Just how does the World Cup work anyway?

Since we'll be talking about the World Cup a lot in the weeks to come (and so will every sports fan you know), it makes sense to have a little tutorial on how the whole things work.

There are 2 phases in the World Cup:

The Group Phase:

• All 32 teams in the World Cup are divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each.
• Each group is given a letter, A through H.
• Teams play each other team in their group once, and get 3 points for a win and 1 for a tie.
• At the end of this phase, the top 2 teams in each group move on.

The Knockout Phase:

• The remaining 16 teams play are ranked or "seeded" according to how well they did in the Group Phase.
• The best team plays the worst team and so on, just like in the hockey playoffs.
• There are no ties in this round. They play 2 overtime periods and then move on to penalty kicks (very exciting!).
• The winner of each game lives to play another day, while the loser is knocked out of the tournament.
• Eventually, the last 2 remaining teams play each other for the championship.

What they're all competing for.

I highly recommend you pick a team to cheer for, since that will make the World Cup much more exciting. This is truly a global event: the last championship game in 2006 was watched by over 715 million people worldwide, a ninth of our planet's entire population.

For a list of the nations participating and to see who's is each group, click here.