Futbol fanatics from the four corners of the world wait four years for the biggest tournament in the world. The World Cup, the gathering of thirty-two teams from all around the world competing to see who will be the overall soccer champion. The most successful team for this tournament is Brazil with five titles and they are looking for a 6th in 2010.

What is the World Cup? The World Cup is thirty-two soccer teams in one host nation trying to be the champions of the world. The way this works is they first have to qualify in to the World Cup with teams from all seven continents. This can last up to three years before the World Cup. There are two stages. The first group stage and then a knockout stage. Group stage is when they divide the teams into eight groups with four teams in each group. Then the top two teams in each group go on to the knockout stage. The knockout stage is when sixteen teams play each other and the team that loses is knocked out of the tournament.

Who runs the World Cup? The association that runs the World Cup is called FIFA. FIFA stands for Federation International Football Association. The headquarters of FIFA is in Zürich, Switzerland and the current president of FIFA is Sepp Blatter. FIFA’s official languages are English, French, German and Spanish. FIFA has two hundred eight members which are all countries. FIFA was formed on May 21st, 1904.

The first World Cup was organized in 1930 and was held in Uruguay. Uruguay also ended up winning that World Cup four to two, beating Argentina. The final was played in Montevideo in front of ninety three thousand people. During the first World Cup, the first goal was scored by Lucien Laurent of France. The current World Cup champion is Italy. In 2006, Italy beat France in penalty kicks, five to three.

The 2010 World Cup will be played June 11th through July 11th in South Africa. This will be the first time the World Cup has been held in Africa. The future World Cup of 2014 will be held in Brazil. This will be the first time the World Cup will be held in South America since 1978.

The trophy for the World Cup was named for Jules Rimet. He was the president of FIFA from 1946 to 1970. Brazil’s third victory in 1970 entitled them to keep the trophy, but then the trophy was reported stolen and it was never found. Then they changed the name of the trophy to FIFA World Cup Trophy. They also got a new model of the trophy. The designer’s name is Italian Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is thirty six centimeters high, is made with eighteen carat gold and weighs thirteen pounds. The winning team does not get to keep the trophy, but instead they keep it for four years and then they get a replica.

All you futbol fanatics better be getting ready for another exciting world cup. Go and buy your jersey to support your team. Be ready to get blown away by the quality of the futbol players. Prepare for the best world cup in history.