List of countries advancing to 2014 World Cup in Brazil

The following is a list of countries that have qualified for the 2014 soccer World Cup in Brazil. The final playoff match takes place on Wednesday  in Montevideo, with Uruguay leading Jordan 5-0 after the first leg.

Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil (host), Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, U.S.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup

The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be the 20th FIFA World Cup, an international men's football tournament, that is scheduled to take place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014. It will be the second time that Brazil has hosted the competition, the previous being in 1950. Brazil will become the fifth country to have hosted the World Cup twice, after Mexico, Italy, France, and Germany.

Thirty-two countries' teams will take part in the finals tournament, playing in 12 cities throughout Brazil. It is scheduled to be the first World Cup to be held in South America since the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, the first time two consecutive World Cups are staged outside Europe, and the first time two consecutive World Cups are staged in the Southern Hemisphere, since the 2010 World Cup was held in South Africa. It will also be the first World Cup to use goal-line technology.

Spain is the defending champion, having defeated the Netherlands 1–0 in the 2010 World Cup final. It will also be the first finals appearance of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The sale of tickets for the World Cup started on 20 August 2013. An estimated 3.3 million tickets will be available and the majority will be sold through FIFA's website.

On 7 March 2003, FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in South America for the first time since Argentina hosted the competition in 1978, in line with its policy of rotating the right to host the World Cup amongst different confederations. On 3 June 2003, the South American Football Confederation CONMEBOL announced that Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia wanted to host the 2014 World Cup finals. By 17 March 2004, the CONMEBOL associations had voted unanimously to adopt Brazil as their sole candidate.

Brazil formally declared its candidacy in December 2006 and Colombia followed a few days later. The Argentina bid never materialised. On 11 April 2007, Colombia officially withdrew its bid, Francisco Santos Calderón the vice-president of Colombia announced that instead Colombia would be hosting the 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup. With this development, Brazil became the only official candidate to host the 2014 event.

Brazil won the right to host the event on 30 October 2007 as the only country to enter the bidding process.

Sources: Wikipedia and Bloomberg