It’s that time again – the World Cup is upon us. People all over the world are getting ready to support their country’s team, hoping to win and prove themselves the best in the world. The World Cup has, over the years, become much more than a simple football contest: today, it is a worldwide phenomenon, a kind of weaponless world war, where every country’s national pride is at stake.

Ironically, a real world war nearly put a stop to the World Cup altogether. The World Cup started in 1930, at a time when tensions remained from World War I and the build-up to World War II was beginning, and many people were understandably reluctant to travel internationally. The tournament was cancelled altogether in 1942 and 1946, and governments in 1950 were more interested in rebuilding their countries than hosting football tournaments. It was only thanks to Brazil stepping in to host the 1950 World Cup that the tournament survives today.

Since Brazil saved the World Cup almost 60 years ago, they have won the cup five times, more than any other team in the world, leading many to say of football that “the English invented it, but the Brazilians perfected it". Only Germany and Italy have come anywhere close to their performance, each having one the cup three times.

The World Cup is organised in three stages: first, the qualifiers, then the finals group stage, then finally the knockout stage. Only 32 teams can qualify for the finals, which is the stage of the tournament people are usually referring to when they talk about the World Cup, leading to painful humiliation for countries that fail to qualify. Some countries haven’t qualified for a long time – Canada, for example, has failed to qualify since 1990, and Israel hasn’t qualified since 1974.

In the group stage, the qualifying teams are organised into groups of four, with each team playing every other team in its group. The top two teams then go through to a knockout tournament, organised as quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final.

It is being hosted in Germany in 2006, South Africa in 2010, and South America in 2014, possibly once again in Brazil.