adminYoliswa Dube Features Reporter
BRAZIL and Croatia will at 10PM (local time) kick-start the Fifa World Cup with the opening match of the world’s biggest football extravaganza.The Fifa World Cup was first held in 1930, when then Fifa president Frenchman Jules Rimet decided to stage an international football tournament.
The inaugural edition, held in Uruguay, was contested as a final tournament of only 13 teams invited by the organisation.
Since then, the Fifa World Cup has experienced successive expansions and format remodelling to its current 32-team final tournament preceded by a two-year qualifying process, involving almost 200 teams from all over the world.
The 1990 World Cup was held in Italy. Cameroon, participating in their second World Cup, made it to the quarter-finals after beating Argentina in the opening game.
No African country had ever reached the quarter-finals before. Mexico was unable to compete in the 1990 World Cup preliminary competition as a result of a two-year ban for age fraud at a youth championship; the United States qualified for the first time since 1950.
An unpleasant episode marred the South American preliminaries: during the match between Brazil and Chile, a firework landed close to the Chilean goalkeeper Rojas, who then feigned injury by cutting his own face with a razor blade he had hidden in his glove.
His team refused to continue the match (as they were down a goal at the time). The plot was discovered and resulted in a 12-year suspension for Rojas and to Chile being banned from the World Cup in 1994.
The 2002 World Cup was the first to be held in Asia, and was hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan.
Togolese Souleymane Mamam became the youngest player ever to take to a World Cup preliminary game field at 13 years. Australia defeated American Samoa 31-0 in a preliminary match — a new record for the margin of victory, and the highest-scoring match ever.
The tournament was a successful one for teams traditionally regarded as minnows, with South Korea, Senegal and USA all reaching the last eight. Brazil beat Germany 2-0 in the final for their fifth title.
The 2010 World Cup was held in South Africa.
It was the first cup hosted on African soil, and the cup was won by Spain. The tournament was noted for its highly defensive opening matches, controversies surrounding goal-line technology, and the introduction of vuvuzelas.
Though considered as one of the tournament favourites, the Spaniards won the cup despite scoring only 8 goals in 7 games and losing their opening match to Switzerland.
David Villa led the squad in scoring with 5 goals. In a final which saw a record number of yellow cards distributed and the extremely violent play from the Dutch side, the 10-man Netherlands squad were defeated 1-0 in the 116th minute of extra time by an Andres Iniesta goal.
The number of teams and the format of each final tournament have varied considerably over the years.
Over the years, the tournament has consisted of a round-robin group stage followed by a single-elimination knockout stage
From 1998 to date, a group stage followed by a knockout stage with 16 teams (group winners and runners-up) is how teams have qualified for the finals.
There are 32 teams playing in this year’s tournament.
The event is held every four years with the next expected to be hosted by Russia in 2018.
Brazil has won the most Fifa World Cup titles with five trophies and the only team to have played in every tournament.
The other World Cup winners are Italy, with four titles; Germany, with three titles; Argentina and Uruguay, with two titles each; and England, France, and Spain, with one title each.
Online Reporter