International Football

The first game of international football was played in 1872 between Scotland and England and resulted in a 0-0 draw. In the time since then international football has grown and a number of tournaments have been introduced to test nations on both a continental and world scale.

The biggest of all the international football tournaments is the FIFA World Cup which is played every 4 years.

The World Cup

The FIFA World Cup has been going since 1930 and sees teams from all around the world compete to lift the trophy.

Teams will initially play in qualifying rounds for their regions in an attempt to make it to the World Cup Finals which consists of 32 teams who are then split into 8 groups of 4. The teams play each other once with the winners and runners up progress to the last sixteen knockout stages before going on to the quarter finals, semi finals and the final itself.

The host country is chosen well in advance when number of nations bid for the right to hold the tournament. The winning bidder then has to ensure they have the infrastructure and stadia to handle the biggest football tournament in the world.

Attendances

With each tournament being played in a different country or countries every year the attendances will always vary however there has been a huge increase from the overall attendances in the first World Cup in 1930 of 590,549 to the most recent World Cup held in Brazil in 2014 which saw a total attendance of 3,429,873.

The largest ever attendance for a World Cup Game was in 1950 in Brazil when an incredible 173,850 people attended the final at the Maracena stadium to see the hosts defeated 2-1 by Uruguay.

Broadcasting

Broadcasting rights are usually split in the UK between the BBC and ITV with the tournament being free to watch. The FIFA World Cup was first broadcast on TV in 1954 and to give you an idea of how big a reach it has the 2006 World Cup final was watched by an estimated 715.1 million people.

Winners

Only eight different nations have won the FIFA World Cup and they are Brazil who have 5 titles, Germany and Italy who are both on 4 titles, Argentina and Uruguay who are both on 2 titles and France, England and Spain who have all won the tournament once.

Awards

At every World Cup there are a number of different awards for players including;

The Golden Glove which is awarded to the best Goalkeeper of the tournament

The most Entertaining Team which is won by a poll from the public.

The Best Young Player aged 21 or younger.

The Fair Play Trophy for the team awarded by the FIFA fair play committee.

The Golden Boot for the tournament’s top scorer.

The Golden Ball for the best player of the tournament.

Player Records

The player to have played the most World Cup Matches is Germany’s Lothar Matthaus who played in 25 games across 5 tournaments, another joint record with Antonio Carbajal of Mexico. The all time leading goal scorer is another German, Miroslav Klose scored 16 beating Brazils Ronaldo by 1.

UEFA European Championships

The UEFA European Championships is the biggest European international tournament.

The competition has been running since 1960 and is held every 4 years, with 2 years between this and the FIFA World Cup.

Teams can qualify for the final tournament through the qualifying group stages and 24 successful teams will make it. The 24 teams are then drawn into 6 groups of 4 where each team playes each other once and the winners, runners up and four best placed third positioned teams qualify to the knockout stages.

Winners

Of the 15 tournaments to date there have been 10 different winners and both Germany and Spain lead the way with 3 titles each. The current holders are Portugal who won the 2016 tournament by beating competition hosts France 1-0 in the final.

Other International Tournaments

Other notable International tournaments include;

The FIFA Confederations Cup. This cup draws the winners of all the confederation winners to battle it out. The tournament is played every 4 years.

CAF Africa Cup of Nations. The CAF Africa Cup of Nations is the biggest international tournament in Africa and is held in January and February every two years. This has caused some issues for African players that play abroad as it sometimes clashes with their club fixtures and causes club versus country rows.

CONMEBOL Copa America. The Copa America is one of the main focuses, outwith the World Cup, for South American international teams. With no fixed dates the Copa America will change when it is played.

CONCACAF Gold Cup. The Gold Cup is the main tournament for international teams in the CONCACAF region with Mexico and the USA being the dominant teams.

Olympic Games. The Olympic Games differs from most international tournaments as it requires teams to play an Under 23 squad with the exception of 3 players over that age. The Summer Olympic Games is contested once every 4 years.