FIFA World Cup 2022 Schedule: Full Match Fixtures

On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship itself. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament. The world's first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England.

The opening match will be played on November 21 and the final on December 18, 2022. The matches in the group stage will be decided later when the draw has been made among the qualifiers. Russia's participation was further thrown into doubt after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 24 February, the three teams in Russia's qualifying path — Czech Republic, Poland, and Sweden — announced their unwillingness to play any matches in Russian territory. The boycott was extended on February 26 by Poland and Sweden to any qualifying games at all, and the same decision was made by the Czech Republic one day later. The official emblem was designed by Lisbon-based Brandia Central branding agency and unveiled on 3 September 2019 during simultaneous events at the Doha Tower, Katara Cultural Village Amphitheatre, Msheireb Downtown Doha, and Zubarah.

Italy's Vittorio Pozzo is the only head coach to ever win two World Cups . All World Cup-winning head coaches were natives of the country they coached to victory. An All-Star Team consisting of the best players of the tournament has also been announced for each tournament since 1998. There was no third place match in 1930; the two losing semi-finalists are ranked according to their overall records in the tournament.

The current format involves a qualification phase, which takes place over the preceding three years, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase. In the tournament phase, 32 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation, compete for the title at venues within the host nation over about a month. And once again it winning the Cup was just one step too far because of two Argentinian goals in extra-time. The Netherlands would not reach the final again until 2010, which they would again lose.

Its name comes from the number of shipping containers used in its construction and Qatar's international dialing code. Some investigations found that Qatar sought an edge in securing hosting by hiring a former CIA officer turned private contractor, Kevin Chalker, to spy on rival bid teams and key football officials who picked the winner in 2010. Switzerland (quarter-finals 1954), Sweden (runners-up in 1958), Chile , South Korea , and Mexico (quarter-finals in 1970 and 1986) all have their best results when serving as hosts. So far, South Africa has been the only host nation to fail to advance beyond the first round. Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been held to thin the field for the final tournament. They are held within the six FIFA continental zones , overseen by their respective confederations.