World Cup 2006

World Cup 2006

The World Cup 2006 Soccer tournament starts on 9 June 2006 in Munich, Germany. The first game will be between the host nation and Costa Rica.

The tournament will end with the 64th game – the final – on 9th July in Berlin.

This truly is a global tournament, with 14 teams from Europe, 4 teams from North/Central America and the Caribbean, 4 teams from South America, 5 teams from Africa, 4 teams from Asia and 1 team from Oceania. All teams have had to qualify for the tournament, except the hosts Germany. This is the first time in the long history of the World Cup that the holders have also had to qualify.

The holders are, of course, Brazil, who have appeared in the last 3 World Cup Finals, winning 2 of them. They also are – by far – the strongest soccer nation in the World, having won 5 tournaments in all, 2 more than the nation with the second-best record, Germany. Brazil are the acknowledged masters of the game, playing the most beautiful soccer in the world. They enter this tournament as one of the favorites, although the law of averages suggest that they will struggle to win the World Cup 2006 competition for the 3rd time in the 4 attempts.

The full list of the 32 teams taking part in the Word Cup 2006 Soccer tournament is as follows:

World Cup 2006 Group A
Germany, Costa Rica, Poland, Ecuador

World Cup 2006 Group B
England, Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden

World Cup 2006 Group C
Argentina, Ivory Coast, Serbia & Montenegro, Holland

World Cup 2006 Group D
Mexico, Iran, Angola, Portugal

World Cup 2006 Group E
Italy, Ghana, United States, Czech Republic

World Cup 2006 Group F
Brazil, Croatia, Australia, Japan

World Cup 2006 Group G
France, Switzerland, Korea Republic, Togo

World Cup 2006 Group H
Spain, Ukraine, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia

Stage 1 of the tournament takes place between 9th and 23rd June, during which each team plays the other group members once.

The top 2 teams then qualify for the knock-out stage 2, in which the Winners of Group A, play the Runners-up in Group B and vice-versa. Similarly;

Group C is paired with Group D,
Group E is paired with Group F and
Group G is paired with Group H.

These 8 matches take place (2 per day) between 24th and 27th June. The winners then go into the Quarter Finals, which pairs up the winners of the games involving;

Groups A – D in 2 games and
Groups E – H in 2 games.

The four Quarter Final games take place on 30th June and 1st July. The winners go through to the Semi-Finals which take place on 4th and 5th July.

The unfortunate losers of the Semi-Finals (probably the worst game to lose) then play in a third-place play-off (probably the worst game to play in!) on 8th July, whilst the winners go through to the big one - the final – on 9th July.

32 Teams, 64 games, 1 trophy – the greatest tournament in the world!

World Cup 2006