2006 FIFA World Cup

2006 FIFA World Cup
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"2006 World Cup" redirects here. For other competitions of that name, see 2006 World Cup (disambiguation).
"FIFA 2006" redirects here. For the EA Sports video game, see FIFA 06.
This article is about 2006 FIFA World Cup. For the video game, see 2006 FIFA World Cup (video game).
2006 FIFA World CupFIFA Fussball Weltmeisterschaft
Deutschland 2006

2006 FIFA World Cup official logo
Tournament details
Host country Germany
Dates 9 June – 9 July
Teams 32 (from 6 confederations)
Venue(s) 12 (in 12 host cities)
Final positions
Champions Italy (4th title)
Runner-up France
Third place Germany
Fourth place Portugal
Tournament statistics
Matches played 64
Goals scored 147 (2.3 per match)
Attendance 3,353,655 (52,401 per match)
Top scorer(s) Miroslav Klose (5 goals)
Best player Zinedine Zidane
← 2002
2010 →


The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six populated continents participated in the qualification process which began in September 2003. Thirty-one teams qualified from this process, along with the host nation, Germany, for the finals tournament.

The tournament was won by Italy, who claimed their fourth World Cup title. They defeated France 5–3 in a penalty shootout in the final, after extra time had finished in a 1–1 draw. Germany defeated Portugal 3–1 to finish third.

The 2006 World Cup stands as one of the most watched events in television history, garnering an estimated 26.29 billion non-unique viewers, compiled over the course of the tournament. The final attracted an estimated audience of 715.1 million people.[1] The 2006 World Cup ranks fourth in non-unique viewers, behind the 1994, the 2002, and the 1990 FIFA World Cups.[2] As the winner, Italy represented the World in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.

This was the first World Cup with three Portuguese-speaking national football teams, namely Portugal, Brazil and Angola. It also first featured the first all-European semifinals since the 1982 FIFA World Cup.