The FIFA World Cup, sometimes called the Football World Cup or the Soccer World Cup, but is normally referred to simply as the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946, due to World War II.
The tournament consists of two parts, the qualification phase and the final phase (officially called the World Cup Finals). The qualification phase, which currently take place over the three years preceding the Finals, is used to determine which teams qualify for the Finals. The current format of the Finals involves 32 teams competing for the title, at venues within the host nation (or nations) over a period of about a month. The World Cup Finals is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the 2006 tournament final.
Trinidad and Tobago have qualified for the final stages of the FIFA World Cup on one occasion, in 2006, when they qualified for the tournament in Germany, but were eliminated at the group stage.[1] Trinidad and Tobago became the smallest nation in terms of population to reach the finals of a World Cup tournament,[2] a feat previously held by Northern Ireland since their first World Cup appearance at the 1958 World Cup. This record was held until Iceland qualified for the first time in 2018.[3]
- ^ "FIFA World Cup Statistics for Trinidad and Tobago". FIFA.com. Archived from the original on June 26, 2008. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
- ^ "The World Cup's smallest team". BBC article. 11 May 2006. Retrieved 11 June 2006.
- ^ T.A.W. (12 November 2017). "How Iceland (population: 330,000) qualified for the World Cup". The Economist. Archived from the original on 13 November 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2022.