2002 FIFA World Cup qualification failed to qualify for the 2006 finals: Belgium, Cameroon, China, Denmark, Ireland, Nigeria, Russia, Senegal, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey, Uruguay." The 32 spots available in the 2002 World Cup would be distributed among the continental zones as follows: A total of 193 teams played at least one qualifying match. A total of 777 qualifying matches were played, and 2452 goals were scored (an average of 3.17 per match). The Asian Football Confederation was allocated four and half qualifying berths for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, South Korea and Japan, the co-hosts, qualified automatically, leaving two and half spots open for
2002 FIFA World Cup seeding 2002 FIFA World Cup seeding To calculate the seeding for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, FIFA used the FIFA World Rankings in combination with performances of national teams in the three previous World Cups. The formula is virtually identical with the one used for the 1998 FIFA World Cup seeding. For the ranking part, points were allocated on the basis of 32 for the best achieving of the 32 qualifiers for 2002 FIFA World Cup in each of the three fields considered, down to one for the lowest ranking. For the World Cup performance part, points were allocated as follows: