The World Cup. The most viewed sports event in the world. The tournament is held every four years since the very first one in 1930 although there was not one held in 1942 and 1946 because of the second world war. Every year the World Cup is held in different countries. So far it has been hosted in 17 different countries. The viewership in all of the matches in 2006 was estimated to be 26.29 billion with 715.1 million people watching the final match. In this past World Cup in 2018, the total number of people that watched the matches was 3.57 billion viewers. With the final match between France and Croatia that totaled 1.12 billion views worldwide. It is projected that this year’s total will be around five billion views worldwide.

The first World Cup was held in Uruguay. Uruguay was also the first team to win the World cup. They beat Argentina in the final match by a score of 4-2. The first World Cup matches played were, France Vs. Mexico and United States Vs. Belgium. The United States Beat Belgium by a score of 3-0 and France beat Mexico 4-1. Lucien Laurent was the man to score the first goal in World Cup history in the win over Mexico.

There are 32 teams that qualify for the World cup every year. The way that teams qualify is that each country has to be a top team from one of the six regional soccer confederations. This year there was 13 countries that qualified from UEFA (Europe), five countries from CONMEBOL (South America), four countries from CONCACAF (North, Central America and the Caribbean), five countries from AFC (Asian Football Confederation), five countries from CAF (Africa), and zero countries from OFC (Oceania). Once countries qualify they are selected and put into groups of four countries. They will then play three games against each other and the top two teams will advance to the round of 16. In the group stage a win counts as three points a draw counts as one point and a loss counts as no points. If there is a draw in points at the end of group stage play, the team that moves on will be decided by goal differential and if there still is a draw in goals then it will be decided by fair play which is how many yellow and red cards a team has. Once the round of 16 starts it is a single elimination bracket until there is a world champion.

There have been a total of eight countries that have won the world cup. Brazil has won the most World Cup’s with five wins. Brazil is also the only team in the history of the World Cup to qualify for every tournament. Germany and Italy both have the next most with four World Cup victories each. Argentina, France, and Uruguay have the third most with two World cup victories. Spain and England have the fourth most World Cup victories with one.

“I like watching the world cup for many different reasons, ” said Mountain View sophomore Ashley Hamblin. ”My main reason for watching the world cup is because I play soccer and it is fun to watch the top players in the world face off for the world title. I also like watching the world cup because every year it’s different. Some years the team who was projected to win wins and other years the underdog that everyone thinks might not make it far ends up winning. Lastly, I love just getting to cheer on my country and other countries I love, and it is so much fun seeing other people around the world do the same.”