FIFA Soccer

The association was formed in 1904 in France. The main purpose behind its establishment was to provide the soccer playing nations with a chance to have a recognized and well founded representation at the world’s level. FIFA soccer association has done a lot of good to the game since than.

The organization of the FIFA World Cups has proved to be a corner stone in terms of the boost it provided to the game. FIFA rules of soccer are reviewed every year in order to judge if there is any loophole left in it. FIFA rules are officially known as the Laws of the Game. These rules are applied on all the games played under the jurisdiction of FIFA, especially during the World Cups.

2006 World cup in Germany was the 18th FIFA World Cup. Germany, who won the right to host the cup in 2000, made it a mega event, organizing it from 9 June to 9 July 2006. A total of 198 countries took part in the qualifying rounds from around the globe. The host was an automatic qualifier and along with them another thirty one teams made to the last round of the Germany 2006 world cup. FIFA soccer officials made sure that all the arrangements taken to organize the world cup have completed in time. The winners were Italy who lifted the cup for forth time. In the final they defeated France in Penalty shoot out after the extra time score remained one goal each. The hosts took the third place by defeating Portugal 3-1. The 2006 Germany world cup became the most watched event ever in the world. An estimated 171.5 million people watched the world cup final.

Eight out of thirty two were the countries which had never qualified for the finals before. Those were Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, Czech Republic, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine and Serbia and Montenegro. Some of them however, had taken part in the event before getting independence. Since 1982 world cup, Germany world cup was the first event where members from all six confedrations qualified for the finals.

It was the fourth time in 2006 Germany, after 1934, 1966 and 1982 world cups that the all european teams came agaist each other in the semi finals, after the elimination of Brazil and argentine in the Quarter finals. The Golden Boot award was cliamed by Germany’s Klose who scored five goals. It was one of the lowest totals to win the prize. However, it was just fine considering the dearth of goals that could be seen all around the tournament. No other player during the cup could socre more than three goals. In the 64 mstches that were played at that time hardly 147 goals were scored.

The official FIFA soccer ball used in the tournamnet was Adidas’s +Teamgeist and +Teamgeist Berlin. The + Teamgeist is a ball made up of 14 panels. In every match of the world cup final an individual ball was used on which the date of the matches, the name of teams and the stadium were printed. However, in the final the +Teamgeist Berlin was used which was golden in color. The tournament was also full of controversy as there was a large number of yellow and red cards were handed out to the players. According to the given stats of the tournament 345 yellow and 28 red cards were shown to the players. In a quarterfinal match between Portugal and Netherleands, thr referee handed out 16 yellow and 4 red cards. The match officials and FIFA governing body was highly criticized for the making of such rigid rules.