Brazil at the 2006 FIFA World Cup the respective country's citizenship, and according to FIFA's ruling, can never play for the Brazilian team in the future. Those were: Brazil at the 2006 FIFA World Cup At the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Brazil participated for the 18th time in the event. The country remained as the only national team to have participated in every installment of the FIFA World Cup. The Brazilian team played until the quarter-finals, where they were defeated by France, finishing the tournament in the fifth place — for the third time in history (1954 and 1986 were the previous instances). Brazil's qualifying for the
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