FIFA World Cup 2014: A guide for football newbies

Mumbai: The FIFA World Cup 2014 is in full swing. The football fans are already head over heels with the magic brilliant players across the globe are putting up on show. But if a friend or your sibling is trying to put you down with their knowledge about how the game functions, keep this brief guideline handy to outsmart them.

The qualification stage:

The host country gets qualified, just because they are the hosts. Apart from them though, the remaining teams have to earn their place in the World Cup. They ought fight for their spot against the teams that part of their region and that stage begins three years before the World Cup takes place. For example: The qualification round for the ongoing FIFA World Cup in Brazil commenced in 2011.

The qualifying teams come from the regions of Europe, Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, Asia, North America, the South Pacific and South America. Football’s apex body, FIFA has determined the different qualifying regions which are known as confederations.

There is no clear-cut rule about how many teams from each region would qualify for the World Cup. The size and quality of the region are the crucial factor before deciding how many teams from each region would make it to the World Cup.

For 2014 FIFA World Cup, there are 32 teams Read: FIFA World Cup 2014: Check out schedule, match results here

How teams are divided into groups:

The round of 16 begins following the group stage comes to an end. There are 8 groups in which 32 teams are placed with every group having 4 teams each. For the ongoing World Cup, the groups are recognised by the alphabets A to H.

The teams are divided into groups by using a semi-random method where in not all the European or Asian or teams from the same continent end up in the same group.
From every group, top teams head to the next stage.

Scoring systems
The winning team Is awarded with three points, while a loss does not give any point to the team that ends on a losing side. A draw means, each team who is involved in the match gets a point each.

As the group stage is over, in case of tie, the winner is determined via penalty shootout.

Round of 16 and knock-out stages
The teams that finishes at the top in Group A faces the second-placed team in Group B, and vice versa. And so on, in the remaining 6 groups.

Following round of 16, there are only 8 teams that are left with a chance to enter the semi-finals. With 4 places to vie for, 8 teams contest for the place in the semi-final.

The winners of semi-finals come up against eachother in the final and the winner gets to lift the prestigious World Cup trophy.