Related Research Articles
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players each, who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposing team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opposing team. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45-minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries and territories, it is the world's most popular sport.
The Union of European Football Associations is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach football in Europe and the transcontinental countries of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan, as well as the West Asian countries of Cyprus, Armenia and Israel. UEFA consists of 55 national association members. Since 2022, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIFA and UEFA suspended all Russian national teams and clubs from any FIFA and UEFA competitions.
The Intercontinental Cup, officially the European/South American Cup and known from 1980 as the Toyota Cup for sponsorship reasons, was an international football competition endorsed by UEFA (Europe) and CONMEBOL, contested between representative clubs from these confederations, usually the winners of the UEFA Champions League and the South American Copa Libertadores. It ran from 1960 to 2004, when it was succeeded by the FIFA Club World Cup, although they both ran concurrently in 2000.
Football is the most popular sport in Brazil and a prominent part of the country's national identity. The Brazil national football team has won the FIFA World Cup five times, the most of any team, in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002. Brazil and Germany are the only teams to succeed in qualifying for all the World Cups for which they entered the qualifiers; Brazil is the only team to participate in every World Cup competition ever held. Brazil has also won an Olympic gold medal, at the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro and at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, led by Argentina as of December 2024. The men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their game results with the most successful teams being ranked highest. The rankings were introduced in December 1992, and eight teams have held the top position, of which Brazil have spent the longest time ranked first.
The FIFA Club World Cup is an international men's association football competition organised by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The competition was first contested in 2000 as the FIFA Club World Championship. It was not held from 2001 to 2004 due to a combination of factors in the cancelled 2001 tournament, most importantly the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner International Sport and Leisure (ISL), but in 2005 it changed to an annual competition through 2023. Following the 2023 edition, the tournament was revamped to a quadrennial competition starting in 2025. Views differ as to the cup's prestige: it struggles to attract interest in most of Europe, and is the object of heated debate in South America.
Luís Fabiano Clemente, commonly known as Luís Fabiano, is a retired Brazilian professional footballer who played as a striker most notably for Sevilla, São Paulo, and the Brazil national team.
In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments, and after applied in women's football and futsal, the coefficients are calculated by UEFA, who administer football within Europe, and the Asian parts of some transcontinental countries.
The Finalissima, formerly known as European/South American Nations Cup and also called Artemio Franchi Cup, is an intercontinental football match organised by CONMEBOL and UEFA and contested by the winners of the Copa América and UEFA European Championship. Organised as an occasional one-off match, it is a national team equivalent to the defunct Intercontinental Cup between the club champions of Europe and South America. The competition was held twice, in 1985 and 1993, before being discontinued. It was relaunched in 2022, after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between CONMEBOL and UEFA.
The association football tournament at the 2016 Summer Olympics was held from 3 to 20 August in Brazil.
The UEFA Nations League is an international football competition played by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA, the sport's European governing body.
The FIFA Women's Club World Cup is an international women's association football competition that is proposed by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The inaugural edition is scheduled to take place in early 2026.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification will decide the 45 teams that will join hosts Canada, Mexico, and the United States at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The video assistant referee (VAR) is a match official in association football who assists the referee by reviewing decisions using video footage and providing advice to the referee based on those reviews.
The CONCACAF Nations League is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of CONCACAF, the regional governing body of North America. It determines the continental champions of North America. The tournament takes place on dates allocated for international friendlies on the FIFA International Match Calendar. A one-time qualifying tournament took place from September 2018 to March 2019 and the inaugural tournament began in September 2019.
The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification process determined 30 of the 32 teams which will play in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, with the co-hosts Australia and New Zealand qualifying automatically. It is the ninth FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international women's football world championship tournament. The tournament is the first Women's World Cup to be hosted in multiple countries, the third by an AFC member association after the 1991 and 2007 Women's World Cups in China, the first to be held in the Southern Hemisphere, the first senior FIFA tournament in Oceania, and also the first FIFA tournament to be hosted across multiple confederations.
The 2022 Finalissima was the third edition of the CONMEBOL–UEFA Cup of Champions, an intercontinental football match between the winners of the previous South American and European championships. The match featured Italy, winners of UEFA Euro 2020, and Argentina, winners of the 2021 Copa América. It was played at Wembley Stadium in London on 1 June 2022. The match, a revival of the Artemio Franchi Cup last played 29 years prior, was organised by UEFA and CONMEBOL as part of a renewed partnership between the two confederations.
The 2023 Women's Finalissima was the first edition of the Women's Finalissima, an intercontinental women's football match between the winners of the most recent European and South American championships. The match featured England, winners of UEFA Women's Euro 2022, and Brazil, winners of the 2022 Copa América Femenina. It was played at Wembley Stadium in London on 6 April 2023. The match was organised by UEFA and CONMEBOL as part of a renewed partnership between the two confederations.
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup is the planned 21st edition of the FIFA Club World Cup, an international club soccer competition organized by FIFA. The tournament is scheduled to be played in the United States from June 14 to July 13, 2025. It is planned to be the first under an expanded format with 32 teams, including the winners of the four previous continental championships.
The 2025 FIFA Futsal Women's World Cup is the planned inaugural edition of the FIFA Futsal Women's World Cup, an international futsal competition organized by FIFA. The inaugural edition is to be hosted in the Philippines from November 21 to December 7.
References
- ↑ "International match calendar – major step made towards final agreement". FIFA.com. 5 March 2012. Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
- 1 2 "Release of players for national association representative matches in accordance with the Coordinated International Match Calendar" (PDF). FIFA.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 September 2007. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
- ↑ "Men's International Match Calendar 2023-2030" (PDF). FIFA. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
- 1 2 "Women's International Match Calendar 2024-2025" (PDF). FIFA. 18 January 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
- ↑ "Women's International Match Calendar 2026-2029" (PDF). FIFA. 18 July 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
