Soccer World Cup - South Africa 2010
History - Groups - Players - Venues
World Cup History
Football World Cup finals are held every four years, but the competition itself takes place over a three-year period, and includes a regional qualifying tournament. For the 2006 World Cup 197 national teams entered the qualification rounds. The final tournament counts with 32 national teams competing over a four-week period; event that takes place in a previously nominated host nation.
This tournament is the most widely-viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games and it has been held every four years since 1930 with the exception of 1942 and 1946 as it was cancelled due to World War II. There are only seven nations that have won the World Cup, being the most successful ones Brazil with 5 championships, Italy holds 4 titles and Germany has 3 titles.
Germany was the host for the last Football Worldf Cup in 2006 with a total of 3,356,439 spectators; there were averagely 52,491 people watching each game. Actually; the stadiums could sit a lot more, but since the safety regulations were very strict they had to reduce the number of spectators. However; it was a great event with a total of 147 goals scored. With a victory by the penalties, Italy won over France.
The top scorer was Miroslav Klose who scored 5 goals and achieved with his German team the 3rd place.
First time participants at the World Cup Finals were: Angola, Ghana, Togo, Ukraine, Trinidad and Tobago, the Ivory Coast and the Czech Republic.
The following World Cup in 2010 will be the 19th Football World Cup and it will be hosted for the first time by a nation in the Confederation of African Football with around 200 teams attempting to qualify. Up to this point, Oceania is the only FIFA Confederation which has not hosted this event yet.
A one-time policy demanded the event had to rotate among the football confederations reason why Africa was chosen. This particular policy was revoked last October 2007.
The first World Cup
The Frenchman Jules Rimet, who became FIFA president in 1921 is famous for his status of the creator of the Football World Cup Championship games. He organized the inaugural World Cup tournament in 1930 which took place in Uruguay. Basically, in response to the general lack of interest from the Americans. As well as a disagreement between FIFA and the IOC over the status of amateur players led to the sport of football being dropped from the official Olympic programmed of the 1932 games.
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 from for Europe and even two months before the start of the competition no nation from that continent had promised to send a team. Eventually, Rimet persuaded four European teams representing Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip.
A total of thirteen nations were part of the event; seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America. The first-ever goal was scored by Lucien Laurent, who scored for France against Mexico (the match ended 4-1 for France). In the final, Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2 before a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo becoming the first nation to win a World Cup.
Until 1970 the World Cup’s Trophy was the Jules Rimet Cup which was designed by a French sculptor. It depicted the ‘Winged Victory of Samothrace’, also called the ‘Nike of Samothrace’. That is the reason the cup was also called ‘The Golden Nike’. In 1983 the statue was stolen and has never been found.
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