School of Champions

1. The name of the original World Cup trophy is the Jules Rimet Trophy, named after the FIFA President Jules Rimet who passed a vote to start the competition in 1929.

2. The World Cup is held every four years. To date, there have been 21 World Cup tournaments, the first of which took place in 1930.

3. 2018 is the first ever World Cup to be hosted in Russia.

4. Almost half of the world’s population, that’s 3.2 billion people, tune in to the World Cup.

5. The 2002 World Cup, hosted by both South Korea & Japan, was the first ever World Cup to be hosted by two different nations.

6. Brazil are currently the nation to boast the most World Cup wins, having won five.

7. However, Germany and Italy are both close behind them, having won four tournaments each.

8. Egyptian Goalkeeper, Essam El Hadary, is the oldest player to ever play in the World Cup at the age of 45, having played at the 2018 Russian World Cup. 

9. In the 2018 Russian-hosted World Cup, the distance between Ekaterinburg and Kaliningrad, the easternmost host city and westernmost host city respectively, is 1,500 miles. That’s the same distance from Moscow to London.

10. The fastest ever World Cup goal took place only 10.89 seconds after kick off and was scored by Hakan Sukur of Turkey against South Korea in 2002.

11. The highest ever scoring in a World Cup match was when Austria defeated Switzerland 7 – 5 at the Switzerland hosted 1954 World Cup.

12. In 1966, the World Cup trophy was stolen prior to the tournament and was missing for 7 days before being found by a dog named Pickles.

13. Mexico is the team with the most losses, having lost 25 different matches since the World Cup started.

14. England’s team has most World Cup draws with 22 draws.

15. Brazil are the team with the most World Cup wins, having won 70 of games at the tournament.

16. Italy and Brazil are the only two teams to ever win the tournament twice in a row.

17. Indonesia is the team to have played the least amount of World Cup matches, having played only one in 1938.

18. In 2026, the number of teams qualified into a World Cup will jump up from 32 to 48.

19. The most goals ever scored in a single World Cup game by a player is an impressive 5, which was  scored by Oleg Salenko of Russia in 1994.

20. Argentina has the highest amount of yellow cards and Brazil has most red cards across all the World Cup tournaments they’ve played in.

21. Retired German striker Miroslav Klose is the World Cup’s highest total goal scorer, having scored 16 goals in total.

22. England, Spain and Italy have lost the most World Cup penalty shootouts, having lost on 3 of the four penalty shootouts they have been involved in.

23. Uruguay by far is the smallest country to win the World Cup, having a population around 1.5 million in 1930

24. The country with the smallest population to ever compete in the FIFA World Cup is Iceland (population: 334,000)

25. A European nation has won the past four World Cups and five of the last six – Brazil being the only non-European country to succeed.

26. The Indian team qualified for the 1950 World Cup in Brazil but withdrew from the competition. As well as financial concerns, FIFA’s requirement for players to wear shoes during matches played a role in the team’s decision, since the Indian players had previously only played barefoot.

27. The last nation to win the FIFA World Cup as the host was France in 1998.

28. The host country has won six of the 20 World Cups.

29. The only host country not to have reached the second round is South Africa.

30. Southeast Asia and Oceania have never hosted the tournament.

31. Luis Monti was the first player to represent two different countries in World Cup history. (Argentina 1930 and Italy 1934).

32. Famous cricketer Sir Viv Richards is the only person to have played both World Cup Football and World Cup Cricket.

33. No host nation had ever lost the opening game of a FIFA World Cup in the tournament’s 92 year history. The Qatar national football team made unfortunate history in the 2022 opening match.

34. The first live television transmission was the 1954 World Cup hosted in Switzerland. This was a significant catalyst for the growth of soccer around the world.

35. Yellow cards and substations were introduced in the 1970 World Cup

36. The first World Cup penalty shootout was between France vs. West Germany in 1982

37. Laurent Blanc scored the first-ever World Cup Golden Goal as France beat Paraguay 1-0 on 28th June 1998.

38. The winning team at the 2022 World Cup final will receive USD $42 million in prize money.

39. FIFA World Cup trophy is made of 18 karat gold.

40. The FIFA World Cup trophy was in danger during World War II, so the Fédération Internationale de Football Association Italian Vice President Otorino Barassi moved the trophy from the vault of the bank it was kept in and placed it in a shoebox under his bed to protect it from Nazis.

41. Argentina and Germany are the two countries that have faced each other the most in the World Cup finals.

42. Uruguay were the hosts for the first ever World Cup in 1930 and they also went on to win the tournament.

43. Who has the most goals in FIFA 2022? --As of December 14, France's Kylian Mbappé and Argentina's Lionel Messi led the race for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Golden Boot, with five goals each.