K minus 20 days - FIFA World Cup Trivia

The world footballing body FIFA has been organizing the World Cup every four years since 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 due to World War II. The very first World Cup has been won by hosts Uruguay, followed by Italy's victory as hosts. The campaign, which currently lasts a month, is often referred to as World Cup finals, is preceded by multiple rounds of World Cup qualifiers across the six Confederations

FIFA was founded in 1904 and organized the first world championship in 1920 Olympics as an amateur event. The first two professional events were also held in the subsequent Olympics. Jules Rimet, then FIFA President, has been instrumental in making the FIFA World Championship as a standalone tournament owing to the sports popularity and the first FIFA World Cup was scheduled to be hosted in Uruguay with thirteen nations, most European teams declined to participate due to the rigors of sea journey across the Atlantic. When Italy and France hosted the next two editions, the South American nations reciprocated in a similar fashion

After an absence of 12 years, owing to the second World War, started a sequence of uninterrupted tourneys with tremendous growth in size and popularity. It was held as a 16 team event since 1934, although withdrawal of Austria made it a 15 team tourney in 1938, India, Scotland and Turkey withdrew to make it a 13 team competition in 1950. It was since expanded to 24 team format in 1982 and then further to 32 in 1998

Teams

• Uruguay won the inaugural World Cup as hosts in 1930
• Uruguay in 1930, Italy in 1934, England in 1966, West Germany in 1974, Argentina in 1978 and France in 1998 are the six hosting nations to win the World Cup
• Brazil permanently retained the original Jules Rimet Trophy after winning it the third time in 1970. The new FIFA World Cup Trophy has been introduced and has been in use since then. It will not be permanently awarded to any nation
• The last nineteen editions of the World Cup are won by eight different nations of which Brazil won it five times, Italy four times, Germany thrice, Argentina and Uruguay twice each, France, England and recently Spain won it once
• Italy, France, Mexico and Germany hosted the tourney twice each. Brazil will also be hosting their second World Cup in 2014
• Korea/Japan 2002 is the first time the tourney is hosted outside Europe and Americas, held in Asia and also the first time the event is split between multiple nations
• South Africa 2010 is the first tourney hosted in Africa
• Italy in 1938 and Brazil in 1962 are the only nations to successfully defend their championship
• Italy, Brazil adn France are the three champions that were eliminated in first round in subsequent tourneys
• Brazil is the only nation to have appeared in every tournament
• South Africa in 2010 is the only hosting nation that failed to advance from group stages
• A foreign coach has never led a team to win the World Cup

• Pele won three World Cups in 1958, 1962, 1970, although he didn't play the final in 1958
• Cafu appeared in three World Cup final matches in 1994, 1998 and 2002, he also won 16 cup game overall including two finals
• Antonio Carbajal of Mexico and Lothar Matthaus of Germany appeared in five tournaments each. Matthaus also played a record 25 cup games
• Ronaldo scored 15 World Cup goals followed by Miroslav Klose and Gerd Muller with 14 each
• Oleg Salenko of Russia scored 5 goals in a match against Cameroon in 1994 while the record in a final match is Geoffrey Hurst's hattrick in 1966
• Hakan Sukur from Turkey scored the fastest goal of a World Cup match by scoring in the 11th second since kickoff against Korea in 2002
• Franz Beckenbauer is the only footballer who won the World Cup as both Captain and Coach. Mario Zagallo also did it as a player and a coach