Two years and 159 days after the opening whistle of qualifying, the 2014 World Cup field is set.
Uruguay became the 32nd and final team from a group of 203 entrants to book their place in Brazil next summer after they battled Jordan to a 0-0 draw in Montevideo's Estadio Centenario, advancing comfortably thanks to a 5-0 win in the first leg of the two countries' qualifying playoff.
Attention will now turn to the draw for the tournament, which is to be conducted on December 6 in Brazil. The 32 teams will be divided into four pots of eight teams each for the draw, with hosts Brazil and the next seven highest-ranked sides in the October 2013 FIFA World Rankings being given the top seeds in Pot 1 and the rest being divided up by geographical criteria to be determined.
Past World Cup pots have been designed to prevent teams from the same confederation (except for Europe, which will send 13 teams to the 2014 tournament) from facing each other in the group stage.
The eight seeded teams will be: Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, Uruguay and Switzerland.
The full list of qualifiers, by confederation, is as follows:
<strong>Africa (CAF)</strong> |
<strong>Asia (AFC)</strong> |
<strong>Europe (UEFA)</strong> |
<strong>North America (CONCACAF)</strong> |
<strong>South America (CONMEBOL)</strong> |
<p class="rtecenter"><span style="font-size: 10px;"><b>Côte d'Ivoire</b></span><br><strong style="font-size: 10px;">Ghana<br>
Nigeria<br>
Algeria<br>
Cameroon</strong></p> |
<p class="rtecenter"><span style="font-size: 10px;"><b>Japan</b></span><br><strong style="text-align: center; font-size: 10px;">Iran<br>
South Korea<br>
Australia</strong></p> |
<p class="rtecenter"><font size="1"><b>Spain<br>
Germany<br>
Belgium<br>
Switzerland<br>
Netherlands<br>
Italy<br>
England<br>
Portugal<br>
Greece<br>
Bosnia-Herz.</b></font><br><b style="font-size: x-small;">Croatia<br>
Russia<br>
France</b></p> |
<font size="1"><b>United States<br>
Mexico<br>
Costa Rica<br>
Honduras</b></font> |
<span style="font-size: 10px;"><b>Brazil</b><br><strong>Argentina<br>
Colombia<br>
Uruguay<br>
Chile<br>
Ecuador</strong></span> |
Bosnia and Herzegovina will be the only country to make their World Cup debut in next summer's tournament.
In total, 816 games were played in qualification tournaments across the globe. There was a three-way tie at the top of the World Cup qualifying scoring charts, with Uruguay's Luis Suárez, the Netherlands' Robin van Persie and Belize's Deon McCauley all tallying 11 goals over the course of qualifying.
