How Did They Get Here? World Cup Qualification and Tournament Structure

Now that we are into the second week of World Cup 2010, you’ll start to hear a lot of discussion about which teams are poised to move on to the elimination round. You might be wondering what the elimination round is, and how it is decided who gets to participate in it. Here’s a quick primer on World Cup tournament structure so that you can follow along with all of the speculation.

Structure Overview

The Football World Cup happens every four years. In the three years preceding each Cup year, national teams throughout the world compete in a series of qualification tournaments in their respective regions. In its current format, the top 31 countries plus the host country make it into the final tournament. The final tournament is played at a variety of venues in the host country over the course of a month, usually from the second week of June through the second week of July.

Why is North Korea at World Cup 2010 but Croatia at Home?

It is a common misconception that the final 32 countries in the World Cup constitute the top 32 national teams in the world. This is far from true. North Korea, currently ranked 105th in the World made the tournament, but number 10 ranked Croatia did not. How could this be?

Traditionally, the best teams have come from Europe, plus a strong team or two from South America. If the top 32 teams were chosen without regard to world region, many World Cups would have looked like a second European Cup with some South American party crashers.

To ensure that it is always a truly World Cup, each world region is allocated a certain number of spots in the final tournament. The specific number is based on the relative strength of each region. As Europe has the most strong teams, it gets the most allocations in the final tournament - 13 this time around. Africa, Asia, North America and South America get 3-5 allocations each. The exact number depends upon the result of inter-region playoff matches. Oceania may or may not get a spot depending upon the outcome of its inter-region playoffs. The host country gets an automatic berth in the final tournament.

Kicking off the Cup Finals: Group Play

Having secured a spot in the final tournament, all 32 finalists wait anxiously for the draw that will determine groupings in the early rounds. For the 2010 World Cup, that draw took place on December 4, 2009.

During the draw, the 32 teams were placed into 8 groups of 4 teams each. Because there are 8 groups, the top 7 teams among the final 32 (by current FIFA world rankings), plus the host country are ‘seeded’ as the first team in each of the 8 separate groups. This is done to ensure that the ‘top’ teams don’t knock each other out in early stages of the tournament. The remaining teams are placed into the groups based on a random draw.

This year’s groups turned out to be:

• Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
• Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic (South Korea), Greece
• Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
• Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana
• Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
• Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
• Group G: Brazil, Korea DPR (North Korea), Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Portugal
• Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile

Though the system is intended to be as fair as possible, the randomness of the draws means that some groups are harder than others. When one group is expected to be particularly challenging, soccer analysts will call it the Group of Death. This year, that title seems to have gone to Group G, but you could also make a case for Group D.

In the ‘Group Play’ stage of the World Cup, the four teams in each group will play each other in a 3-game round robin format. Teams are awarded 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie (aka draw) and 0 points for a loss. At the end of the group play stage, the two teams with the most points in each of the 8 groups will advance to the ‘Elimination Round’. If two teams in a group end up with the same number of points (a fairly common occurrence), the tie will broken by first looking at goal differential (number of goals for - number of goals against), then by total number of goals scored. If a tie is still not broken at that point, the criteria get a little more complicated. If you are really, really curious, you can read all about it in the official FIFA 2010 World Cup South Africa Regulations.

Beyond Group Play: The Elimination Round

Once past the Group Play stage, the tournament structure becomes much simpler. There are no more point totals or goal differentials to keep track of. If a team wins, they move on to the next game. If they lose they are out. That’s why you’ll hear this stage called alternatively the ‘Elimination Round’, or the ‘Knockout Round.’

In one sense, teams get a fresh start in the Elimination Round, as their Group Play point totals don’t follow them. On the other hand, whether a team finished first or second in its group will definitely help or haunt them. Finishing at the top of your group means that you get to play a second place finisher from another group in the round of 16, a distinction that can turn out to be very important.