The World Cup Is a Feeling, One That Money Cant Buy The New York Times
Among the national teams, Germany and Brazil have played the most World Cup matches , Germany appeared in the most finals , semi-finals , and quarter-finals , while Brazil has appeared in the most World Cups , has the most wins and has scored the most goals . The two teams have played each other twice in the World Cup, in the 2002 final and in the 2014 semi-final. 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 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. 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 F...