WORLD CUP FACTS – WORLD CUP TRIVIA

***image2***WORLD CUP FACTS

– Brazil is the defending World Cup champion.
– The World Cup is played every four years.
– In 2002, (played in Korea/Japan) a cumulative in-home audience of 28.8 billion viewers watched the tournament.
– Games will be played in twelve cities – Berlin, Dortmund,
Frankfurt/Main, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Hannover, Kaiserslautern, Köln,
Leipzig, Munich, Nürnberg and Stuttgart.
– Opening match was June 9 in Munich. The final match is in Berlin July 9.
– U.S. beat Poland 1-0, March 1 at the Kaiserslautern Fritz-Walter
Stadium in front of 13,400 fans – the majority were from the KMC.
– The Fritz-Walter Stadium in Kaiserslautern has a capacity of only 46,000, making it the smallest of the World Cup venues.

WORLD CUP TRIVIA

•Most goals in one match: 12 goals – Austria vs Switzerland, 7 to 5 (1954).
•Largest and smallest attendance: A crowd of 199,850 watched Brazil
play Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil – but in Uruguay in 1930,
only 300 fans turned out to watch Romania play Peru.
•Booted out of play: India refused to play in the 1950 World Cup
because FIFA told the players they would have to play in soccer boots
(cleats), rather than barefoot.
•Boo the winners: Brazil’s 2002 World Cup victory celebrations turned
sour when fans threw rocks at a bus carrying the victorious team.
Supporters reacted angrily when the players cut short a parade in Rio
de Janeiro.
•The power of soccer: During World Cup France 1998, impoverished
districts of Bangladesh suffered four nights of blackouts due to a
surge in power consumption, caused by soccer fans tuning in to live
World Cup telecasts.
•Crying in their beers: After Scotland lost 3-0 to Morocco at
Saint-Etienne during World Cup 1998, about 8,000 Scottish fans drank
approximately 125,000 liters of beer. Bars ran dry.
•The ‘Magic’ of the cup: Tzamarenda Naychapi, a priest who practices
magic for healing, visited all 12 World Cup venues in Germany to banish
evil spirits before the tournament started June 9.
•Germany expects: 4.2 million football fans and guests from around the
world will visit the country this month for World Cup 2006. About 3.2
million football fans will be present in the stadiums, and more than 1
million guests will visit as tourists.