National team appearances in the FIFA World Cup a group stage, with the final 16 progressing to knockout stages to decide the winner. As of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, 79 national teams have competed at the final tournaments. Brazil are the only team to have appeared in all 21 tournaments to date, with Germany having participated in 19, Italy in 18, Argentina in 17 and Mexico in 16. To date, eight nations have won the tournament. The inaugural winners in 1930 were Uruguay; the current champions are France. The most successful nation in the competition are currently Brazil, who have won the cup on five occasions. Five
FIFA World Cup qualification the "home" team for one of the legs – which may determine which side advances under the away goals rule, as occurred in CONCACAF qualification in 2010. FIFA World Cup qualification The FIFA World Cup qualification is the process that a national association football team goes through to qualify for the FIFA World Cup finals. The FIFA World Cup is the largest international team sport competition in the world with a qualification process required to reduce the large field of countries from 211 to just 32 for the World Cup finals. Qualifying tournaments are held within the six FIFA continental