2010 FIFA World Cup qualification scored over 852 matches, scoring on average 2.74 per match. At the close of entries on 15 March 2007, 204 football associations had entered the preliminary competition: 203 out of the 207 FIFA members at that time (including the host nation, South Africa, as the qualification procedure in Africa also acted as the qualification for the 2010 African Cup of Nations) and the Montenegro team, which later became FIFA's 208th member. The final number of teams entered breaks the previous record of 199 entrants set during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Four FIFA members (all from the AFC) failed to
FIFA Football 2002 to improve the FIFA ranking of their chosen team by participating in international friendlies. Many of the international teams in the game are not licensed (some of them down to the players' names like the Netherlands), as well as smaller countries such as Barbados, who were only given numbers as player names. Also, to date, this was the last "FIFA" edition (not counting the World Cup versions) to feature the Japanese national team, since Japan Football Association would go on to concede exclusive rights to Konami's "Pro Evolution Soccer" series. "FIFA Football 2002" ran for 10 years as the last