How Long Does the World Cup Last?
The 2022 edition of the FIFA World Cup is just a few months from now and competition is getting more intense by the day. The World Cup is unlike any other major sporting event around the world because it is a prestigious tournament with millions of fans from every region of the planet.
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The current season of the World Cup will be held in Qatar, which is the second time the event will be held in the continent of Asia. Although the qualifying stage has been happening for quite some time now from different football confederations, the main tournament will begin in November this year until December.
How long does a World Cup football match last?
Like any other football matches, the World Cup game is divided into two halves with each one lasting for 45 minutes, and also included a stoppage time. In the case that a match results in a tie, a double 15-minute overtime period will be played.
After the overtime period, if the game still produced a draw, the winners will be decided according to the number of penalty kicks.
Like any major football tournament, the World Cup is composed of several stages so that the national teams from each confederation participate and also to determine the overall winner of the tournament by crowning the best team that survived each stage to get to the finals.
The qualifying stage
The qualifying process of the FIFA World Cup is the first phase of the tournament. It is the process of determining the 31 teams that will participate in the main competition in November, they will be joining the Qatari team (which was given an automatic qualification as hosts) to complete the required 32 teams.
The current edition of the event started its qualification process on June 6, 2019 with the first match participated by Brunei and Mongolia. Simultaneous qualifying matches will be played between June 2019 to June 2022 from several confederations to determine the 32 teams.
The group stage
For the group stage, the 32 qualified teams will make a draw to determine which teams will be included in a group. The 32 squads will be divided into eight groups with each one consisting of four teams.
Each team will battle out with each other to determine which teams will advance to the knockout stage of the competition. The group stage will be played from November 21 until December 2, 2022, and the matches are distributed from the stadiums in Qatar.
The round of 16
The knockout competitions will start with the Round of 16 in which winners from one group will battle the runner-up in another group. The round of 16 will be played from December 3 until December 6.
Each of the matches is also equally distributed in the stadiums in Qatar which is convenient to the fans because the stadiums are so close to each other. The winners from the Round of 16 will advance to the quarterfinals.
The quarterfinals
In the quarterfinals, the winners from each of the matches will battle each other in order to advance to the next round. It will be played from December 9 to 10, which is a two-day event.
The semifinals
During the semifinals, the four winners from the quarterfinals will have a match to determine which teams will advance to the last round. The matches will also have a two-day event from December 13 to 14.
The finals
Lastly, the finals of the FIFA World Cup will be held at the Lusail Stadium on December 18 to determine which team will be crowned the champion of the 2022 World Cup.
Conclusion
The FIFA World Cup is a quadrennial event which consists of three-year preparations. All in all, the whole process of the FIFA World Cup lasted for four years, but to be specific, the main competitions lasted two months.