Sports Engineering

How The World Cup Works

The world’s greatest competition.

FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup is a competition where 32 teams from all around the world compete for the World Cup. It was first held in 1930 when it took place in Uruguay. The FIFA World Cup usually takes place every four years in different countries. Every little boy has a dream to help their country win a World Cup.

Qualifiers

South America

10 teams play against each other home and away. The top four teams qualify for the World Cup, while the fifth-place team will play in an international playoff against the winner of the AFC playoff.

Europe

55 nations are trying to qualify for at least two years. The top 10 group winners qualify for the World Cup. The runner-ups will face each other in the playoffs to have a place in the world cup, they’re three routes, each with four teams featuring a semifinal and a final for a place in the world cup

North America

There is 6 group and each group winner will face each other to play in the final round where there are 8 nations, and they will play home and away games. The top three qualify for the world cup while the fourth-place team goes into an international playoff.

Africa

The 28 lowest-ranked nations played two-legged games, the 14 winners will join the other 26 nations, there will be 10 groups of four, group winners were drawn into a five head-to-head game, two-legged games to earn one of the five places at the world cup.

Asia

12 of the lowest ranked nations will face each other in two-legged games, and the 6 winners will join 34 Asian nations, drawn into eight groups of five teams, only 12 nations will go into the final round, and the remaining 12 will split into 2 groups of six, the winner and runner-up from each group will get a place in the world cup.

Oceania

There’s nothing much, nations are split into four groups of four. The top two nations progress, and in the final round there will be two semifinals and a final, the two winners from the finals go to an international playoff.

World Cup Draw

After all 32 nations qualify for the World Cup, FIFA will draw the nations into 8 groups of four, how does the draw work? well every team will be placed in a pot, and there are 4 pots, the top eight teams will be placed in pot 1, the next top eight teams go in pot 2 and so goes on, after each team goes into their pot, they will be placed in different groups, in pot 1, the host in go in Group A automatically, then the other 7 teams in pot 1 will go to different groups. Pot 2,3, and 4 are completely the same, nations will be in different groups like pot 1, but in a different order, when a nation in pot 2 is picked, they will be placed in the second, third, or fourth slot.

2022 World Cup draw: How it happened - ESPN

World Cup Games

When the tournament starts, the host plays first against A2, and they are the only game who play on the opening day, every day one group plays until they play all their games, top 2 nations in each group advance to the round of 16, 8 games played and only 8 winners, many things can happen after the 8 games are played, the winners go on the semifinals which if you win you go in the finals, the losers will play a 3-place game to finish off the world cup, after the 3 place game, the finals will be played in the host stadium. with the winner winning the FIFA World Cup.