50 Amazing Facts about Sports | Amazing Facts 4U

1. The five interlocking Olympic rings are black, blue, red, green, and yellow because at least one of these colors appears on every national flag.
2. Since 1896 the beginning of the modern Olympics, amazingly only Greece and Australia have participated in every game.
3. The 1912 Olympic Games were the last to include gold medals actually made of solid gold. The amazing fact is that the gold medals are 93 percent silver and six percent copper, leaving about one percent (or six grams) for the highly prized gold finish.
4. At the 1912 Olympics, a marathon runner went home to Japan without completing the race and without informing the officials. He was considered missing in Sweden for more than 50 years. Amazingly he was invited back to complete the marathon in 1966 which he did. His time to complete marathon 54 years 8 months.
5. In 1916, Georgia Tech beat Cumberland University in football by an amazing score of 222 to nothing.
6. In the 1935 Olympics, the amazing event was Jesse Owens setting six track and field world records in less than one hour.
7. In the 1930’s American track star Jesse Owens used to race against horses and dogs to earn a living.
8. Until 1967 amazingly, it wasn’t illegal for Olympic athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs during competition.
9. When Bob Beamon long jumped 29 Ft 2.5 inches in the 1968 Mexico Olympics, it was so amazing that they couldn’t measure it with their equipment! The previous world record for the long jump leap had been 21 feet and ¾ inches. It was known as the leap of the century.
10. The amazing fact is that no high jumper has ever been able to stay off the ground for more than one second.
11. Badminton rules say that the bird has to have exactly fourteen feathers.
12. The amazing fact most soccer players run 7 miles in a game.
13. 2022 world cup final shall be played in Lusail, Qatar. Amazingly the city doesn’t exist yet. It shall be constructed before the event.
14. An amazing fact is Bulgaria was the only soccer team in the 1994 World Cup in which amazingly all 11 players’ last names ended with the letters “OV.”
15. A world cup referee will run further than the players, at 12 miles in a 90-minute match.
16. In 1998, lightning killed an entire soccer team. The tragedy occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during a match between the villages of Bena Tshadi and nearby Basangana. Amazingly, the lightning annihilated all eleven members of the home team, while all of Basangana’s players were spared with severe burns at worst!
17. In 1964 a referee’s call during a soccer match in Peru caused a riot that killed over 300 people! Another 500 people were injured in that riot in Lima, Peru.
18. It is an amazing fact that no European team has ever won the World Cup outside of Europe.
19. The catgut formerly used as strings in tennis rackets and musical instruments does not come from cats. Catgut actually comes from sheep, hogs, and horses’ intestines.
20. The amazing fact is In the U.S., there are more than 10,000 golf courses.
21. Cricket bats are made of a tree called Willow & base-balls bats are made out of the wood of a tree called Hickory.
22. It is a fact that the first game of chess has been traced back to have originated in northern India. It’s thought that today’s rules have been around since sometime in the 1400′s A.D.
23. There are 319,979,564,000 ways to play the first four moves in a game of chess. The amazing fact is that there are more possible iterations of a game of chess than there are atoms in the known universe. Possible iterations lower bound number is called Shannon Number.
24. Viswanathan  Anand from India is the first player in chess history to have won the World Championship in three different formats: knockout, tournament, and match.
25. The game Monopoly was once very popular in Cuba; however, Fidel Castro ordered that all games be destroyed.
26. Vasaloppet, which is located in Sweden is the oldest, longest, and the biggest cross-country ski race in the world. Every year, 14,000 people compete in the race.
27. Canadian James Naismith invented basketball to give his physical education students at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, an indoor team sport to play during the long winters.
28. Until 1936, the jump ball in basketball took place at center court after every single made basket.
29. Every ball used in Major League Baseball is dirty. In order to take the slick factory sheen off and allow pitchers to get a better grip, Major League Baseball wipes down each baseball with mud from an undisclosed location on the Delaware River. And it’s been done this way for close to 75 years now.
30. An amazing fact is A baseball ball has exactly 108 stitches, a cricket ball has between 65 and 70 stitches. A soccer ball is made up of 32 leather panels, held together by 642 stitches.
31. Howard Kinsey and Mrs. R. Roark, during a game of tennis, batted the ball back and forth amazing 2001 consecutive times.
32. If a person had as many Rubik’s cubes as there were possible configurations, they could amazingly cover the surface of the Earth 275 times. However, any Rubik’s cube can be completed in 20 moves.
33.  Stefaan Engels, a 49-year-old asthmatic from Belgium completed 365 marathons in 365 days, that’s 9,569 miles of running, in 7 different countries!
34. Leo Fiyalko of Clearwater, FL, a legally blind 92-year-old hit an amazing hole-in-one on January 10, 2008, the distance being 110 yards.
35. The world record for spinning on an ice skate is 6 rotations per second by Lucinda Ruh! She accomplished her record in New York City on April 3, 2003, by getting one hundred and fifteen revolutions non-stop!
36. There is a sport called Banzai Skydiving. You throw the parachute out of the airplane first and then jump after it!
37. The amazing fact is USGA regulation golf balls have 336 dimples which add turbulence for more distance.
38. Muhammad Ali became a boxer because someone stole his bicycle when he was 12 years old! The frustrated 12-year-old boy decided to report the incident to police officer Joe Martin, who also happened to be a boxing coach who saw the potential in him.
39. Formula One Racing car races at an average speed of 170 miles per hour and a golf ball when gets hits from the front strike has the same speed.
40. It is customary for jockeys to be paid in coins, no matter how large their winnings.
41. The grass at Wimbledon was kept two inches long until 1949 when an English player was bitten by a snake.
42.  It is an amazing fact that no Olympic steeplechase silver medalist, male or female, has lived past the age of 41.
43. Dimples on a golf ball help reduce drag, allowing the ball to fly further than a ball without dimples.
44. Golf balls were originally made from dried cow eyeballs.
45. Astronaut Alan Shepard played golf on the Moon after he smuggled a golf ball and club on to the NASA Apollo 14 mission to the Moon in 1971.
46. Amazingly 125,000 golf balls a year are hit into the water at the famous 17th hole of the Stadium Course at Sawgrass.
47. The longest golf course in the world is the par 77 International Golf Club in Massachusetts which measures amazing 8325 yards. The highest golf course in the world is the Tactu Golf Club in Morococha, Peru, which sits 14,335 feet above sea level at its lowest point.
48. The fastest recorded tennis serve was an amazing 163.4 mph (263 kph) by Australian Samuel Groth at an ATP Challenger event in Busan, South Korea in May 2012.
49. In 1986 yellow balls were used at Wimbledon for the first time to make them visible for the TV cameras.
50. The fact is That Tennis was an Olympic event from 1896 to 1924 and was reintroduced into the games in 1988.

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40 Amazing Facts about Chess | Amazing Facts 4U

1. Chess was in fact invented in India. It is believed to originate out of India during the Gupta empire.
2. Chess made its way to the West in the 9 th century.
3. The oldest recorded chess game in history is from the 900s, between a historian from Baghdad and his student.
4. Chess is called the game of kings because for many centuries it was played primarily by nobility and the upper classes.
5. Do you know the number of possible ways of playing the first four moves for both sides in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000?
6. Amazingly there are approximately  1.70 x 10*29 ways to play the first 10 moves of a game of chess.
7. There are in fact 400 different possible positions after one move each. It rises to 72,084 different positions after two moves each. The figure rises to over 9 million after three moves .
8. Amazing fact is that the number of distinct 40-move games in chess is 10^41 times greater than the number of electrons in the observable universe. The number of electrons is approximately 10^79 , while the number of unique chess games is 10^120 which is known as Shannon number. However after the fifty-move rule , the number of possible positions has been reduced to 10^43.
9. The longest game of chess that is theoretically possible is 5,949 moves.
10. The shortest number of moves necessary to achieve checkmate from the beginning of the game is amazingly just two moves. One sequence is called fool’s mate runs thus. 1. g4 e5, 2. f4 Qh4 checkmate.
11. From the starting position, there are eight different ways to Mate in two moves and 355 different ways to Mate in three moves.
12. An opening is defined as a series of moves to start out a game, which can include many different sub variations. Amazingly there are well over 1,000 different openings, including variations.
13. The number of possibilities of a Knight’s tour is over 122 million.
14. The longest official chess game ever was I.Nikolic – Arsovic, Belgrade 1989, which ended in a draw after 269 moves (20 hours, 15 minutes).
15. The folding chess board was originally invented in 1125 by a chess-playing priest. Since the Church forbid priests to play chess, he hid his chess board by making one that looked simply like two books lying together.
16. The second book ever printed in the English language was in fact about chess!
17. The new pawn move, where pawns were allowed to advance two squares on its first move instead of one, was first introduced first in Spain in 1280.
18. Initially, the Queen could only move one square at a time, diagonally.  Later, she could move two squares at a time, diagonally.  It wasn’t until Reconquista Spain, with its powerful queen Isabella, that the Queen became the strongest piece on the board.
19. Pawn promotion rules were limited up to 19th century when it was limited to a previously captured piece.  Nowadays a pawn may be promoted to a knight, bishop, rook, or queen and there may be more than one queen now.
20. The first chess game played between space and earth was on June 9, 1970 by the Soyez-9 crew which ended in a draw.
21. In 1922, World Champion José Raúl Capablanca amazingly played 103 opponents simultaneously and won 102 of the games (with 1 draw).
22. The world record for simultaneous chess exhibition was just set in 2009 by Bulgarian Grandmaster Kiril Georgiev. He played 360 games for more than 14 hours. He won 284 games, drawn 70 and lost 6 games.
23. Blindfold chess is an impressive skill requiring a keen ability to see the board clearly in mind which can get difficult after many moves.
24. In 1960, Koltanowski played 56 chess games blindfolded  (with only 10 seconds a move) and won 50 and drew 6! Amazing fact was after the games were over, he could recite the complete moves from memory.
25. There were amazing 72 consecutive Queen moves in the Mason-Mackenzie game at London in 1882.
26. The record of moves without capture is of 100 moves during the Match between Thorton and M. Walker in 1992.
27. A computer called Deep Thought became the first computer to beat an international grandmaster in November 1988, Long Beach, California. The computer Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion in a match, when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997.
28. The longest time for a Castling move to take place was the match game between Bobotsor vs. Irkovin 1966 after 46 moves.
29. As late as 1561, Castling was two moves. You had to play rook on one move followed by king on the next move.
30. The word “Checkmate” in Chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means”the King is dead.”
31. Blathy, Otto (1860-1939), credited for creating the longest Chess Problem, mate in 290 moves.
32. Dr. Emanuel Lasker from Germany retained the World Chess Champion title for more time than any other player ever: 26 years and 337 days.
33. In 1985, the Soviet player Garry Kasparov became the youngest World Chess Champion ever at the age of 22 years and 210 days.
34. The first Chessboard with alternating light and dark squares appeared in Europe in 1090.
35. The largest simultaneous displays usually take place in Cuba. In 2005 the previous record of 11,000 people playing against over 500 masters was broken with the new record standing at 13,500 people playing against over 600 masters.
36. In 1561 Ruy Lopez de Segura, a Spanish priest, wrote a book which translated into English means “Book of liberal invention and the art of the game of chess”. It was the first complete study of the game. The Ruy Lopez opening is named after him as he was the first to analyse it in detail.
37. Chessmaster Master Alekhine Nouri aged 7 years is the youngest FIDE Master in the world! (FIDE stands for Fédération Internationale des Échecs, which literally translates into World Chess Federation).
38. Viswanathan Anand from India is in fact first player in chess history to have won the World Championship in all three different formats: knockout, tournament, and match.
39. Amazingly in one of the games, both players had three queens each on board at the same time. They all stuck around for seven moves! The game was between Szalanczy and  Nguyen, Budapest 2009 .
40. Bobby Fischer, most famously known as the youngest grandmaster in chess history, received the title in 1957 at the age of 14. Another 15 years later, he took the world championship in 1972.

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70 Facts about FIFA World Cup (Part 2) | Amazing Facts 4U

1. Out of the 20 world cups, South America and European countries have won 10 & 11 titles each. No other continent has produced a world champion.
2. England has played 13 World Cups and Italy 17 World Cups. The amazing fact is that both teams however encountered each other for the very first time in a group match in Manaus on the 14th of June 2014.
3. Netherlands (Holland ) is one of the best teams to never win a World Cup. The team has lost three times (1974, 1978, 2010) in the final.
4. South Africa in 2010 became the first African nation to host a World Cup.
5. Cameroon was the first African country to reach the quarterfinals in 1990.
6. The fewest number of fans to watch a FIFA World Cup Football game was only 300 in Uruguay in 1930.
7. The only two players to have scored in four consecutive finals tournaments in 1958, 1962, 1966 & 1970 are Pele of Brazil and Uwe Seeler of West Germany.
8. One of the greatest Italian footballers of all time, Giuseppe “Peppino” Meazza played a crucial role in his country’s 1934 FIFA World Cup victory. In one of the most memorable moments, Meazza’s shorts fell down as he took a penalty kick against Brazil in the 1938 World Cup. Unfazed, he picked them up with one hand and made the shot past the Brazilian goalkeeper who was still busy laughing, sending Italy into its second consecutive World Cup final.
9. Lev Yashin, the great Soviet goalkeeper, played in three FIFA World Cups (1958, 1962, and 1966). Known as the “Black Spider” for his signature all-black outfit and ability to block balls as if he had more than two arms, he was voted best goalie of the century.
10. The total prize money on offer for the FIFA 2014 World Cup was amazing US$576 million (including payments of US$70 million to domestic clubs).
11. FIFA World Cup 2014 Winner Germany got $35 million as prize money.
12. FIFA installed goal-line technology in all 12 of Brazil’s world cup stadiums in the 2014 World Cup for the first time in history to be used to determine whether or not the entire ball has crossed over the goal line eliminating human errors.
13. Germany didn’t like FIFA World Cup 2014 accommodations and in fact, went ahead and built their own FIFA World Cup Hotel and training camp.
14. Miroslav Klose of Germany scored his 16th FIFA World Cup goal against Brazil in 2014 to break the tournament’s individual goal-scoring record. His goal made him the career scoring leader in the World Cup with 16 goals, one more than Brazilian Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima.
15. The record for most individual goals in a tournament is held by France’s Just Fontaine, with 13. He played in just one World Cup (1958) but that was good enough to place him third on the all-time career goals list.
16. The oldest player to lead a Country to the FIFA World Cup title was the Italian goalkeeper and captain Dino Zoff, who at the age of 40 captained Italy to their 1982 FIFA World Cup title.
17. Faryd Mondragón became the oldest player to ever make an appearance at a World Cup finals when he came on for Colombia v Japan (43y 3d) beating Roger Milla from Cameroon who was 42 years old in the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
18. The youngest player to score a goal is Pele at 17 years and 239 days old when he scored in 1958.
19. Russia’s Oleg Slanko holds the record for most individual goals in a single match, netting five goals against Cameroon in 1994.
20. German National Franz Beckenbauer and Brazilian Mario Zagallo are the only players in the history of the FIFA World Cup that won the title as a player and coach.
21. Hungary holds the record for scoring the most goals when they beat El Salvador 10:1 in 1982.
22. The first goalkeeper to win the Most Valuable Player award was the German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn during the 2002 Fifa World Cup.
23. Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo is the only head coach to lead the nation to two consecutive FIFA World Cup titles as the head coach in 1934 and 1938.
24. The record number for most World Cup appearances is held by German player Lothar Matthaus with 25 appearances.
25. The fastest goal in World Cup history was scored by Turkey’s Hakan Sukur, amazingly within 11 seconds into the game against South Korea during the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
26. The amazing fact is that although India qualified for the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, the team chose to withdraw from the competition. FIFA’s requirement was that all players must wear shoes during matches. The Indian footballers were only accustomed to playing barefoot at the time.
27. The very first hat trick was scored by an American Bert Patenaude during the 1930 FIFA World Cup.
28. Sir Vivian Richards, widely regarded as a legend in the game of cricket, is in fact the only person to play World Cup Cricket as well as represent Antigua for football during the 1974 World Cup Qualifying matches.
29. The highest attendance at the World Cup game was during the 1950 World Cup final between Brazil and Uruguay. It is reported that 199,854 people attended this final match played at the famous Marakana stadium in Rio de Janerio.
30. Pele is the most successful FIFA World Cup player, winning the title 3 different times with Brazil.
31. The fastest red card in the World Cup history was Uruguay’s Jose Baptista who lasted only  56 seconds in 1986 against Scotland before being sent off.
32. German legend Lothar Matthaeus and Antonio Carbajal (Mexican goalkeeper)  are the only two players to have played across five World Cup tournaments.
33. The first time numbers first appeared on jerseys was in 1954.
34. So far the jersey number with the most number of goals scored is number 9, the shirt number of Ronaldo.
35. The red and yellow card system was not introduced until the 1970 World Cup. The first player to receive a red card was Chile’s Carlos Caszely in 1974 in a match against West Germany in the 67th minute.
36. Although the penalty shootout was introduced in the 1978 World Cup, the first penalty shootout would only be taken in Spain ’82.
37. During the 2006 World Cup, referee Graham Poll booked Croatian Josip Simunic three times before sending him off. After a second yellow card a player should automatically receive a red card and be expelled from the game, however, referee Poll seemingly lost count.
38. During the same 2006 World Cup, referee Valentin Ivanov oversaw possibly the dirtiest game of World Cup football displaying no less than 16 yellow and four red cards in the game between Portugal and the Netherlands at the Frankenstadion in Nuremberg on 25 June.
39. “Fuleco”, the Official Mascot, is a three-banded armadillo from the eastern part of Brazil. He is 14 years old at the time of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. It was voted on by the Brazilian public.
40. “All in one rhythm” is the Official Slogan of the 2014 World Cup Brazil.
41. England’s Geoff Hurst is the only player to score a hat trick in a World Cup final (in 1966) against West Germany.
42. Luis Monti is the only player to appear in two World Cup championship games for two different nations: Argentina (1930) and Italy (1934).
43. Maracana Stadium for FIFA World cup Final 2014 in Rio can seat 79,000. The original venue, built for the 1950 World Cup, had a capacity of 200,000.
44. Eusebio’s three goals in the quarterfinals against North Korea helped Portugal win 4-3 after going down 3-0.
45. Bora Milutinovic is in fact the only man to coach five nations at World Cup finals – Mexico, Costa Rica, USA, China, and Nigeria.
46. The maximum number of appearances in FIFA world cup matches is 25. It was done by great German footballer Lothar Matthaus.
47. Northern Ireland’s Norman Whiteside was the youngest player to play in the FIFA world cup. He was just 17 years, 41 days when he played FIFA World Cup in 1982 against Yugoslavia.
48. A few months before the 1966 FIFA World Cup, the Jules Rimet trophy made of solid gold, which is awarded to each tournament’s winner, went on display at a London stamp exhibition. The amazing fact is that despite 24-hour surveillance, thieves managed to steal it. Six days after it disappeared, a man named David Corbett and his dog, Pickles were taking a stroll in London’s Beulah Hill district when Pickles began sniffing a newspaper-wrapped parcel which was found to contain the trophy. England went on to win its first and only World Cup that year.
49. The player on the Argentine national team Francisco Varallo died at the age of 100, as the last surviving player. His first play was at the FIFA World Cup in 1930.
50. Oliver Kahn, German is the only goalkeeper in the history of FIFA to have won the Golden Ball trophy.

FIFA World Cup 2014 Brazil

1. Germany’s 7–1 win against Brazil marked the largest ever margin of victory in a Fifa World Cup semi-final. Brazil replaced the US, Yugoslavia, and Austria in the record books, all of whom lost 6-1 in their respective World Cup semi-finals.
2. The thumping 7-1 loss is Brazil’s biggest margin of defeat ever. (tied with a 6-0 loss to Uruguay in 1920). the 6-goal margin of loss is the worst ever thumping of a host nation in the FIFA World Cup at any stage, leave alone in the semis.
3. It was the fastest four goals scored in World Cup history as Germany scored four (4) in the span of six minutes (from 23 to 29).
4. It was also the first time five (5) goals were scored in a 29-minute period of play.
5. Toni Kroos from Germany fired in his two goals just 69 seconds apart, the fastest in the tournament’s history.
6. The 2014 World Cup saw a joint-high number of goals scored (171).
7. James Rodriguez became the first player to score in his first five career World Cup appearances since Peru’s Teofilo Cubillas (across the 1970 and 1978 tournaments).
8. There were more goals scored by substitutes in this World Cup than in any previous edition (32).
9. Tim Howard made 15 saves in the USA’s round of 16 defeat to Belgium highest ever.
10. All eight group stage winners progressed to the quarter-finals stage for the first time in World Cup history.
11. Honduras has now played nine games without a win at the World Cup (D3 L6). They have played more matches at the FIFA World Cup without winning than any other side (New Zealand, El Salvador, and Bolivia – all six).
12. Mexico has been knocked out of the World Cup finals at the second round stage in all six editions since 1994; no team has been knocked out at this stage as often as this.
13. Argentina has progressed from all four of their World Cup semi-finals.
14. Germany has reached the World Cup final for the 8th time; more often than any other side in the history of the competition.
15. Germany has scored 18 goals in these finals – the last team to score as many in a World Cup tournament was Brazil (also 18) in 2002.
16. Mario Götze is the first substitute to score a winning goal in the FIFA World Cup final.
17. Mario Götze is the youngest scorer of a goal in a World Cup final since Wolfgang Weber in 1966 (22 years, 33 days).
18. In fact, this was the first time that England has been eliminated from a World Cup at the group stage since 1958.
19. A four-goal margin (1-5 against the Netherlands) is the biggest losing margin by a defending champion at a FIFA World Cup.
20. Neymar scored the 100th goal of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil’s 100th game in World Cup finals history.

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50 Facts about FIFA World Cup (Part 1) | Amazing Facts 4U

1. FIFA stands for The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (in English, the International Federation of Association Football).
2. FIFA has in fact 208 Member Associations vs the United Nations has 192 Member States.
3. US and Canada are in fact the only countries in the World where Football is called Soccer.
4. FIFA World Cup is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, with an amazing three billion people watching this competition every four years.
5. The FIFA World Cup in fact surpasses comfortably the Olympics in a number of viewers.
6. The first FIFA World Cup was held in Uruguay back in 1930 and 13 countries participated in the tournament. World Cup is played every 4 years.
7. The first-ever World Cup was won by Uruguay in 1930. The World Cup was not played in 1942 and 1946 because of World War.
8. Lucien Laurent of France scored the first goal in World Cup history on July 13, 1930.
9. The 20 FIFA World Cup tournaments have been won by eight different national teams.
10. In the 20 times the World Cup has been played, the host country has triumphed only six times: Uruguay in 1930, Italy in 1934, England in 1966, Germany in 1974, Argentina in 1978 and France in 1998.
11. The amazing fact is that for the first time in FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil, any nation from outside South America has won the World Cup on South American soil ( Germany ).
12. Only seven nations have won the World Cup; Brazil, Italy, West Germany, Argentina, Uruguay, England and France.
13. After winning their 2nd World Cup title in 1938, Italy went on amazing 44-year drought before winning their third title in 1982.
14. Germany holds the top spot for most eight appearances in the World Cup finals. Next is Brazil with 7 appearances in the finals.
15. Germany has played 99 World Cup matches before FIFA world cup 2014 making them a Nation to have played the most World Cup matches.
16. The Germans now have 223 goals since 1930 in all World ups, three more than Brazil.
17. Mexico holds the record for most defeats in World Cup history, losing 22 matches.
18. The record for most World Cup titles won goes to Brazil who has in fact won the tournament 5 different times.
19. Brazil is the only country to have appeared in every World Cup tournament since 1930.
20. No host Country had ever been eliminated during the first round, until South Africa in 2010.
21. Two World Cup finals have been decided on penalties. Brazil beat Italy in 1994, and Italy beat France in 2006.
22. Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Hungary are the most successful teams to have never won the tournament. They all made two finals but never won the World Cup.
23. Argentina knocked England out of the 1986 World Cup, courtesy of the goal scored by Diego Maradonna off of his hand. This goal is known as the Hand of God.
24. Amazingly Scotland made the World Cup qualifications 8 different times and is the only country that was actually eliminated from the tournament during the first round every time in 1954, 1958, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1998.
25. The U.S.’s best showing came in 1930 when the American team placed third in the World Cup.
26. Brazil hosted the 1950 World Cup but Germany & Japan were prohibited from participating in the qualifying process.
27. Amazingly Canada has qualified for the World Cup only once, in 1986.
28. The highest-scoring World Cup match was in 1954 when Austria beat Switzerland 7-5.
29. The highest-scoring final happened when Brazil beat then host country Sweden by a score of 5-2.
30. Brazil has become the fifth country to host a World Cup tournament for the second time and it has been 36 years since a South American team has hosted (Argentina, 1978).
31. Italy, the long-standing defending champions (winners in 1934 and 1938), travelled by boat rather than a plane to the 1950 World Cup, a journey of three weeks from Naples (Italy) to Santos (Brazil).
32. The first penalty shootout in World Cup history was taken in the Semi-Final match of the 1982 World Cup in Spain between West Germany and France, West Germany won 5-4.
33. German player Uli Stielike missed the first penalty of the first penalty shootout in World cup history
34. Amazingly a national team with a foreign coach has never won the FIFA World Cup. The 18 winning coaches to date have all been in charge of their home nation.
35. Only once in FIFA World Cup history has there been no European team in the final, in 1930 when neighbours Argentina and Uruguay battled it out. Since then, there has always been a European representative in the finals.
36. In 1982, the field of nations increased from 16 to 24. For the first time, a country from every continent was represented.
37. The 1998 FIFA World Cup in France featured 32 countries for the first time when for the first time the field of teams competing was expanded from 24 to the current 32.
38. Chosen to host the final of Brazil 2014, the Maracana is only the second stadium to have staged the final twice together with Mexico’s Estadio Azteca.
39. In terms of averages, Switzerland 1954 still leads the way with 140 goals in just 26 matches an impressive average of 5.38 per game.
40. To this day, 76 national sides have taken part in at least one FIFA World Cup.
41. 3 World Cup qualifiers travelled more than 14,000 km in the World Cup 2014.
42. Bosnia And Herzegovina are the only countries to have qualified for the First Time in 2014. The breakup of Yugoslavia resulted in the formation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
43. Germany played their 100th World Cup Match when playing Portugal in the 2014 World cup.
44. Italia ’90 World Cup produced only 115 goals, a meagre average of 2.21 goals per match, the lowest average ever.
45. Argentina is 26 wins, 1 loss in all World Cup games where they have led at half-time.
46. Russia (in 2018) and Qatar (2022) will host the next two World Cups.
47. The 2002 World Cup was the first and to date only tournament to feature two host nations: South Korea and Japan.
48. The United States has qualified for every World Cup finals since 1990. Before 1990 there was a period of 40 years when it couldn’t qualify.
49. 203 of FIFA’s 208 members participated in the qualifying process for the 2014 World Cup.
50. The biggest loss for the USA came in 1934 when it lost to Italy 7-1.

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