how teams qualify to the FIFA world cup

FIFA which is the organ that regulates soccer worldwide, has a system of 5 different confederations that regulate how the countries within that are qualify. This confederations are: AFC (Asian Football Confederation), CAF (Confederation of African football), CONCACAF( Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football), OFC( Oceania Football Confederation),CONMEBOL( Confederacion Sudamericana de Futbol) and the UEFA(Union of European Football Associations).

they all have different rules of how to qualify to the world cup. The UEFA is the biggest football confederation and 13 of its members national teams are qualified to the world cup. 6 members of the CAF are qualified to the world cup. 5 members of the CONMEBOL are going to be in South Africa this year. 4 members of the AFC are attending this event. 3 of the CONCACAF are also qualified to the world cup, and the last one is the OFC with just one member qualified.

FIFA World cup

It is an international Football(soccer) cup played by men's national teams that are members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. It happens every 4 years in different parts of the world. This year South Africa was awarded as the host country for the cup. 32 team are going to play for around a month this summer. These teams had to play a qualification phase against countries in the same area ,and the best in the area are the ones that go to the world cup. The world cup started in 1930 in Uruguay as a small tournament and is now is by far the most viewed sporting event in the world. In my next post I am going to explain how countries qualify to this event.

El clasico

Last weekend I was able to watch the Clasico online. The clasico is probably one of the best rivalries in sports. Barcelona and Real Madrid are the 2 teams in the clasico. They play el clasico twice a year. What make this rivalry so unique, is that Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya. It is an spanish province that has some peaceful independent movements going on. They claim that they don't share many cultural features with spanish people, they even have their own language (catalan). While Real Madrid represents the spanish capitol. They also represent spanish pride in this kind of game. They played in Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. The game was sold out. 90,000 people were able to get tickets to this game. This time (unfortunately) Barcelona won 0-2. I have to admit that their football (soccer) style right now is just amazing. Hopefully Real Madrid is able to catch up before the end of the season

Outside sources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=9977483, www.as.com