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
1970 FIFA World Cup for the first time. Mexico as the host nation and England as reigning World Cup champions were granted automatic qualification, with the remaining fourteen finals places divided among the continental confederations. Eight places were available to teams from UEFA (Europe), three for CONMEBOL (South America), one for CAF (Africa), one for an AFC/OFC team (Asia/Oceania), and one for CONCACAF (North and Central America and Caribbean). A place in the finals for an African representative was guaranteed for the first time, as a response to the mass boycott of the qualifying process for 1966 by the African entrants after FIFA linked