The FIFA World Cup in numbers
By Euan Burns
The countdown to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar is almost over as the host nation takes on Ecuador on Sunday evening in the opening game.
A winter of football will then follow in what is proving to be the most controversial World Cup that there has ever been.
Players and teams will be looking to break records on the pitch as they go, but there are some records that help fans understand the scale and importance of the competition that has been running since the 1930s.
We at 90min have compiled a list of statistics to help you brush up on your World Cup knowledge.
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- What is the oldest squad at the World Cup?
The history of the World Cup
With the tournament only happening every four years, the World Cup moves at a different speed when it comes to historical understanding. Traditionally, the tournament takes place in the summer, but the 2022 edition will be held in the winter due to the high temperatures in Qatar.
Since the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, there have been 20 editions of the tournament. In that time, only eight different countries have won the tournament. They are Brazil (5), Germany (4), Italy (4), Argentina (2), France (2), Uruguay (2), England (1) and Spain (1).
Of those 20 tournament victories, six of those have been won by the host nation. A Golden Boot award is handed out to the top scorer at each tournament and the player with the most goals in World Cup history, across four tournaments, is Germany's Miroslav Klose. He netted 16 times between 2002 and 2014.
The record for the most scored in a single World Cup goes to France's Just Fontaine who scored 13 goals in the 1958 edition. A less desired record is the fastest ever red card which goes to Uruguay's Jose Batista, who was sent off after 56 seconds in 1986.
Russia 2018, the most recent edition of the World Cup, saw an average of 2.6 goals per game. That tournament also featured the smallest-ever nation to qualify by population, as Iceland took part with a population of 334,000.
2022 World Cup in numbers
There are some interesting figures already for the 2022 World Cup and there may well be more to come as the tournament gets underway.
32 teams are competing in Qatar and the host nation is the 80th new team to play in World Cup. The final will be played at the Lusail Stadium which holds 80,000 spectators.
Based on median squad age, Belgium and Iran are the oldest teams at the tournament with an average age of 29, whilst Ghana are the youngest with an average age of 23.5.
TV projections suggest that this World Cup will be watched by a staggering five billion people, which is well over half of the planet's population. Also, Qatar is the smallest country to ever host a World Cup. The area in square kilometres is 11,581 which is similar to the metropolitan area of New York City.
The winning nation is set to receive an incredible $44m for their triumph, which should then be used to fund their footballing infrastructure.
