FIFA World Cup Amazing Facts That You Might Not Know

Before starting the 1966 FIFA World Cup tournament, the World Cup trophy went missing for seven days.

There are only 193 countries as members of the United Nations, whereas 209 countries play the FIFA World Cup qualifier round.

The maximum numbers of own goals scored in a single match in FIFA World Cup history are two own goals. In the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Portugal gifted two own goals for the USA.

In the 1950 FIFA World Cup edition, India was disqualified since they want to play bare feet. That is the only time India has ever qualified for World Cup.

All World Cups have been won by European (11) or South American (9) countries.

There have only been four times when a team has won all their games at a World Cup (Uruguay, 4/4 in 1930), Italy (4/4 in 1938), and Brazil (6/6 in 1970, 7/7 in 2002).

In the 1986 FIFA World Cup edition, FIFA banned shirt swapping since FIFA did not let players bare their chests to the public.

Most of the time, we might think of players with jersey number 10 score more goals than others. But in FIFA World Cup history, players with jersey number 9 score more goals than number 10.

Mexico has qualified without winning the trophy more than any other country (16 times).

For the last 14 years, Netherland always has the player who has the name “Van” in their lineup, but unfortunately, they cannot make the space for FIFA World Cup 2018.

In 1930, only 300 people watched the game live at the stadium.

2010 FIFA World Cup set the record for “the world’s most widely viewed sporting event,” almost 3.3 billion people worldwide, which are more than 48% of the world’s population, watch FIFA World Cup.

Brazil spends more than 14.5 billion dollars to host the World Cup 2014. It is the most expensive World Cup in history.

Zinedine Zidane, Rafael Marquez, and Cafu are the player who received the most red cards in FIFA World Cup history. They were sent off six times at different FIFA World Cup tournaments, which is the record number of the red card shown to any player in FIFA World Cup history.

Oliver Kahn was the first player to win the most prestigious and valuable FIFA Golden Ball in 2002 in the FIFA World Cup history.

Other than South Africa (2010), all hosts have reached the second round. In 30% of cases (6/20), they have been champions. France was the last team to win World Cup in 1998 by hosting the country.

The most talked about FIFA World Cup goal in history is the goal scored by Diego Maradona with his hand against England in 1986. That goal is referred to as the Hand of God Goal in FIFA World Cup History.

Iceland is the country with the smallest population ever competing at FIFA World Cup, with just 334,000 residents.

The highest excitement rating of FIFA World Cup is in Indonesia, which is about 61.3%, and lowest in the USA, only 11% of people show their interest in FIFA World Cup.

Mexico is the only country to have hosted the World Cup twice.

Brazil has had the reddest cards in the history of the competition (11), with Argentina (10) and Uruguay (9) not far behind.

Miroslav Klose, Pelé, and Uwe Seeler have all scored in four World Cups; the only players who could reach this landmark in Russia are Tim Cahill, Rafael Marquez, Cristiano Ronaldo, and David Villa.