Gearing Up To Watch The World Cup? So's Half The World: Check Out The Numbers

Less than a week to go! We've collected some impressive numbers about football's showcase quadrennial tournament for the fans.
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EMPICS Sport

In less than seven days' time, 32 nations will begin battling it out in Russia to be crowned the world champions of football, giving fans 64 matches to feast on.

The 2018 Fifa World Cup, a one-month football festival commencing on June 14, will see the hosts opening the tournament with their match against Saudi Arabia in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium.

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To get HuffPost football fans ready for the quadrennial tournament, which also happens to be the most watched sporting event in history, here's a quick look at the World Cup by numbers:

1

There's only one beautiful game

5

Brazil is the most successful nation, with five World Cup titles. The "Seleção" have dazzled the world with their samba-style football and will be hoping to extend their record to a sixth title. Here's the World Cup winners list, ranked:

5 - Brazil 🇧🇷

4 - Italy and Germany 🇮🇹 🇩🇪

2 - Argentina and Uruguay 🇦🇷 🇺🇾

1 - France, Spain and England 🇫🇷 🇪🇸 🇬🇧

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PA Wire/PA Images

16

Miroslav Klose of Germany holds the record for the most goals scored in World Cups since its inception in 1930, with a crop of 16 — harvested at the 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 tournaments. But there's a prestigious list of lethal strikers behind him:

16 - Miroslav Klose 🇩🇪

15 - Ronaldo 🇧🇷

14 - Gerd Muller 🇩🇪

13 - Just Fontaine 🇫🇷

12 - Pele 🇧🇷

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Reuters Photographer / Reuters

21

Russia's World Cup will be the 21st edition of the tournament. The inaugural 1930 World Cup was played in Uruguay.

45

Egypt's Essam El-Hadary will be the oldest player in 2018, at the age of 45 — that's almost half a century's worth of experience.

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AFP Contributor via Getty Images

171

The most goals scored in a single World Cup tournament. The record is shared by:

1998 Fifa World Cup 🇫🇷

2014 Fifa World Cup🇧🇷

32.1-Million

A total number of 32.1-million related tweets were sent during the 2014 World Cup final, making it the most discussed single sporting event of all time on Twitter.

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280-Million

FIFA estimates that 280-million watched online or on a mobile device in 2014.

3.5-Billion

Football's most elite tournament occurs once every four years, and is still the undisputed champion when it comes to audience reach. The average audience watching a World Cup stands at 3.5-billion, and the 2014 Fifa World Cup final alone, between Germany and Argentina, attracted more than 1-billion viewers. That's more than an eighth of the planet's population.