How the World Cup works
JOBURG – Fired up for footie? You can voice your views during the World Cup on the Northcliff Melville Times website.
This is how the 2014 FIFA World Cup works.
Starting on 12 June, 32 teams (countries) will compete in eight groups of four teams each.
Each team in a group plays its three opponents once for points to determine which are the top two teams in the group.
The top two teams in each group progress, and the bottom two are eliminated.
Eight group winners then play eight runners-up from different groups in the round of 16, where losers are eliminated.
The eight remaining teams play in the quarter-finals, where again losers are eliminated.
The same happens for the four remaining teams in the semi-finals, except after the semi-finals a match will be played by the losers to determine third place in the World Cup.
The final will be held on 13 July.
Every day during the World Cup, Northcliff Melville Times will publish summaries of the previous day’s matches, and we will include your comments.
If you think a team played well, poorly, should play differently, a coach made a poor decision or a certain player is useless, share your views with us by tweeting with the hashtag #jozikicks, or send a message to Northcliff Melville Times on Facebook and we will include some of your views in our match summaries.
