It’s time for a little cram session so that we Americans won’t be left totally out of the loop during the world’s biggest sporting event, the World Cup, which starts Friday. This event takes a month to complete, so you will be hearing about it until July 11. Don’t fight it. Embrace it.
Unlike the World Series and the Super Bowl, this truly is a “world” event.
To get started, you might want to browse a soccer glossary to learn what the announcers are talking about. Here is all you need to know about soccer history, equipment, and how soccer jerseys get numbered.
Who is playing?
Here are the lineups (from FIFA):
First matches:
 | South Africa | vs. | Mexico | | — | 11 Jun 10 a.m. (ET) on ESPN | |||||
| Uruguay | vs. | France | | — | 11 Jun 2:30 p.m. (ET) on ESPN | |||||
| Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D | Group E | Group F | Group G | Group H | |||||||||||||||
| FRA | | ARG | | ALG | | AUS | | CMR | | ITA | | BRA | | CHI | |||||||
| MEX | | GRE | | ENG | | GER | | DEN | | NZL | | CIV | | HON | |||||||
| RSA | | KOR | | SVN | | GHA | | JPN | | PAR | | PRK | | ESP | |||||||
| URU | | NGA | | USA | | SRB | | NED | | SVK | | POR | | SUI | |||||||
ESPN has group previews:
Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D | Group E | Group F | Group G | Group H
How the World Cup works
It gets a little complicated. As you can see above, there are 32 teams organized in eight groups of four. Each team in each group plays one another. You get three points for a win, one point for a tie and no points if you lose. The first- and second-place teams from each group go to the round of 16. If they win in the round of 16, they’ll advance to the round of 8. If they lose, they’re out. You can see why this takes a month.
After the first round, there can be no ties. After two 45-minute halves, there are two 15-minute extra periods. If they are still tied, then there is a “penalty shoot-out,” consisting of each team kicking five shots. Whoever gets the best of five wins. If there is still a tie, then it goes to a single kick from each side until somebody wins.
Who are the best players?
Here are the top 10 ranked players in the world:
| NO. | PLAYER |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lionel Messi, Argentina |
| 2 | Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal |
| 3 | Wayne Rooney, England |
| 4 | Kaka, Brazil |
| 5 | Xavi, Spain |
| 6 | Didier Drogba, Ivory Coast |
| 7 | Andres Iniesta, Spain |
| 8 | Fernando Torres, Spain |
| 9 | Steven Gerrard, England |
| 10 | Michael Essien, Ghana |
The top-ranked American player, Landon Donovan, comes in at the 50th spot. Click here to find out all you need to know about the best players present and past.
Who’s favored to win?
Of the top 20 players in the world, at least a half-dozen of them play for Spain. So why isn’t Spain the slam-dunk favorite to win? It has to do with a troubled past.
Here are FIFA’s team rankings. Notice USA is 14th:
| Ranking | Team | Pts May 10 | |||
| 1 |  Brazil | 1611 | |||
| 2 |  Spain | 1565 | |||
| 3 |  Portugal | 1249 | |||
| 4 |  Netherlands | 1231 | |||
| 5 |  Italy | 1184 | |||
| 6 |  Germany | 1082 | |||
| 7 |  Argentina | 1076 | |||
| 8 |  England | 1068 | |||
| 9 |  France | 1044 | |||
| 10 |  Croatia | 1041 | |||
| 11 |  Russia | 1015 | |||
| 12 |  Egypt | 967 | |||
| 13 |  Greece | 964 | |||
| 14 |  USA | 957 | |||
Where will they play?
- Soccer City Stadium, Johannesburg
- Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein
- Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town
- Durban Stadium, Durban
- Ellis Park, Johannesburg
- Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit
- Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane
- Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth
- Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria
- Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg
Players and teams on Twitter
Lots of players and teams keep up Twitter accounts. ESPN says:
“Internationally, here’s a list of footballers to track on Twitter, via Twitter-Athletes: Gilberto Silva, Grafite, Juliano Belletti, Kaka and Luis Fabiano of Brazil; Andres Guardado, Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Guillermo Ochoa and Luis Ernesto Michel of Mexico; Ben Sigmund of New Zealand; Diego Forlan of Uruguay; Giorgio Chiellini of Italy; Nicolas Anelka of France; Humberto Suazo of Chile; and Eljero Elia, Gregory van der Wiel and Ryan Babel of the Netherlands.
“You’ll need to use your translator of choice for some of these guys, of course.
“A few others things to keep an eye on: FIFA’s World Cup Twitter account; U.S. Soccer’s Twitter account; and a World Cup 2010 Facebook page. Visa has rolled out a Match Planner app for Facebook that allows you to schedule reminders for matches and plan parties, while Coca-Cola is imploring fans to upload their own goal celebrations for a chance to win prizes.”
What are the rules of the game?
You can download the book of rules here [PDF]. For quick links, try these from Epic Sports:
- The Field of Play
- The Ball
- The Number of Players
- The Players’ Equipment
- The Referee
- The Assistant Referees
- The Duration of the Match
- The Start and Restart of Play
- The Ball In and Out of Play
- The Method of Scoring
- Offside
- Fouls and Misconduct
- Free Kicks
- The Penalty Kick
- The Throw-in
- The Goal Kick
- The Corner Kick
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated information about the second round of the World Cup.
