A dozen things you never knew you wanted to know about the World Cup (part 1)

With the World Cup just around the corner, here is the first in a series of facts about the history of the tournament…

1.       This year’s FIFA World Cup will be the 21^st running of the event. It’s the 11^th one to be held in Europe, which hasn’t had a World Cup since 2006. 32 teams will be competing.

2.       20 of those 32 teams appeared in the last World Cup in 2014. Two countries, Iceland and Panama, are making their first-ever appearances at a World Cup.

3.       Conspicuous by their absence are Italy (who haven’t qualified for the first time since 1958) and the Netherlands (not appearing for the first time since 2002).

4.       Brazil have won the World Cup the most times (five). Germany and Italy have both won it four times (although for the Germans, the first three of those were as West Germany), while Argentina and Uruguay have won it twice each. England, France and Spain have all won it once.

5.       Brazil is also the only country to have featured in all 21 World Cups, although Germany has played in more World Cup matches (106) than any other country.

6.       The World Cup has been won by the host nation in 1930 (Uruguay), 1938 (Italy), 1966 (England), 1974 (West Germany), 1978 (Argentina) and 1998 (France). The hosts have been the runners-up in 1950 (Brazil) and 1958 (Sweden), while the hosts made the semi-finals in 1962 (Chile), 1990 (Italy), 2002 (South Korea), 2006 (Germany) and 2014 (Brazil). South Africa (in 2010) is the only host nation to have failed to get out of the group stage. Russia, by the way, have yet to get out of the group stage at a World Cup (although as the Soviet Union, they did make it to the quarter-finals on three occasions).

7.       Only two countries have won the World Cup twice in succession – Italy (1934 and 1938) and Brazil (1958 and 1962). On the other end of the scale, four countries have gone into a World Cup as reigning champions only to be knocked out in the first round: Italy (twice, in 1950 and in 2010), Brazil (in 1966), France (in 2002) and Spain (in 2014).

8.       Back in 1930, the first World Cup tournament had thirteen teams take part – seven from South America (including Uruguay, the hosts), four from Europe (the difficulty of travelling to South America at the time having put several countries off) and two from North America. It consisted of a group stage (one group of four, three groups of three) followed by semi-finals and a final. 16 teams took part in the 1934 World Cup, 15 in 1938 and 13 in 1950 although there was space for 16 teams at those tournaments. The 1934 and 1938 tournaments were the only ones to be played as straight knock-outs (which was how Indonesia – or, as it was called then, the Dutch East Indies – has only ever played in one World Cup match).

9.       The 16-nation format was the norm from the 1950s to the 1970s, with a few variations along the way – in 1950 the four group winners went into a final group stage (an innovation which was never repeated), following which the top two teams from each group progressed to the quarter-finals. Then in 1974 the format changed with the introduction of second group stage, with the top two teams from those two groups progressing to the final.

10.   The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982, and then to 32 teams in 1998 – allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North/Central America to take part, although Europe and South America continue to dominate, with no country from any other continent having ever reached the World Cup final.

11.   Penalty shoot-outs were first introduced in 1978 to determine the outcome of any match at the knock-out stage which remained a draw after extra time (previously, replays had been used). The first time a penalty shoot-out was used at a World Cup, though, was at the 1982 semi-final between France and West Germany.

12.   Two World Cup finals have been decided by way of a penalty shoot-out – 1994 (in which Brazil beat Italy) and 2006 (when Italy beat France).