WORLD CUP INTRO POST
36 DAYS UNTIL SOUTH AFRICA 2010 BEGINS
But who was World Coup?
"Who was World Coup"? Learn how to spell, children.
The FIFA World Cup, occasionally called the Football World Cup or Soccer World Cup, but usually referred to simply as the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the 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 first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not contested because of World War II.
The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month - this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).
Qualifying
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.
The Tournament
The current final tournament features 32 national teams competing over 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.
Each group plays a round-robin tournament, guaranteeing that every team will play at least three matches. 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.
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.
HBIC
The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now 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 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 following countries have won the most gold cups in WC history:
Team Titles Runners-up Third place
Brazil 5 (1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002) 2 (1950*, 1998) 2 (1938, 1978)
Italy 4 (1934*, 1938, 1982, 2006) 2 (1970, 1994) 1 (1990*)
Germany^ 3 (1954, 1974*, 1990) 4 (1966, 1982, 1986, 2002) 3 (1934, 1970, 2006*)
Argentina 2 (1978*, 1986) 2 (1930, 1990) -
Uruguay 2 (1930*, 1950) - -
Other individual/team awards that are awarded at the end of the WC
- 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 Shoe (sometimes called the Golden Boot) for the top goalscorer (first awarded in 1982, but retrospectively applied to all tournaments from 1930); most recently, the Silver Shoe and the Bronze Shoe have been awarded to the second and third top goalscorers respectively;
- 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);
SOUTH AFRICA 2010
bb Zakumi is the official mascot and you will see him goofing around matches and being qt
The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19th FIFA World Cup. It is scheduled to take place between 11 June and 11 July 2010 in South Africa.
This will be the first time that the tournament has been hosted by an African nation, after South Africa beat Morocco and Egypt in an all-African bidding process. This decision left the Oceania Football Confederation as the only confederation yet to host the FIFA World Cup. Italy are the defending champions. The opening match will be South Africa vs. Mexico on June 11th.
The Participating Teams
AFC (4) CAF (6)
Algeria
Cameroon
Côte d'Ivoire
Ghana
Nigeria
South Africa (hosts)
Denmark
England
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
Netherlands
Portugal
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland
$$$$$
The total prize money on offer for the tournament was confirmed by FIFA as $420 million, a 60 percent increase on the 2006 tournament. Before the tournament, each participating team would receive $1 million, for preparation costs. Once at the tournament, teams exiting at the group stage would receive $8 million. Thereafter, the prize money would be distributed as follows:
- $9 million - Round of 16
- $18 million - Quarter-finals
- $20 million - Semi-finals
- $24 million - Runners up
- $30 million - Winners
The Offical S.A. 2010 Ball (yes, there's an official ball for each world cup lol)
Venues
There will be a total of ten venues to be used for the World Cup in the follwoing cities: Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Kimberley, Nelspruit, Orkney, Polokwane, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria, and Rustenburg.
Broadcasting
In the U.S. the World Coup will be broadcasted on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, Telemundo and Univision (my choice tbh lol i cant stand commentators in english)
Click here for the match schedules because I don't to make this posts endless lol
Now all you bbs that ~signed up~ to make separate intro posts are free to do so, the ontd_e FIFA party has officially begun.
If you would like to make any intro posts for a specific country, post here so you can know if it's already been taken, etc.
Any questions/doubts? Ask our resident experts
Are you going to the WC?
What countries are you rooting for?
What hotties are you waiting to UNF over for a whole month?
Do you like the official song?
Did Greg Bretz really shave his head?
Official song fyt
Click to view