FIFA World Cup preceding three years, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase, which is often called the "World Cup Finals". After this, 32 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation(s), compete in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month. The 21 World Cup tournaments have been won by eight national teams. Brazil have won five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. The other World Cup winners are Germany and Italy, with four titles each; Argentina, France and inaugural winner Uruguay, with
2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF) qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The fourth-placed team competed in a home-and-away play-off against the fifth-placed team from Asia. The Fourth Round winner then played the fifth-placed team of the AFC qualifying group, Bahrain, in a home-and-away play-off. The winner of this play-off qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals. The following four teams from CONCACAF qualified for the final tournament. 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF) Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for North, Central America and the Caribbean. A total of 34 teams took part (out