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 FIFA World Cup. 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 champions are France, who won their second title at the 2018 tournament in Russia.

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 แข่งขันบอลโลก. 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 This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify.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.

The World Cup is the most prestigious association football tournament in the world, as well as the most widely viewed and followed single sporting event in the world. The cumulative viewership of all matches of the 2006 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 climate conditions caused some to call hosting the tournament in Qatar infeasible, with initial plans for air-conditioned stadiums giving way to a potential date switch from summer to winter. Four-time world champions and reigning European champions Italy failed to qualify for a second successive World Cup for the first time in their history, losing in the qualification play-off semi-finals.

Argentina won a World Cup in North America in 1986, while Spain won in Africa in 2010. In 2014, Germany became the first European team to win in the Americas. Only on five occasions have consecutive World Cups been won by teams from the same continent. The current run of four champions from one continental confederation has not happened before. Italy and Brazil successfully defended their titles in 1938 and 1962 respectively, while Italy's triumph in 2006 has been followed by wins for Spain in 2010, Germany in 2014 and France in 2018.

On 9 December 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency handed Russia a four-year ban from all major sporting events, after RUSADA was found non-compliant for handing over manipulated lab data to investigators. The Russian national team were still permitted to enter qualification, as the ban only applied to the final tournament to decide the world champions. A team representing Russia, which uses the Russian flag and anthem, could not participate under the WADA decision whilst the ban is active. The decision was appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and on 17 December 2020, Russian teams were banned from competing at world championships organised or sanctioned by a WADA signatory until 16 December 2022, the day before the third-place playoff. Currently, all members of the top three teams receive medals with an insignia of the World Cup Trophy; winners' , runners-up' , and third-place . In the 2002 edition, fourth-place medals were awarded to hosts South Korea.

Currently, it is also the first time that one of the currently winning continents is ahead of the other by more than one championship. 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.