Big football tournaments in the world
Football has been the most popular sport on the planet and considered as king sport. Actually, the soccer ball can give fans a lot of different emotions just in one match. During the world’s football history, a lot of football tournaments have been organized to develop the global soccer.
World Cup
The FIFA World Cup is the biggest football tournament organized every four years by FIFA Football Federation. The tournament gathers hundreds of best football teams from a lot of countries to compete from the qualifying round to final round.
World Cup history began with the first tournament held in 1930 in Uruguay. At this time, there were 13 teams participated and Uruguay became the first champion to raise the gold trophy whose name is “Jules Rimet” (name of former FIFA president). There were only two times World Cup was postponed because of the Second World War in 1942 and 1946.
World Cup is considered as the biggest football tournament of the world – xem truc tiep bong da hom nay
Before finals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, there were 20 World Cup seasons but only 8 countries won the championship. In particular, Brazil had 5 times of being champion and 2 times of getting silver medals. In the past, the World Cup was held mainly in European and American. By 2002, FIFA allowed South Korea and Japan to host the tournament. In 2010, South Africa became the first African country to host a World Cup final.
According to recent news, FIFA has accepted to increase the number of participating teams to 48 since 2026. This is also the first time after the 1998 World Cup in France, FIFA increases the number of members participating in the biggest football tournament of the world.
Brazil was the first team allowed to keep World Cup trophy permanently due to 3 consecutive times of being Champions
Currently, the are 6 main awards given to individuals or the entire team for their performance in each season: Golden Ball, Golden Boot, Golden Glove Award, Best Young Player, FIFA Fair Play Trophy and the Man of the Match Award. It is undeniable that World Cup is attracting the most attention of football fans over the world. The number of people following this competition has increased to nearly one billion.
UEFA Champions League
UEFA Champions League is an annual football tournament of the European Football Federation (UEFA) for clubs having high ranking in European national championships. This is considered as one of the most attractive football tournament in the world, and the competition of the best soccer clubs in Europe. In fact, the UEFA Champions League is famous for both reputation and commercial value.
UEFA Champions League is one of the most attractive football tournament in the world
In 1954, a journalist of L’Equipe gave the ideal of a tournament between European champions. In January, 1955; this newspaper sent an “European Cup” manuscript to clubs. This manuscript was approved on 02nd April, 1955. On 4th September, 1955 in Lisbon, the first match between Sporting Lisbon and FK Partizan of Yugoslavia took place with final score of 3-3. Real Madrid was the first champion of the tournament.
The trophy awarded to the champion was 74 cm in height and 8kg in weight. The winning team can store the real trophy and return to UEFA 4 weeks before the next final. If the team wins 3 times in a row or 5 different times, that team will be allowed to keep the trophy forever. During this tournament history, there has been 6 teams can own the trophy permanently: Real Madrid, A.C Milan, Bayern Munchen, Liverpool, Barcelona and Ajax Amsterdam.
The teams winning 3 consecutive times or 5 different times are allowed to keep the trophy permanently
Since 2009, UEFA has restored the original trophy, so the team winning 5 times or 3 consecutive times will receive another trophy which is similar to original one. The six clubs mentioned above were stuck badges on the left sleeves each time they play in the UEFA Champions League. The 8 stars in the UEFA Champions League trophy represent 8 clubs successfully defending winning titles: Real Madrid, Benfica, Inter Milan, Bayern Munchen, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest, A.C. Milan and Ajax Amsterdam.
Premier League
English Premier League is a football tournament for British professional male clubs. This is the highest-level tournament in the English league system. Premier League is considered as a company with 20 teams acting as shareholders. The season usually starts in August and ends in May. Each team plays total 38 matches. Most of matches take place on Saturday and Sunday afternoons while some of them take place on midweek evenings.
Premier League was founded on 20th February, 1992 as FA Premier League. Currently, this tournament has been broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million households and about 4.7 billion television viewers. In the 2014-15 season, a Premier League match attracted an average of 36,000 spectators, which ranked second in the professional football tournament after Bundesliga with 43,500 audiences.
Premier League has attracted large number of audiences
Before the Premier League was founded, the British Football Federation consisted of four divisions with 92 different clubs. There were also non-British clubs allowed to play at this competition, such as Swansea City who are from Wales. Actually, Wales has a relatively small football tournament system. A total of 6 clubs from that land have chosen (and accepted) to play at the Premier League.
There have been total 47 clubs participating since the first Premier League season in 1992, but only 6 of them won the championship: Manchester United (13), Chelsea (5), Arsenal and Manchester City (3), Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City (1). The current champion is Manchester City, who won the 2017-18 season with a record of 100 points, won 32 matches in a season and had 106 goals.
Manchester City was the champions of 2017-18 season with a record of 100 points
AFC Champions League
AFC Champions League is also known as Asian Champions League, which is one of the biggest football tournaments in the world. The tournament is organized by Asian Football Federation for national football champions. There are 32 clubs participating in the competition. The champion of the tournament will be eligible to represent AFC football clubs to participate in the FIFA World Cup.
In the first season under the name of AFC Champions League, Al Ain won BEC Tero with a score of 2-1 to become the champion. After that, the tournament was postponed for a year due to SARS virus. In 2004, the competition was relaunched with 29 clubs from 14 countries. In the first phase of the tournament, 28 clubs were divided into 7 groups, each consisted of 4 teams from the same regions (East Asia and West Asia) to reduce travel costs.
Asian Champions League has been one of big football tournament of Asia in particular and of the world in general
The 2009 Asian Champions League increased the numbers of participating teams to 32 clubs with the maximum of 4 teams from one country. In addition, rewards and prizes have been increased significantly since the 2009 season. Clubs can earn an amount of money even in the group stage depending on their performance. The round of 16 teams still proceeded in regional format.
Western Sydney Wanderers became the first Australian club to win the AFC Champions League after beating Al Hilal 1-0 in the finals in 2014.
