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
FIFA World Cup qualification tournaments where the fixtures were pre-determined, the fixtures were determined by a draw, which was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw, on 25 July 2015. The top 4 teams from the 10-team group advanced to the World Cup finals, while the fifth placed team entered an inter-confederation play-off for a World Cup spot. Like the previous 2014 tournament, the pairings for the two play-offs were determined by an open draw on 25 July 2015, as part of the aforementioned preliminary draw. Intercontinental play-offs are played as home-and-away ties. Qualification tournaments generally consist of a number