(Photo by Markus Gilliar – Pool /Getty Images)
The World Cup only comes around once every four years, but in the moment, the best of the best come together. Here is a ranking of all 20 World Cup winning teams.
There is no underestimating the power of the World Cup. It is the single biggest sporting event in the world. Bigger than the Olympics. Massively bigger than the Superbowl. There is nothing else quite like it.
Every nation is tuning in, whether their home is being represented in the competition or not. 716 million people watched the 2006 final. 1 billion watched the final in Brazil in 2014. In the entire 2014 World Cup, 3.2 billion tuned in to watch the matches.
Given the smaller scope of when matches take place, this figure overshadows the 3.5 billion viewers who watched the 2014 Olympics across all hours of the day.
The 111 million that watch the Superbowl is nowhere close to those figures.
To put the scope of the World Cup into a more unique perspective, consider that in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (forever associated with the vuvuzela), over 750,000 liters of beer were sold, along with nearly 400,000 hot dogs. 500,000 international visitors came to the event.
The World Cup is quite simply the the biggest sporting event in the world, and it always produces quite the spectacle. Of the 20 teams to win the World Cup, there have been eight different winners.
Over the next 20 slides, we are going to rank the World Cup winners from the worst to the best. The event takes place every four years, but there was no competition in 1942 and 1946 due to World War II.
Also, keep in mind that the earlier competitions had fewer teams involved in the running than the 32 we see today.
With all of that in mind, let’s dig into the rankings, starting at No. 20.
Next: 20. The worst of the best