As the World Cup for soccer comes back after 4 years, expectant viewers should get to learn the basics of this tournament as it is the most viewed sporting event in the world and this year, it is expected that around 5 billion people will watch it, which will surpass the 4 billion people that watched it in 2018.
The World Cup is an international soccer tournament that is played every 4 years. It lasts about 1 month with 64 games being played in total. Not every country is allowed to participate in the tournament. Every continent has countries that only play against the same continent to qualify. Then the continents are put into groups and the top teams qualify for the chance to win the World Cup.
All the games will be played in 1 of the 8 Qatar stadiums that will be used for this tournament. Because of that Qatar will automatically qualify for the group stages of the tournament.

Once the World Cup begins all 32 teams are put into a randomly chosen group of 4. Every team will play against all of the teams in their group once. If a team wins a game they garner 3 points, if they tie they gain 1 point, and if they lose they do not get any points. The 2 teams with the most points advance to the next stage, and the other 2 are out of the tournament. In the next stage there are 16 teams left. Every team will play 1 other team once and the winner moves on. If it is a tie after the 90 minutes of a regular game, two halves of 15 minutes will be played in hope of a winner. But, if it is still a tie after that, the game will go to penalty kicks. This is when the ball is placed 12 yards from the goal, and one player shoots it hoping to score, and the goalkeeper of the other team tries to keep it out of the goal. Each team will take 5 shots to see who makes more. If it’s still a tie they do the same thing until 1 person scores and the other misses. These are rules for the rest of the tournament. There will be 8 teams and they play with the same rules. The same is for the semi-finals, where there are 4 teams but the winner goes to the finals.
The World Cup final is the most important game of the whole tournament. This year it will be played in Qatar’s largest stadium, the Lusail Stadium which has a capacity of 80,000 and is very likely going to be sold out. The tickets for the final can cost anywhere from $200 to $1600. It will be played on Sunday, December 18 at 9 am.
So, instead of spending winter by freezing outside, become one of the 5 billion people, and watch the 2022 World Cup from November 20th until December 18.