Unlike other so-called “World” tournaments, the FIFA World Cup is truly an international championship, with every nation of the world having the opportunity to compete. If you’ve watched the World Cup, however, you’ve probably noticed that there are not 230+ countries playing. In fact, in recent decades, what we know as the World Cup has featured 32 teams. The reason is that what we call the World Cup is actually the World Cup finals, the culmination of three years of qualifying play involving more than 200 nations. Here’s how those 32 final teams are selected.
The FIFA World Cup, I’m sure you know, occurs every four years, just like the Olympics. The cycle begins with a three-year long qualification phase. In qualification, the soccer world is organized into six continental zones ( (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, Europe) which are called confederations. The US, for example plays in CONCACAF, the Confederation of North, Central American, and Caribbean Association Football, along with countries including Canada, Mexico, Honduras, and Trinidad & Tobago.
The teams in each confederation play one another over the course of three years leading up to the World Cup finals, and the teams with the best record in each confederation earn one of the allotted spots in the finals. Each confederation receives a different number of spots in the finals, depending upon the relative strength of soccer in the region. For the 2010 World Cup, for example, CONCACAF had 3 spots, and Europe (UEFA) had 13.
Qualifying is typically completed by the December before the World Cup finals, which begin in June.
That’s how the teams get to the finals. Read how the competition is structured once they reach the World Cup finals.
