Interestingly, every four years we have the chance to stay in front of our TVs waiting for every football match. World Cup is famous for its tournament-quality as all delegations involve best players, representing their countries in this world game.
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Top Fast Facts on World Cup You Can Never Know
The Number of Viewers
This international soccer tournament has averagely 3.2 billion viewers, roughly 46% of the world’s population. Therefore, the World Cup has become the most widely viewed sporting event all over the world. People around the world are all taken by storm. Whenever there is a match, there will always be a flock of people gathering in coffee shops or beer vendors to be immersed in the triumphs and defeats of their favorite teams.
The First World Cup
It was in 1930 that the first FIFA World Cup tournament took place in Montevideo, Uruguay. Only thirteen teams were participating in World Cup, including Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, France, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Romania, the United States, Uruguay, and Yugoslavia.
In this first World Cup event, there were only 4 teams from Europe due to the hardship of economic depression. In this first tournament, Uruguay became the first champion.
The winners
Although 77 nations have played in at least one World Cup, only eight of those have won. No country outside of Europe or South America has ever won the World Cup. Brazil from South America takes the lead as it has won the championship 5 times while Italy comes second with four titles. Next is Germany with three wins, followed by Uruguay, France, and Argentina in the fourth place as they all have two trophies.
What about the prize?
So you might be curious about how much prize money the winning team will get. For the winning team, they can bring the cup home with $38 million prize money while the runner-ups will also take home $28 million. The third and the fourth also have the prize money at $24 and $22 million accordingly.
Prohibitive hosting cost
Countries not only compete to hold the event, but they also compete against each other in the organizing phase. By far, the most expensive World Cup is the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. It is estimated that Brazil spent about $15 billion to host the event.
Brazil – Best team ever in World Cup
One more thing about Brazil, apart from being the most successful team in World Cup, is also the only nation to take part in every World Cup tournament up till now. Going into Brazilian football history is Pele, who has played for Brazil in four World Cups. He has won the most championships as a single player.
Hosted by 17 nations
Ever since its first tournament in 1930, World Cup has been held in 17 nations including Brazil, Switzerland, Uruguay, Italy, France, South Africa, West Germany, England, Sweden, Russia, Chile, South Korea, Mexico, Argentina, United States of America, Japan, and Germany. The first World Cup ever hosted by two nations is the 2002 World Cup, hosted by both South Korea and Japan. The World Cup 2022 will be hosted in Qatar, while the next World Cup (2026) will be co-hosted by The United States of America, Mexico, and Canada.
Especially in two years, 1942 and 1946, the games were canceled due to World War II.
Most goals scored
In the history of the World Cup, some players broke the records on scoring. Germany’s Miroslav Klose and Brazil’s Ronaldo are the likes of outstanding players in history as they share the overall score of 15 goals.
Home team success
As a common notion, the host country must do well. Along the World Cup history, except for South Africa, the host country of World Cup 2010, all host countries have broken into the round of 16 teams.
There are six times when the host countries win the tournament from 1930 to 1998 in turn, particularly, Uruguay, Italy, England, West Germany, Argentina, and France.
Women’s World Cup
People all around the world know about the FIFA World Cup for male footballers. However, many football fans do not know anything about the Women’s World Cup Championship, which is also held by FIFA. The first FIFA Women’s World Cup took place in China, with 12 countries taking part in. This women version did not appear until 1991, with the USA winning the trophy in a final against Norway.
In 2019, the Women’s World Cup has established television records over the world, in particular, the match between France and Brazil, viewed with 35 million viewers in Brazil and 10,6 million others in France. For the first time, a women’s soccer match has ever reached that number of viewers in these two countries.
Age requirement
You might wonder if age is a criterion that decides whether a footballer can play for a team in the World Cup. However, the answer is that age does not matter much.
The youngest player in World Cup appeared in the 1982 tournament. He is Norman Whiteside, playing for Northern Ireland when he was only 17 years and 41 days old. Meanwhile, the oldest player in World Cup is Essam El-Hadary, an Egyptian goalkeeper. He is the most former player in the history of the World Cup as he played in World Cup 2018 against Saudi Arabia at the age of 45.
In Conclusion
These are a series of ten amazing facts that everyone needs to know about the World Cup. There is only one year left before the World Cup 2020 in Qatar. This article will assist you in brushing up your World Cup knowledge so everyone will be in awe of you as most people do not know much about this tournament
