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The biggest sporting event in the world is now underway. The 32 teams that have made it to the World Cup have already gone through qualifying. The tournament you'll watch over the next month is often called the "finals." About.com's World Soccer expert provides a detailed explanation of the World Cup 2002 qualification process. It might seem perplexing at first, but it's somewhat more simple when broken down. Typically, two teams are awarded a spot in the final round without having to qualify: the host nation and the defending champion. This year's tournament is a little different because Japan and the Korea Republic are sharing the honor of hosting the Cup. Therefore, Japan, Korea, and defending champion France
were given a free pass. The 198 teams that started the qualification process are divided into six "confederations" by FIFA, the governing body of world soccer. Here's a brief overview of the confederations and the road to the Cup thus far: AFC -- In addition to the host countries Japan and Korea, two other teams from this confederation qualified for the finals. Forty teams played a round-robin style tournament, and, in the end, China and Saudi Arabia came out on top. CAF -- Fifty teams started the process in this confederation, and five made it to the finals. Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia will all compete. CONCACAF -- In this
confusing process, thirty-five teams started, and three teams qualified. The first round of qualifying consisted of two mini-tournaments and an inter-zone playoff. The three top teams in the final round, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the United States, qualified for the final competition. CONMEBOL -- Compared to the confusion of CONCACAF, this process was quite simple. Ten teams played in a tournament. The top four teams -- Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay -- qualified based on points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw) and advanced to the finals. Uruguay also qualified this year by winning a home-and-home playoff with the winner of the OFC qualification (more on that later). UEFA -- In the first phase of qualifying,
the 50 nations in this confederation were separated into five pools based on past performance in qualifying for World Cup 98 and Euro 2000. They were then drawn into nine groups, and the winner of each qualified for the finals. The nine runners-up were then placed in a pot. Eight of the teams were randomly drawn to play in home-and-home pairings. The team that wasn't drawn (Ireland) played a team from the AFC (Iran) and won, earning a spot in the finals. So, after all the games, the teams that qualified are: Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey. OFC -- Unlike the other confederations, a spot in the finals
is not guaranteed for this group's winner. Ten teams compete for the opportunity to face the fifth-place CONMEBOL country in a home-and-home playoff. OFC champ Australia lost to Uruguay, leaving the OFC without a representative in this year's World Cup. For a list of teams grouped by confederation, check out the Teams page from FIFAworldcup.com, the official web site of the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
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