2010 FIFA World Cup qualification the finals, with CONCACAF's fourth-place team facing CONMEBOL's fifth-placed team, and AFC's fifth-placed team facing the winner of the OFC. As the host nation, South Africa qualified automatically. As in 2006, the current cup holders – Italy – did not qualify automatically. For FIFA World Cup qualifying stages the method used for separating teams level on points is the same for all Confederations, as decided by FIFA itself. If teams were even on points at the end of group play, the tied teams would be ranked by: This is a change from 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification, where results between
2006 FIFA World Cup qualification and first round elimination in the previous tournament was considered to be due to lack of preparation that the qualifiers could have provided. The final distribution was as follows: The distribution by confederation for the 2014 FIFA World Cup is: UEFA and CAF have a guaranteed number of places, whereas the number of qualifiers from other confederations is dependent on play-offs between AFC's fifth-placed team and CONMEBOL's fifth-placed team, and between CONCACAF's fourth-placed team and OFC's first-placed team. A draw determined the pairings between the four teams involved. After the 2006 FIFA World Cup group stage of 2006 FIFA World