000 in Zürich, Switzerland. It involved four bidding nations after Brazil had withdrawn three days earlier: Germany, South Africa, England and Morocco. Three rounds of voting were required, each round eliminating the nation with the least votes. The first two rounds were held on 6 July 2000, and the final round was held on 7 July 2000, which Germany won over South Africa.

Bribery and corruption allegations

Accusations of bribery and corruption have marred the success of Germany's bid from the very beginning. On the very day of the vote, a hoax bribery affair was made public, leading to calls for a re-vote.  On the night before the vote, German satirical magazine Titanic sent letters to FIFA representatives, offering joke gifts like cuckoo clocks and Black Forest ham in exchange for their vote for Germany. Oceania delegate Charlie Dempsey, who had initially backed England, had then been instructed to support South Africa following England's elimination. He abstained, citing "intolerable pressure" on the eve of the vote.  Had Dempsey voted as originally instructed, the vote would have resulted with a 12–12 tie, and FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who favoured the South African bid,  would have had to cast the deciding vote. 

More irregularities surfaced soon after, including sudden interest of German politicians and major businesses in the four Asian countries, whose delegates were decisive for the vote, in the months leading up to the decision. Just a week before the vote, the German government under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder lifted their arms embargo on Saudi Arabia and agreed to send grenade launchers to the country. DaimlerChrysler invested several hundred million Euro in Hyundai, while one of the sons of the company's founders was a member of FIFA's executive committee. Both Volkswagen and Bayer announced investments in Thailand and South Korea, whose respective delegates Worawi Makudi and Chung Jong-Moon were possible votes for Germany. Makudi additionally received a payment by a company of German media mogul Leo Kirch, who also paid millions for usually worthless TV rights for friendly matches of the German team and FC Bayern Munich.

On 16 October 2015, the German news magazine Der Spiegel alleged that a slush fund with money from then-Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus was used to influence the vote of four Asian members of the FIFA executive committee.  The sum of 6.7 million Euro was later demanded back by Dreyfus. In order to retrieve the money, the Organizing Committee paid an aquivalent sum to the FIFA, allegedly as a German share for the cost of a closing ceremony, which never materialized. Wolfgang Niersbach, president of the German Football Association (DFB), denied the allegations on 17 October 2015, saying that "the World Cup was not bought" and that he could "absolutely and categorically rule out the existence of a slush fund". The DFB announced they would consider seeking legal action against Der Spiegel.  During a press conference on 22 October 2015, Nierbach repeated his stance, emphasizing that the 6,7 million were used in 2002 to secure a subsidy by FIFA.  According to Niersbach, the payment had been agreed upon during a meeting between Franz Beckenbauer and FIFA president Blatter, with the money being provided by Dreyfus. On the same day, FIFA contradicted Niersbach's statement, saying: "By our current state of knowledge, no such payment of 10 million Franks was registered by FIFA in 2002."  The following day, former DFB president Theo Zwanziger publicly accused Niersbach of lying, saying: "It is evident that there was a slush fund for the German World Cup application". According to Zwanziger, the 6.7 million Euros went to Mohamed Bin Hammam, who at the time was supporting Blatter's campaign for president against Issa Hayatou. 

On 22 March 2016 it was announced that the FIFA Ethics Committee was opening proceedings into the bid.   

Qualification

198 teams attempted to qualify for the 2006 World Cup.  Germany, the host nation, was granted automatic qualification, with the remaining 31 finals places divided among the continental confederations. Thirteen places were contested by UEFA teams (Europe), five by CAF teams (Africa), four by CONMEBOL teams (South America), four by AFC teams (Asia), and three by CONCACAF teams (North and Central America and Caribbean). The remaining two places were decided by playoffs between AFC and CONCACAF and between CONMEBOL and OFC (Oceania).

Eight nations qualified for the finals for the first time: Angola, Czech Republic, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, and Serbia and Montenegro. Czech Republic and Ukraine were making their first appearance as independent nations, but had previously been represented as part of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union respectively; Serbia and Montenegro had competed as Yugoslavia in 1998, as well as making up part of Yugoslav teams from 1930 to 1990. As of 2014, this was the last time Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Togo, Angola, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Trinidad and Tobago qualified for a FIFA World Cup finals.

Australia qualified for the first time since 1974. Among the teams who failed to qualify were 2002 third-placed team Turkey and Euro 2004 winners Greece. Additionally, Belgium failed to qualify for the first time since 1978, and Cameroon failed to qualify for the first time since 1986. France had their first successful qualifying campaign since 1986, as they did not qualify for the 1990 and 1994 World Cups, in 1998 they were automatically qualified as hosts and in 2002 as defending champions.

For the first time since the 1982 World Cup, all six confederations were represented at the finals tournament.

List of qualified teams

The following 32 teams, shown with final pre-tournament rankings,  qualified for the final tournament:

;AFC (4)
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;CAF (5)
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;CONCACAF (4)
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;CONMEBOL (4)
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;OFC (1)
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;UEFA (14)
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Venues

In 2006, Germany had a plethora of football stadia that satisfied FIFA's minimum capacity of 40,000 seats for World Cup matches. The still-standing Olympiastadion in Munich (69,250) was not used even though FIFA's regulations allow one city to use two stadia; Düsseldorf's LTU Arena (51,500), Bremen's Weserstadion (43,000) and Mönchengladbach's Borussia-Park (46,249) were also unemployed during the tournament.

Twelve stadia were selected to host the World Cup matches. During the tournament, many of them were known by different names, as FIFA prohibits sponsorship of stadia unless the stadium sponsors were also official FIFA sponsors.  For example, the Allianz Arena in Munich was known during the competition as FIFA World Cup Stadium, Munich (or in ), and even the letters of the company Allianz were removed or covered. Some of the stadia also had a lower capacity for the World Cup, as FIFA regulations ban standing room; nonetheless, this was accommodated as several stadia had an UEFA 5-star ranking.

Match officials

Squads

Squads for the 2006 World Cup consisted of 23 players, as in the previous tournament in 2002. Each participating national association had to confirm its 23-player squad by 15 May 2006.

Groups

Seeds

The eight seeded teams for the 2006 tournament were announced on 6 December 2005. The seeds comprised Pot A in the draw. Pot B contained the unseeded qualifiers from South America, Africa and Oceania; Pot C contained eight of the nine remaining European teams, excluding Serbia and Montenegro. Pot D contained unseeded teams from the CONCACAF region and Asia. A special pot contained Serbia and Montenegro: this was done to ensure that no group contained three European teams.  In the special pot, Serbia and Montenegro was drawn first, then their group was drawn from the three seeded non-European nations, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

It had been predetermined that, as the host, Germany would be placed in Group A, thus being assured of the venues of their group matches in advance of the draw. FIFA had also announced in advance that Brazil (the defending champion) would be allocated to Group F.

On 9 December 2005 the draw was held, and the group assignments and order of matches were determined. After the draw was completed, commentators remarked that Group C appeared to be the group of death, while others suggested Group E. Argentina and the Netherlands both qualified with a game to spare with wins over Ivory Coast and Serbia and Montenegro respectively.

Group system

The first round, or group stage, saw the thirty-two teams divided into eight groups of four teams. Each group was a round-robin of three games, where each team played one match against each of the other teams in the same group. Teams were awarded three points for a win, one point for a draw and none for a defeat. The teams coming first and second in each group qualified for the Round of 16.

Ranking criteria

If teams were level on points, they were ranked on the following criteria in order:

In the original version of the rules for the final tournament, the ranking criteria were in a different order, with head-to-head results taking precedence over total goal difference. The rules were changed to the above in advance of the tournament, but older versions were still available on the FIFA and UEFA websites, causing some confusion among those trying to identify the correct criteria. 
In any event, the final tournament saw only two pairs of teams level on points: Argentina and the Netherlands at 7 points in Group C; Tunisia and Saudi Arabia at 1 point in Group H. Both of these ties were resolved on total goal difference. Also, in both cases the teams had tied their match, so the order of ranking criteria made no difference.

Finals tournament

The finals tournament of the 2006 World Cup began on 9 June. The 32 teams were divided into eight groups of four teams each, within which the teams competed in a round-robin tournament to determine which two of those four teams would advance to the sixteen-team knock-out stage, which started on 24 June. In total, 64 games were played.

Hosting

Although Germany failed to win the Cup, the tournament was considered a great success for Germany in general. Germany also experienced a sudden increase in patriotic spirit with flag waving, traditionally frowned upon by German society since World War II, whenever the German team played. For the closing ceremonies, Matthias Keller composed a work performed simultaneously by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra with conductors Christian Thielemann, Zubin Mehta, and Mariss Jansons, and soloists Diana Damrau, Plácido Domingo and Lang Lang.

Traditional powers dominate

Despite early success by Australia, Ecuador and Ghana, the tournament marked a return to dominance of the traditional football powers. Four years after a 2002 tournament in which teams from North America (United States), Africa (Senegal), and Asia (South Korea) made it deep into the knockout stages and Turkey finished third, all eight seeded teams progressed to the knockout stages, and none of the quarter-finalists were from outside Europe or South America. Six former champions took part in the quarter-final round, with Ukraine and Euro 2004 runners-up Portugal as the only relative outsiders.  Argentina and Brazil were eliminated in the quarter-finals, leaving an all-European final four for only the fourth time (after the 1934, 1966 and 1982 tournaments).

Scoring

Despite the early goals that flooded the group stages, the knock-out phase had a much lower goals per match ratio. A prime example of the dearth of goals was Portugal, which only scored in the 23rd minute of the Round of 16, and did not score again until the 88th minute of the third place play-off. No player managed to score a hat-trick in this tournament. Italy, Germany, Argentina, Brazil and France were the only teams to score more than one goal in a knockout match. Germany was one of the exceptions, tending to play an attacking style of football throughout the knock-out stage, which was reflected by the fact that they scored the most number of goals (14), with players from all three outfield positions (defence, midfield and forward) making the scoresheet.

Germany's Miroslav Klose scored five goals to claim the Golden Boot, the lowest total to win the prize since 1962. No other player scored more than three goals. No player from the winning Italian squad scored more than two goals, though ten different players had scored for the team, tying France's record in 1982 for the most goalscorers from any one team.

For the first time ever in the FIFA World Cup, the first and last goals of the tournament were scored by defenders. Philipp Lahm, the German left wingback, scored the opener against Costa Rica after only 5 minutes of the opening match. In the final, Marco Materazzi, the Italian centre back, out-jumped Patrick Vieira and headed in the last goal of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Unprecedented number of cards

The tournament had a record number of yellow and red cards, breaking the previous record set by the 1998 World Cup. Players received a record-breaking 345 yellow cards and 28 red cards, with Russian referee Valentin Ivanov handing out 16 yellow and 4 red cards in the round of 16 match between Portugal and the Netherlands, in a match known as the Battle of Nuremberg. Portugal had two players suspended for each of the quarter-final and semi-final matches, respectively. FIFA President Sepp Blatter hinted that he may allow some rule changes for future tournaments so that earlier accumulated bookings will not force players to miss the final, should their teams make it that far. The tournament also saw English referee Graham Poll mistakenly hand out three yellow cards to Croatia's Josip Šimunić in their match against Australia.

The high number of yellow and red cards shown also prompted discussion about the referees. FIFA Officials and President Sepp Blatter received criticism for allegedly making rules too rigid and taking discretion away from referees. 

Results

Group stage

 

All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+2).

In the following tables:
* Pld = total games played
* W = total games won
* D = total games drawn (tied)
* L = total games lost
* GF = total goals scored (goals for)
* GA = total goals conceded (goals against)
* GD = goal difference (GF−GA)
* Pts = total points accumulated

Group A

In the opening match of the tournament, Germany and Costa Rica played a game which ended 4–2 for the host in the highest scoring opening match in the tournament's history. Germany went on to win the Group A after edging Poland and breezing past Ecuador 3–0. Despite the defeat, Ecuador had already joined the host in the Round of 16 having beaten Poland and Costa Rica 2–0 and 3–0, respectively.

Group B

In Group B, England and Sweden pushed Paraguay into third place after narrow victories over the South Americans. Trinidad and Tobago earned some international respect after a draw with Sweden in their opening game and managing to hold England scoreless for 83 minutes, until goals from Peter Crouch and Steven Gerrard sealed a 2–0 win for the Three Lions. Sweden qualified for the knockout rounds after drawing 2–2 with England to maintain their 38-year unbeaten record against them.

Group C

Both Argentina and Netherlands qualified from Group C with a game remaining, Argentina topping the group on goal difference having hammered Serbia and Montenegro 6–0 and beating Ivory Coast 2–1. The Dutch picked up 1–0 and 2–1 victories over Serbia and Montenegro and Ivory Coast, respectively. Ivory Coast defeated Serbia and Montenegro 3–2 in their final game, in Serbia & Montenegro's last ever international before the break-up of the country.

Group D

Portugal coasted through in Group D, picking up the maximum number of points, with Mexico qualifying in second. Iran missed chances against Mexico in their opening 1–3 defeat and were eliminated in their match against Portugal. They fought hard against the Portuguese, but went down 2–0. Their last game against Angola ended in 1–1 draw. The Africans had a respectable first World Cup tournament after earning draws with Mexico (0–0) and Iran.

Group E

In Group E, Italy went through to the Round of 16 conceding just one goal (an own goal) in the group phase against the United States. The US bowed out of the tournament after disappointing results against the Czech Republic and Ghana, 0–3 and 1–2, respectively, despite a 1–1 draw (finishing with 9 vs 10 men) against Italy. Tournament debutant Ghana joined Italy in the round of 16, following victories over the Czech Republic and the United States. Daniele De Rossi was suspended for 4 games following his sending-off against the United States.

Group F

Group F included the reigning World Champions Brazil, Croatia, Japan, and Australia. Playing in their first World Cup for 32 years, Australia came from behind to defeat Japan 3–1, and, despite losing 0–2 to Brazil, a 2–2 draw with Croatia was enough to give the Australians a place in the Round of 16 in a game where two players were sent-off for second bookings and one for a third booking by English referee Graham Poll. Australia became the first Oceanian team to reach the knockout stages. The Brazilians won all three games to qualify first in the group. Their 1–0 win against Croatia was through a goal late in the first-half by Kaká. Croatia and Japan went out of the tournament without a single win.

Group G

France only managed a scoreless draw against Switzerland and a 1–1 draw against South Korea. With captain Zinedine Zidane suspended, their 2–0 win against Togo was enough for them to advance to the knockout round. They were joined by the group winners, Switzerland, who defeated South Korea 2–0, and did not concede a goal in the tournament. South Korea won their first World Cup finals match outside their own country in defeating Togo, but four points were not enough to see them through to the round of 16 (the only team for which this was the case), while Togo exited without a point.

Group H

Spain dominated Group H, picking up the maximum number of points, scoring 8 goals, and conceding only 1. Ukraine, despite being beaten 4–0 by Spain in their first World Cup game, took advantage of the weaker opponents to beat Saudi Arabia 4–0 and scrape past Tunisia 1–0 thanks to a 70th-minute penalty by Andriy Shevchenko, to reach the Round of 16. Saudi Arabia and Tunisia went out of the tournament having 1 point each, thanks to a 2–2 draw against each other.

Knockout stage

The knockout stage involved the sixteen teams that qualified from the group stage of the tournament. There were four rounds of matches, with each round eliminating half of the teams entering that round. The successive rounds were: round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and final. There was also a play-off to decide third/fourth place. For each game in the knockout stage, a draw was followed by thirty minutes of extra time (two 15-minute halves); if scores were still level there would be a penalty shoot-out (at least five penalties each, and more if necessary) to determine who progressed to the next round. Scores after extra time are indicated by (aet), and penalty shoot-outs are indicated by (pen.).

Round of 16

In the second round, conceding two early goals in the first twelve minutes to Germany effectively ended the Swedes' hopes of progressing to the quarter-finals. Argentina struggled to get past Mexico until a Maxi Rodríguez goal in extra time put the Albiceleste in the quarter-finals. Australia's journey ended when Italians were awarded a controversial penalty, scored by Francesco Totti, deep into the remaining seconds of the match. The Italians had spent much of the game with only ten men on the field, following an equally controversial red card shown to centre back Marco Materazzi. In a 0–0 match, Switzerland failed to convert any of their three penalties in the penalty shoot-out against Ukraine to see them exit the competition with an unwanted new record in becoming the first team in a World Cup to fail to convert any penalties in a shootout. Their elimination also meant that they became the first nation to be eliminated from the World Cup without conceding any goals (and indeed the only nation ever to participate in a World Cup finals tournament without conceding a goal).

England struggled against Ecuador but won 1–0 thanks to a David Beckham free kick. Brazil won 3–0 against Ghana, in a game which included Ronaldo's record 15th World Cup goal. Der Spiegel reported that the match may have been influenced by an Asian betting syndicate.  Portugal defeated the Netherlands 1–0. The only goal came courtesy of a Maniche strike in an acrimonious match, which marked a new World Cup record with 16 yellow cards (Portugal: 9, the Netherlands: 7) and 4 players being sent off for a second bookable offence. France came from behind to defeat Spain 3–1 thanks to goals from Franck Ribéry, Patrick Vieira, and Zinedine Zidane.

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Quarter-finals

Germany and Argentina ended 1–1 after extra time; the hosts edged out the Argentinians 4–2 on penalties to go through to the semifinals (this was the first time Argentina had lost a World Cup penalty shootout: up until this match, both Argentina and Germany had participated in three penalty shootouts, winning all of them). In Gelsenkirchen, when England faced Portugal, Wayne Rooney was sent off, and Portugal won the penalty shoot-out 3–1 after a 0–0 draw to reach their first World Cup semi-final since the days of Eusébio 40 years earlier, and ensure manager Luiz Felipe Scolari's third consecutive tournament quarter-final win over Sven-Göran Eriksson's England.

Italy defeated quarter-final debutants Ukraine 3–0. France eliminated Brazil 1–0 to advance into the semi-finals. Brazil only managed one shot on goal, while Zinedine Zidane's dribbling earned him Man of the Match and his free-kick to Thierry Henry resulted in the winning goal.

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Semi-finals

With Argentina and Brazil eliminated in the quarter-finals, an all-European semi-final line up was completed for only the fourth time (after the 1934, 1966 and 1982 tournaments).

The semi-final between Germany and Italy produced an extra time period that went scoreless until the 118th minute, when Italy scored twice through Fabio Grosso and Alessandro Del Piero, putting an end to Germany's undefeated record in Dortmund. With this win, Italy continued their dominance over Germany.

In the second semi-final, Portugal lost to France 1–0 in Munich. In a repeat of the Euro 1984 and Euro 2000 semi-finals, Portugal were defeated by France, with the decisive goal being a penalty scored by France captain Zinedine Zidane.

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Third place play-off

The hosts got three goals in 20 minutes in the second half with the help of 21-year-old left midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger. His first goal beat the Portuguese goalkeeper Ricardo with pace over his head. Only 4 minutes later, Schweinsteiger's free kick 30 metres from the left of the penalty box, driven low across goal, was connected with Petit's knee to become an own goal for Portugal. The German did not stop, and netted his second goal, which swerved away to the keeper's left, in the 78th minute.

Portugal were strong in possession but lacked punch in attack; unable to convert 57% possession into goals. Pauleta had two clear chances from 15 metres, but both times hit tame shots that did not trouble keeper Oliver Kahn, who was playing in his last match for the German national team. Portugal got a consolation goal with the help of substitute Luís Figo (also playing the final international game of his career), who almost immediately provided the precise distribution needed to unlock the German defence. A cross from the right wing on 88 minutes found fellow substitute Nuno Gomes at the far post, who dived in for the goal. The game ended 3–1, a result which gave the tournament hosts the bronze medals and left Portugal in fourth place.

Final

The final started with each side scoring within the first 20 minutes. Zinedine Zidane opened the scoring by converting a controversial seventh-minute penalty kick,  which glanced off the underside of the crossbar and into the goal... before bouncing back up, hitting the crossbar again and bounced out of the goal.  Marco Materazzi then levelled the scores in the 19th minute following an Andrea Pirlo corner. Both teams had chances to score the winning goal in normal time: Luca Toni hit the crossbar in the 35th minute for Italy (he later had a header disallowed for offside), while France were not awarded a possible second penalty in the 53rd minute when Florent Malouda went down in the box after a tackle from Gianluca Zambrotta.

At the end of the regulation 90 minutes, the score was still level at 1–1, and the match was forced into extra time. Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon made a potentially game-saving save in extra time when he tipped a Zidane header over the crossbar. Further controversy ensued near the end of extra time, when Zidane head-butted Materazzi in the chest in an off-the-ball incident and was sent off. Extra time produced no further goals and a penalty shootout followed, which Italy won 5–3. France's David Trezeguet, the man who scored the golden goal against Italy in Euro 2000, was the only player not to score his penalty; his spot kick hit the crossbar, landed on the goal line and went out. It was the first all-European final since Italy's triumph over West Germany in the 1982 World Cup, and the second final, after 1994, to be decided on penalties. It was also Italy's first world title in 24 years, and their fourth overall, making them the second most successful World Cup team ever. The victory also helped Italy top the FIFA World Rankings in February 2007 for the first time since November 1993.

Statistics

Goalscorers

Miroslav Klose received the Golden Boot for scoring five goals in the World Cup. In total, 147 goals were scored by 110 different players, with four of them credited as own goals.

Assists

Juan Román Riquelme won the assists table with four assists.

Awards

FIFA's Technical Study Group (TSG) also granted a Man of the Match award to one player in each match. Italy's Andrea Pirlo won the most Man of the Match awards, with three in total. Miroslav Klose, Agustin Delgado, Arjen Robben, Zé Roberto, Alexander Frei, Michael Ballack, and Patrick Vieira each received two awards.

All-star team

The All-star team is a squad consisting of the 23 most impressive players at the 2006 World Cup, as selected by FIFA's Technical Study Group. The team was chosen from a shortlist of over 50 players, and was selected based on performances from the second round onwards. 

Prize money

A total of CHF332 million was awarded to the 32 teams participating in the tournament. Each team who entered the competition received CHF2 million, with the biggest prize being CHF24.5 million, awarded to the winner of the tournament.  Below is a complete list of the prize money allocated: 

* CHF7 million – To each team eliminated in the group stage (16 teams)
* CHF8.5 million – To each team eliminated in the round of 16 (8 teams)
* CHF11.5 million – To each team eliminated in the quarter-finals (4 teams)
* CHF21.5 million – Fourth placed team and Third placed team
* CHF22.5 million – Runners-up
* CHF24.5 million – Winner

Final standings

All 32 teams are ranked based on criteria which have been used by FIFA.  Please note that a penalty shoot-out counts as a draw for both teams. 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 ' (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.

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 winners Uruguay, with two titles each; and England, France and Spain, with one title each.

The World Cup is 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.    

History

Previous international competitions

The world's first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England,  which ended in a 0–0 draw. The first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, took place in 1884.  As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the 20th 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.

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.

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 13 European teams, and won by Belgium.  Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928. Those were also the first two open world championships, as 1924 was the start of FIFA's professional era.

World Cups before World War II

Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet as 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 itself.  With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions 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, 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 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.  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. 

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, which Nazi Germany and Brazil sought to host,  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,  but rejoined in 1946 following FIFA's invitation.  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 the match called "Maracanazo" (Portuguese: Maracanaço).

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.  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; North Korea, quarter-finalists in 1966; and Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1970.

Expansion to 32 teams

The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982,  and then to 32 in 1998,  also allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. Since then, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, with several having reached the quarter-finals: Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1986; Cameroon, quarter-finalists in 1990; South Korea, finishing in fourth place in 2002; Senegal, along with USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002; Ghana, quarter-finalists in 2010; and Costa Rica, quarter-finalists in 2014. Nevertheless, European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g., the quarter-finalists in 1994, 1998, and 2006 were all from Europe or South America and so were the finalists of all tournaments so far.

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. 

Possible expansion to 40 teams

In October 2013, Sepp Blatter spoke of guaranteeing the Caribbean Football Union's region a position in the World Cup.  In the 25 October 2013 edition of the FIFA Weekly Blatter wrote that: "From a purely sporting perspective, I would like to see globalisation finally taken seriously, and the African and Asian national associations accorded the status they deserve at the FIFA World Cup. It cannot be that the European and South American confederations lay claim to the majority of the berths at the World Cup."  Those two remarks suggested to commentators that Blatter could be putting himself forward for re-election to the FIFA Presidency. 

Following the magazine's publication, Blatter's would-be opponent for the FIFA Presidency, UEFA President Michel Platini responded that he intended to extend the World Cup to 40 national associations, increasing the number of participants by eight. Platini said that he would allocate an additional berth to UEFA, two to Asia Football Confederation and Confederation of African Football, two shared between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, and a guaranteed place for the Oceania Football Confederation.  Platini was clear about why he wanted to expand the World Cup. He said: "[The World Cup is] not based on the quality of the teams because you don't have the best 32 at the World Cup ... but it's a good compromise. ... It's a political matter so why not have more Africans? The competition is to bring all the people of all the world. If you don't give the possibility to participate, they don't improve."

In 2016 FIFA president Gianni Infantino stated his support for a 40-team World Cup in 2026. 

2015 FIFA corruption case 

By May 2015, the games were under a particularly dark cloud because of the 2015 FIFA corruption case, allegations and criminal charges of bribery, fraud and money laundering to corrupt the issuing of media and marketing rights (rigged bids) for FIFA games,  with FIFA officials accused of taking bribes totaling more than $150 million over 24 years. In late May, the U.S. Justice Department announced a 47-count indictment with charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy against 14 people. Arrests of over a dozen FIFA officials were made since that time, particularly on May 29 and December 3. 

By the end of May 2015, a total of nine FIFA officials and five executives of sports and broadcasting markets had already been charged on corruption. At the time, FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced he would relinquish his position in February 2016. 

On 4 June 2015 Chuck Blazer while co-operating with the FBI and the Swiss authorities admitted that he and the other members of FIFA's executive committee were bribed in order to promote the South African, 1998 and 2010 World Cups. 

On 10 June 2015 Swiss authorities seized computer data from the offices of Sepp Blatter. 
Also, on 10 June 2015 FIFA postponed the bidding process for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in light of the allegations surrounding bribery in the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. Then-secretary general Jérôme Valcke stated, "Due to the situation, I think it's nonsense to start any bidding process for the time being." 

On 28 October 2015, Blatter and FIFA VP Michel Platini, a potential candidate for presidency, were suspended for 90 days; both maintained their innocence in statements made to the news media. 

On 3 December 2015 two FIFA vice-presidents were arrested on suspicion of bribery in the same Zurich hotel where seven FIFA officials had been arrested in May.  An additional 16 indictments by the U.S. Department of Justice were announced on the same day. 

Other FIFA tournaments

An equivalent tournament for women's football, the FIFA Women's World Cup, was first held in 1991 in China.  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). The latter three do not have a women's version, although a FIFA Women's Club World Cup is planned for 2017.

When the U-20 Women's World Cup is held the year before the Women's World Cup, both tournaments are awarded in a single bidding process. The U-20 tournament serves as a dress rehearsal for the larger competition, the same role as the Confederations Cup plays in the men's game.

Trophy

From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winning team. 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 countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs . 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 only until the post-match celebration is finished. They are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original immediately afterwards.

Currently, all members (players, coaches, and managers) of the top three teams receive medals with an insignia of the World Cup Trophy; winners' (gold), runners-up' (silver), and third-place (bronze). In the 2002 edition, fourth-place medals were awarded to hosts South Korea. Before 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

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 receive 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 qualifying matches. 

Final tournament

The current final tournament has been used since 1998 and features 32 national teams competing over the course of 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. This means that a total of six matches are played within a 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).

If one considers all possible outcomes (win, draw, loss) for all six matches in a group, there are 729 (= 36) different outcome combinations possible. However a certain number (207) of these combinations lead to ties between the second and third places. In such case, the ranking among these teams is determined as follows: 
# Greatest combined goal difference in all group matches
# Greatest combined number of goals scored in all group matches
# If more than one team remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined as follows:
## Greatest number of points in head-to-head matches among those teams
## Greatest goal difference in head-to-head matches among those teams
## Greatest number of goals scored in head-to-head matches among those teams
# 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 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

Selection process

Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA's congress. The locations were controversial because South America and Europe were by far the two centres of strength in football and travel between them required three weeks by boat. 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 in France was disputed, as the South American countries understood that the location would alternate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the 1938 FIFA World Cup. 

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 is hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since Argentina 1978,  and is the first occasion where consecutive World Cups are held outside Europe.

The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA's Executive Committee. This is done under an exhaustive ballot 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 was the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which were awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively.

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 eight champions have won one of their titles while playing in their own homeland, the exceptions being Brazil, who finished as runners-up after losing the deciding match on home soil in 1950 and lost their semifinal against Germany in 2014, and Spain, which reached the second round on home soil in 1982. 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. Switzerland (quarter-finals 1954), Sweden (runners-up in 1958), Chile (third place in 1962), South Korea (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) has been the only host nation to fail to advance beyond the first round.

Attendance

QF Quarter-Finals (top 8) ; Group 
 did not advance beyond first round (group play)
 [Solna borders Stockholm, Pasadena borders Los Angeles and Saint-Denis is a suburb of Paris.]
The best-attended single match, shown in the last two columns, has been the final in only about half of the twenty World Cup series so far. Another match or matches drew more attendance than the final in 1938, 1954, 1966–1982, 1990 and 2006.

*Source: FIFA 

Broadcasting and promotion

The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world. 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. The World Cup attracts many sponsors such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Adidas. For these companies and many more, being a sponsor strongly impacts their global brands. Host countries typically experience a multimillion-dollar revenue increase from the month-long event. It is predicted that Brazil will bring in more than $11 billion in revenue for the 2014 World Cup.

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.

The World Cup even has a statistically significant effect on birth rates, the male/female sex ratio of newborns, and heart attacks in nations whose national teams are competing.     Hosting the World Cup or a home team's win tends to increase male births and total birth rate, and heart attacks are more common when home teams are on the field.

Results

*a.e.t.: after extra time
*p: after penalty shoot-out

;Notes

In all, 77 nations have played in at least one World Cup.  Of these, eight national teams have won the World Cup, and they have added stars to their badges, with each star representing a World Cup victory. (Uruguay, however, choose to display four stars on their badge, representing their two gold medals at the 1924 and 1928 Summer Olympics and their two World Cup titles in 1930 and 1950.)

With five titles, Brazil are the most successful World Cup team and also the only nation to have played in every World Cup (20) to date.  Italy (1934 and 1938) and Brazil (1958 and 1962) are the only nations to have won consecutive titles. West Germany (1982–1990) and Brazil (1994–2002) are the only nations to appear in three consecutive World Cup finals. Germany has made the most top-four finishes (13), medals (12), as well as the most finals (8).

Teams reaching the top four

* 
 hosts
^ 
 includes results representing West Germany between 1954 and 1990
# 
 states that have since split into two or more independent nations

Best performances by continental zones

To date, the final of the World Cup has only been contested by teams from the UEFA (Europe) and CONMEBOL (South America) confederations. European nations have won eleven titles, while South American have won nine. Only two teams from outside these two continents have ever reached the semi-finals of the competition: USA (North, Central America and Caribbean) in 1930 and South Korea (Asia) in 2002. The best result of an African team is reaching the quarter-finals: Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2010. Only one Oceanian qualifier, Australia in 2006, has advanced to the second round. 

Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Germany are the only teams to win a World Cup outside their continental confederation; Brazil came out victorious in Europe (1958), North America (1970 and 1994) and Asia (2002), Argentina won a North American World Cup in 1986, while Spain won an Africa in 2010. Germany was the first European team to win in South America in 2014. Only on four occasions have consecutive World Cups been won by teams from the same continent, and currently it is the first time with three champions in a row from the same continental confederation. Italy and Brazil successfully defended their titles in 1938 and 1962 respectively, while Italy's triumph in 2006 has been followed by Spain's in 2010 and Germany's in 2014. Currently, it is also the first time that one of the currently winning continents (Europe) is ahead of the other (South America) with two championships.

Awards

At the end of each World Cup, awards are presented to the players and teams for accomplishments other than their final team positions in the tournament. There are currently six awards: 
*The Golden Ball for the best player, determined by a vote of media members (first awarded in 1982); the Silver Ball and the Bronze Ball are awarded to the players finishing second and third in the voting respectively; 
*The Golden Boot (sometimes called the Golden Shoe) for the top goalscorer (first awarded in 1982, but retrospectively applied to all tournaments from 1930); most recently, the Silver Boot and the Bronze Boot have been awarded to the second and third top goalscorers respectively; 
*The Golden Glove Award (formerly the Yashin Award) for the best goalkeeper, decided by the FIFA Technical Study Group (first awarded in 1994); 
*The Best Young Player Award for the best player aged 21 or younger at the start of the calendar year, decided by the FIFA Technical Study Group (first awarded in 2006);
*The FIFA Fair Play Trophy for the team with the best record of fair play, according to the points system and criteria established by the FIFA Fair Play Committee (first awarded in 1978); 
*The Most Entertaining Team for the team that has entertained the public the most during the World Cup, determined by a poll of the general public (first awarded in 1994);
An All-Star Team consisting of the best players of the tournament has also been announced for each tournament since 1998.

Records and statistics

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 Djalma Santos (1954–1962), West Germany's Franz Beckenbauer (1966–1974) and Germany's Philipp Lahm (2006–2014) are the only players to be named to three Finals All-Star Teams. 

Miroslav Klose of Germany (2002–2014) is the all-time top scorer at the finals, with 16 goals. He broke Ronaldo of Brazil's record of 15 goals (1998–2006) during 2014 semi-final match against Brazil. West Germany's Gerd Müller (1970–1974) is third, with 14 goals.  The fourth placed goalscorer, France's Just Fontaine, holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup; all his 13 goals were scored in the 1958 tournament. 

In November 2007, FIFA announced that all members of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners' medals. This made Brazil's Pelé the only player to have won three World Cup winners' medals (1958, 1962, and 1970, although he did not play in the 1962 final due to injury),  with 20 other players who have won two winners' medals. Seven players have collected all three types of World Cup medals (winners', runner- ups', and third-place); five players were from West Germany's squad of 1966–1974 including Franz Beckenbauer, Jürgen Grabowski, Horst-Dieter Höttges, Sepp Maier and Wolfgang Overath (1966–1974), Italy's Franco Baresi (1982, 1990, 1994) and the most recent has been Miroslav Klose of Germany (2002–2014) with four consecutive medals.

Brazil's Mário Zagallo and West 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. 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 has played the most World Cup matches (106) and appeared in the most finals (8), semi-finals (13), quarter-finals (16) as well as scoring the most World Cup goals (224), while Brazil has appeared in the most World Cups (20).  The two teams have played each other twice in the World Cup, in the 2002 final and in the 2014 semi-final.

Top goalscorers

All-time table for champions
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