By Victoria Englert & Cecilia Rinciari
The FIFA international football tournament was created in 1928 by Jules Rimet. The first FIFA World Cup was hosted in Uruguay in 1930 and the tournament continued until 1938. The 1942 event was cancelled due to World War II, as was the 1946 event, in the aftermath of World War II. It restarted in 1950, hosted by Brazil. The 2014 World Cup will also be hosted in Brazil.
Every four years, soccer fans from all over the world gather in the stadiums of a chosen country to see their favourite country, or any country for that matter, play and compete to become the world football champion. Match by match, countries are eliminated and only the 32 best countries are classified.
These 32 countries are divided into eight groups of four countries each, and the two winning countries from each group go through to the next round, and so on, until to the semi-finals, where the last four teams compete to qualify for the final. The two losing teams classify to compete for third place. The two teams that win the semi-finals classify for the finals and compete for the first and second places.
Every four years, the venue for the World Cup is changed. For example, the 2006 World Cup was hosted by Germany, where the winner was Italy. In 2010 the World Cup took place in South Africa and the winner, for the first time, was Spain. Interestingly, some teams have won two consecutive cups: for instance, Italy won in 1934 and in 1938, and Brazil won in 1958 and 1962.
